2014 Decluttering Thread

[disneysteve]

DS, hope you'll link the article that has motivated you to de-clutter again.

Here is the article that got me motivated.

http://www.aarp.org/home-family/your-home/info-2014/declutter-tips-for-home.viewall.html

[creditcardfree]

I got a new pair of shoes today. Decided to peruse my old shoes, and found a pair of flip flops to donate. Didn't wear them once this summer. There are actually a couple others I'm pondering giving up, too.

I also decided to toss the pair of capris with a hole in them and donate one too small workout top that if I fit in again, I know I won't wear.

[disneysteve]

Did some shredding and cleared out a bunch of folders from the wall unit. The hoarder in me always saves school folders as long as they are still in usable condition - despite the fact that we never actually use them again, especially if DD wrote and drew all over them. The plastic ones went in the trash. The worn out and drawn on paper ones got recycled. Only the clean ones that we might actually use got kept.

One benefit of all of this decluttering in the long run will be saving some money by not rebuying things that we already have and just can't find. For example, I mentiond yesterday finding some collectors card holders. We needed them a few weeks ago and I went to Staples and bought a pack because I couldn't find the ones that I knew we had. Now I have a bunch and won't need to buy them the next time we need more. I found another batch of them today as well.

ETA: Also recycled a large pile of synagogue related papers from the top of the wall unit and removed 5 books from one of the shelves. They'll go in the yard sale pile.

[creditcardfree]

Earlier this week, my husband's combination lock he uses for the gym stopped working well. He bought another one. It was tempting to save the old one...for I don't know what. In the end it went in the trash. Sometimes, it feels good to be ruthless!!

[disneysteve]

Earlier this week, my husband's combination lock he uses for the gym stopped working well. He bought another one. It was tempting to save the old one...for I don't know what. In the end it went in the trash.

I know that feeling. Saving something when you know it doesn't even work anymore. Good job throwing it out instead.

[snafu]

DS, thank you for posting the excellent article on Decluttering by Barbara Reich. I now have some cogent responses for a beloved DSIL who can't understand that the reason every square foot of her home is cluttered is because she insists on keeping everything that comes in no matter that it in no way supports her life 2014 if ever! 'Possessions have an expiry date.'

Yesterday I went through the dog's bin and threw out 5% In an effort to help DH as he attempts to work out the itinerary of an upcoming trip, I brought up the travel file from secondary storage. Between use we pitched about 90%. We concluded that information 2005 -2010 is too old to be valid, not worth the effort to check out that those businesses, hotels, restaurants, tourist services still exist.

I'm not sure if I understand the type of collector card holders you have but could they fit in a 3 ring binder labelled for 'COLLECTOR Cards?

[YolandoAmaya]

I donate my old clothes and junk which is no more useful to me. Sometime I also use them to toss with the other.

[disneysteve]

I'm not sure if I understand the type of collector card holders you have but could they fit in a 3 ring binder labelled for 'COLLECTOR Cards?

Yes, they are the kind that fit in a 3-ring binder and hold 9 cards per page (like Pokemon cards or similar). I actually found them in one of those 17 binders that was cluttering the shelves. Now those plus two other sets of them that I found last night are all together in one binder.

[disneysteve]

I started a major project today: our garage. If you've followed my posts, you've heard me talk about the garage before. It's the one area in our house that really makes us look like hoarders . I work in there from time to time to cut down the mess, recycle empty boxes, get rid of some trash, have a yard sale every year or two, donate some stuff, etc., but it never gets significantly better. One of my personal goals for once our daughter went to college and the weather cooled off was to seriously address the garage and today was step one.

I took a totally different approach than I've ever taken in the past. Typically, I work on the garage by working IN the garage, shifting things around to sort through some boxes, climbing over things, reaching around things, etc. In hindsight, it's not a very efficient way to clean which I suppose is part of the problem. So what I did today was moved my car out of the driveway and just started emptying the garage. I knew I couldn't do it all in one day but I emptied a bit less than the front half. As I took things out, if it was an item I knew for sure we wanted to keep, I put it on the left side of the driveway. If it was something I knew we didn't need or wasn't sure about, I put it on the right side.

Once I had done that, I moved the "keep" stuff back in first. Then I went through the other stuff item by item. I found a few things that I wanted to keep and I packed those neatly and put them away. Some of the remaining stuff went into the trash. The rest of it got repacked and condensed and returned to the front end of the garage to be sold at our yard sale next Saturday. Anything that doesn't sell will be carted off to Goodwill.

So once that happens after next weekend, roughly the front 1/4 of the garage will be empty. That will free up a good chunk of space and give me room to work more.

Step two will be to repeat the same process going deeper in next time. I really liked doing it this way as it exposed everything in a way that fully allowed me to see what was there and decide what to do with it item by item. I know there is a lot more trash/recycle/sell/donate stuff in there but I'm pleased (as is my wife) with what I accomplished today. I'm looking forward to actually seeing some floor space in there next week. I know that will further motivate me to keep at it. Actually, it already looks a lot better. I filled two trash cans and the recycling bin and consolidated much of what remains and that's before holding the yard sale.

I took some before, during, and after pictures. I'll have to upload them somewhere so I can share them. Can anyone suggest a place to do that?

[disneysteve]

I listed two old Apple keyboards on ebay just now. I came across them while working in the garage today. They seem to sell pretty well, in the $15-30 range. I'll be quite happy if I can get $15 for each of them.

[creditcardfree]

I took some before, during, and after pictures. I'll have to upload them somewhere so I can share them. Can anyone suggest a place to do that?

I load pictures on the blog side, write the post hit 'save and add images' which will allow you to pick an image from your computer. Once you add it, then it becomes a image tag that you copy and paste into the blog post.

Congrats on your garage progress!

[disneysteve]

Haven't posted for a few days but I'm still at it. Actually, my wife took on some of her clutter yesterday and cleared out a bunch of old knitting and cake decorating magazines. She's going to try and sell them at the yard sale. If not, they'll get recycled.

I haven't done anything major but have done a little here and there. Sold one more item on ebay that will ship tomorrow. Cleaned up a bit in the bedroom. Identified a couple more items for the yard sale.

[snafu]

Look forward to seeing your photos of stuff goin' goin' gone! We try to limit secondary storage [garage] to seasonal items and things that have been used in the past year but too big or awkward to keep where it's used. Storage for once-a-year or sporadic use items are very limited in a condo.

It's smart to move stuff out to the driveway separating 'keep' on the left and the rest at the right out in the sunshine. Would it be helpful to set a criteria for items retained? Are items kept only because there is space in the garage?

[disneysteve]

Are items kept only because there is space in the garage?

Interesting question.

What qualifies for "keep" evolves over time. Sometimes we keep something because we think we will use it only to find a couple of years later that we never actually did and it gets moved into the give-away pile. I think this is pretty normal.

For example, I got rid of almost all of my professional textbooks years ago but kept just a couple of really fundamental ones, stuff that doesn't become outdated or change over time. Last week, I pulled a couple of those off the shelf. It is still true that they are good references but I never, ever use them.

When I do the next round in the garage, I suspect that I will be making a similar decision and getting rid of stuff that was formerly in the "keep" pile.

[disneysteve]

On the shelf under our computer, I had boxes from an iPhone 3, iPhone 3G, two iPhone 5's, an iPhone 5S, and 3 iPod Touches. Instead, I now have a trash bag filled with Apple clutter and a lot more space on the shelf.