uncluttering other people...

[wychwood]

is much easier than doing your own!

My mother is not a hoarder, but has a regrettable tendency to accumulate things, an inability to do sorting and tidying activities which are not "work for four hours straight and accomplish the entire task in one go", and health conditions that mean she can essentially never do anything substantial in one go any more. Over the summer I pointed out that she probably didn't need three overflowing boxes of toddler books given that her youngest grandchild is now in secondary school, and strong-armed her into going through them with me so we could donate most of them and put the rest neatly away in the available storage.

I was with her again last week, and she had spontaneously decided we were going to do some more - I bagged up and put away some of her not-currently-in-use clothes for her, and we went through the toy collection which again now fits neatly in the box, while the overflow is waiting to be collected for the church Christmas fair.

We also talked about possible clothing solutions - she has bags and bags of clothes that don't fit, at least some of which may well be needed in the future, and I have done my best to suggest that "random unlabelled bin sacks in every corner" is not the optimal solution. We'll see what results.

What has everyone else been up to?

Comments

[msilverstar]

I wish you could come to my house!

That said, the main problem is that my husband is a collector.

[wychwood]

Yeah, it's difficult when you have to compromise with other space users!

It's always worth inviting a non-judgemental friend over if that will help you make decisions, I think :) Just the moral support can make a big difference.

[vae]

Sounds like brilliant progress!

Still going slowly here, spent an hour yesterday going through a barely used secretary desk and threw out a lot of old padlocks without keys and keys without padlocks (none of them matched up!) and cleared out an old external hard drive, so those files are safe on something newer and the old tech can go to electrical waste along with the charger that doesn't match any device we still have.

[wychwood]

Haha that sounds like a good achievement! Lurking Keys, why are there always so many of them.

I have a sad box of electrical cables that I want to get rid of, but I don't really want to bin them when they're perfectly functional, I just don't need them... thinking about possibilities.

[vae]

I'm not sure where you are in the world, but the UK government is actively encouraging people to donate electrical cables they don't want any more for electrical recycling so the metals can be re-used. You could also maybe offer them on your local Freecycle or Freegle - you never know what people might be looking for!

[wychwood]

Ooh, thanks for the tip! Looks like I can donate them at a local Currys, that is very achievable.

[vae]

Brilliant!