unclutter | weekend check-in

rmc28 posting in

Hi all, it's been a while. Today's check in is brought to you by me finally finally doing a reorganisation of the living room furniture that I've had in mind for literal years. This was not strictly a decluttering exercise but I ended up doing some along the way. (Because I am a nerd who has done too many projects, there were many cries of "NO SCOPE CREEP" as I made myself stop sorting out a shelf that wasn't on the critical path.) And now I have things I should try to move out the house over the weekend.

I'll ramble in more detail in the comments, please join in with your own goals for the weekend, large or small!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

vysila

Oh, how wonderful to have begun to create order from chaos in your living room. It must feel so good!

I had success yesterday by selling what remains of my Star Wars collectibles. That is fifty-five large boxes gone out of the basement! It's funny how possessions can hold you back without you ever realizing it. Now I feel free to move forward and make progress again.

From:

rmc28

That's an amazing amount of boxes to be rid of, well done!

My living room feels great: I initially thought it'd take me an hour or two, and it was more like four hours to get everything into a usable state again, but it's DONE, and a great use of my regular day off work.

From:

vysila

I read your other comments and wow, it sounds like you did an amazing job getting things organized and adjusted. It is super tough, especially with kids and all their paraphernalia, to get and keep order. Kudos to you!

From:

illariy

Woooow, that is so awesome, selling 55 boxes of collectibles! I can only imagine how freeing and amazing it must feel. Go you! :D

I look forward to your upcoming exploits now you no longer have those hanging around your neck. :D

From:

vysila

I just posted some photos of my semi-cleared out basement after all the collectibles were removed. It's a public post, if you are interested.

From:

rmc28

What finally got me to do this: the TV was in a suboptimal place, and Elder Child wanted a new games console for their birthday, but I didn't want to connect it up with the TV where it was, so that gave me a deadline.

(Oh, and I finally took down the dratted Christmas tree that's been up for nearly two years, so that was a bonus of all of this.)

While moving things out of the living room and back in again, I

threw away a lot of literal rubbish, and put a lot of paper recycling in the recycling bin
culled a storage box of assorted activity books in pristine condition of everything that Younger Child is definitely too old for, which meant I could lift the box to move it (it's still at least half full, that is a problem for another day)
threw away the giant plastic housings from a bunch of DVD box sets my friend gave away to me 18 months ago (and we still haven't watched), which means I needed less space to store the actual DVDs, which needed a new home, because they had been stashed in the TV stand where the new console needed to go
made space for the DVDs by emptying a shelf of jigsaws for young children that we've been meaning to sort through for literal years

Then, after everything was back in place, I spent a cheerful couple of hours doing all of the little jigsaws to confirm they were all complete, while listening to my offspring play cooperatively on the new console. My SIL has claimed the assorted Frozen and Moana ones for my youngest nibling, the rest I will give to the charity shop. Some of them were so old and battered I decided it was time to bin them rather than inflict them on anyone else.

Goals for the weekend:

Take the bags I unearthed of textile recycling to the nearest recycling point
Take the bags of jigsaws and pristine activity/sticker books to the charity shop
Parcel up the jigsaws for my nibling, and for bonus points get the parcel posted
Consider some rounds of Dana K White 5-step decluttering on the shelves that tempted me with scope creep

Edited Date: 2023-10-06 07:12 pm (UTC)

From:

spiffikins

I have to say - at this point in the year, I would very likely have just left the tree up through THIS Christmas and taken it down in January 2024 :D

You did get a ton accomplished - go you! Hopefully your momentum will keep up the rest of this weekend!

From:

rmc28

Hah, that's what happened last year but I seriously have been resenting it all year now. It was good to finally make time to just deal with it.

From:

spiffikins

Oh definitely - if it was bugging you, then totally worthwhile to get it done!

From:

rmc28

I've told my family I'm not putting it back up this December. They can if they want to, but I won't.

From:

spiffikins

So long as whoever puts it UP, promises to take it DOWN, eh?

From:

rmc28

Today (Saturday) I did get the assorted bags to the charity shop and the recycling point (and got them the right way round, and let the poor overworked volunteer at the charity shop vent at me a bit). And I boxed up the jigsaws, and booked a parcel collection for Monday.

Haven't done any further decluttering, but it's still a good progress day, and there's no longer a pile of bags by the front door waiting to be taken places.

From:

illariy

Ooooh, I just saw this after writing my other comment reply to your first level comment.

That is a lot of great progress, too, how amazing that the pile of bags by the door are gone! And parcel collection for Monday is booked, you were busy and got tons done, cheers for you! :D

It is very inspiring to me that you dealt with the actual disposal of lots of decluttered things so quickly. Doing that is often my downfall, it takes me ages to get rid of decluttered items and I end up recluttering some. Oops. Well, there is tons of room for me to improve and this comm certainly inspires me. :D

From:

rmc28

Heh, I either get things out the house quickly, or they lurk in corners for weeks if not months. It helps to have the charity shop nearby, and I've figured out where the nearest walkable recycling points & community libraries are.

From:

illariy

How cool that your incentive to finally start was to get things into place for Eldest's upcoming gift.

Haha, I bet that Christmas tree was surprised to finally be taken down. :D

Sounds like you ended up decluttering a lot of things, such great progress in only one weekend, yay! :D

How was the rest of the weekend, did you get the time and energy to take out some of those decluttered things? :-)

Oh, and I enjoy Dana K White's method, too. I watched a lot of her Youtube videos and am contemplating getting her book, "Decluttering at the speed of life". Have you by chance read it and if yes, would you recommend it?

From:

rmc28

I have done no more decluttering but I'm still enjoying my new living room layout.

I've not read Dana K White's book, but I am slowly working my way through her blog from the very beginning, and finding it helpful.

From:

illariy

Happy to hear you enjoy your new room layout. What a worthwhile use of the weekend!

Oooh, I tend to forget that she also has a blog! I do well with written instructions and written inspiration so I am going to check that out later this week, thanks for reminding me of that. :D

From:

alexseanchai

I have ambitions of vacuuming my bedroom floor and folding last week's clean laundry, but will be content with getting the stuff Mila-kitty knocked off the bedside table either back on the bedside table or to some better place it can call home

From:

rmc28

Bedside tables are so useful and yet so good at accumulating things that maybe ought to call somewhere else home. Good luck!

From:

illariy

Very cool that you have small goals as well as stretch goals.

Yeah, I don't have a bedside table per se but a stool sitting beside my bed that also manages to accumulate all kinds of random stuff. I can't even imagine how it would be with a kitty knocking things off it. Best wishes for your reorganising the bedside table and also cuddling with kitty. ;-)

From:

ilyena_sylph

Oh how awesome, go you!

From:

rmc28

Thank you!

From:

wendelah1

So many things. Getting my unfinished, in-process art projects boxed up with the appropriate supplies so I can find stuff, instead of rummaging around looking for misplaced items. I'm taking three classes on Zoom, using different mediums, and I am so disorganized. Boxing up finished work would be useful, too.

From:

rmc28

Good luck!

From:

illariy

Oooh, that sounds like such a good way to organise unfinished, in-process art projects. Thank you for sharing this idea with us here!

How was your weekend, were you able to find the time and energy to box up some projects? :-)

From:

spiffikins

Today was a good day for progress on a bunch of little things!

Last night I sold the mountain bike that has been sitting in my garage for years!

This morning I took 4 fluorescent light bulbs from my kitchen light fixture that I replaced a YEAR ago - and finally got rid of them - in addition to 9 old paint cans that the previous owners of this house left for me when I moved in - almost 13 years ago now. I've never needed this extra paint - and when I finally opened them up to see what I had, none of the paint was still any good, nor was it any of the paint colours that I actually need to touch up!

And then I also filled my car up with 2 old desktop pcs, and 3 monitors and dropped them off at the local e-waste place!

I still have more stuff to do, but I'm feeling like I made a bit of progress today!

From:

rmc28

Hurrah for excellent progress!

From:

illariy

Wow, the sale of the mountain bike is a huge victory, yay! So happy to hear you made it happen. :D

Sounds like a great use of time off, I love finally getting rid of broken light bulbs and paint etc electronics, too. What a lot of progress for one weekend. :D

From:

spiffikins

The paint and lightbulbs ended up being so easy, that I'm kicking myself for not looking it up earlier! I assumed that I would have to drive 30 minutes away to the transfer station - and they had weird hours and I just kept putting it off!

AND - bonus - I talked to a friend on Friday and she is interested in the exercise bike that is ALSO in my garage and needs to go! I've posted it all over - for free - with no takers - so if she does take it next week, that will be FABULOUS

From:

illariy

Yeah, I am familiar with things taking much less time than anticipated and me kicking myself for not getting it done earlier. But oh well. Hopefully, next time will be easier and faster now knowing how quick it actually is! ;-)

Wooow, that would be so cool if your friend were to take that exercise bike! Keeping my fingers crossed that she wants it and is able to get it quickly. :D

From:

the_broken_tower

First time I've heard 'scope creep' used and I love it.

Good job on the reorganization. :)

- White (he/him)

From:

rmc28

Thank you!

From:

adafrog

From:

illariy

Oooh, I have to adopt your rallying cry of "NO SCOPE CREEP!" That mistake derails me often enough, particularly while decluttering but also sometimes with crafting projects and always leaves a huge mess behind. :P

How satisfying that you got that reorganisation done that you've had in mind for years! Very cool that you have even done some decluttering along with that, very sensible given that it is much easier to organise with fewer things in the room. I am for sure going to check out your comment!

As for me, well... I had in mind for this lecture-free time to do a lot of decluttering in my room, take out the books I decluttered months ago and also the broken electronics I likewise decluttered months ago. But then work and general exhaustion got the better of me and today is already the last day of the lecture-free weeks! So I rallied all my energy and successfully went through the decluttered books again, recluttered some (because I want to re-read them and in some cases, read more of the series), put 33 books into my outgoing stuff list and took those 33 books to the public bookshelves. I was initially afraid of a) not being able to transport that many books at once on my bicycle and b) there not being enough room at the public bookshelves to shelve my about 1.4 m of books. Well, a) turned out not to be a problem (but I couldn't have taken more books in one trip so it's good I recluttered some) and b) wasn't a problem either, there was even more than 1 m of empty shelf space left when I left. Unfortunately, I did end up taking 4 books home but oh well. I know I can just take them back to the public bookshelves. I love those! Them and the Giveboxes, for non-book usable decluttered items.

I didn't make it to the small electronics rubbish container but that is a task for another day. Perhaps for the Christmas holidays, when I have more time off from uni. I am quite satisfied I finally got those books out of my room!

From:

rmc28

Hurrah for getting those books out of your room. Public bookshelves are so great. We have a few Little Free Libraries nearby, and also a couple of converted phone boxes which are now "community libraries" on the route to my younger kid's school.

From:

illariy

Very cool that you have similar bookshelves near you! They are so awesome, I agree. Great source for reading material and no fees either.

Public libraries here cost a yearly, monthly or daily fee, only university libraries give out cards to non-students free of charge but they don't have many novels to borrow understandably. Some private/church libraries also give out cards free of charge but they are usually very small and only have German books while I love to read English books.