2018 Decluttering Thread

[disneysteve]

I had the day off home alone, and it's trash day, so I did some work.

I recycled a stack of old magazines from my closet that I'm just never going to actually read.

I recycled a stack of holiday service booklets that we no longer use.

I either filed or recycled a bunch of papers and reports that have accumulated on our computer desk.

Listed 6 of my daughter's textbooks from last semester online.

Recycled a bunch of greeting cards that have been sitting in the basement for years.

I also did some general tidying up around the house, putting things where they belong and such, though I didn't actually get rid of anything. It still helps the place not look as cluttered.

[disneysteve]

It's funny how blind we become to clutter.

I'm sitting at my computer desk and I just reached over to grab my phone. My hand brushed up against a post-it note on the side of the file cabinet. I looked at the note and it had the school closing number for my daughter's school. I'm not even sure which school.

My daughter is 22 and will graduate college in less than 4 months so that note has been there at least since high school and maybe longer. With all of the cleaning and decluttering I've done in the past few years, that note has totally escaped my efforts - until just now.

[Gailete]

Oh I like that, gave me a chuckle. A few minutes ago I noticed a post it note on my packing tape hold to get my MRI films for my doctor 's appointment that was on the 9th. Not so long as you, but still there because I didn't bother to take it off. Now I will.

[disneysteve]

Listed 6 of my daughter's textbooks from last semester online.

Sold 1 last night. I just packed it to ship. I'll drop it in the mailbox later today or tomorrow.

I need to list the rest of them. One downside to being an English major is lots of books each term. Of course the upside is that they tend to be very inexpensive, and that's not counting what comes back by reselling them.

[disneysteve]

Okay. I just listed 9 more textbooks for sale so 15 total. One of which has already sold.

[creditcardfree]

While I dusted our upper level today, I pull open various drawers and found 25 random items we no longer need. Didn't take much extra time to make the effort to peek in the drawers.

[disneysteve]

I got my New email box down to 6 messages! That's quite an accomplishment for me.

My Recently Deleted email box is empty.

I've been on a steady effort to clear out my Sent email box. It started with well over 8,000 messages in it. I'm down to exactly 7,000 right now and I'm about to delete some more.

The Sent mail is a little harder. I need to at least skim over them before deleting because many of them actually are important and I sometimes refer back to them. That said, I have hundreds and hundreds of sent messages from when I was President of our synagogue (2012-2014) and I'm pretty sure I don't need any of them any more. I've gotten rid of hundreds already.

ETA: Sent file is now down to 6,888.

[Bluebird]

I have several email folders for all emails received or sent that I want to keep. I move the email to the appropriate folder immediately.

[disneysteve]

I have several email folders for all emails received or sent that I want to keep. I move the email to the appropriate folder immediately.

I have folders for saved emails but only started doing that in the past year or so. And even if I had folders longer ago, they'd still need clearing out. Much of the stuff in my Sent file was important at the time. It just isn't anymore.

[Gailete]

One of things I got from the Amazon Vine program to use and review a couple of weeks ago was 50 of those brown file folder holders in legal size. I have been able to sort and keep papers in their proper folders so I don't have as many stacks of paper around. I even have one to hold the 2018 bills once they are recorded on my excel worksheet, to keep them from getting mixed up with 2017. Plus once I get those envelopes with 2017 tax paperwork I can chuck them into the taxes file and forget about them until I do my taxes. Even though we are self-employed, I don't do the taxes until Feb. as we have to wait for so man official tax papers to show up.

I sure like those folders as they hold a lot including multiple manilla folders if I wanted. Now I just need a good spot to have them for easy access during the year. My husband took over half of the office a couple years ago, so I have less space to store more stuff. I thought computers were supposed to bring in an era of LESS paperwork!

[scfr]

Major victory this weekend - 40 pieces of DH's clothing/accessories GONE!
There's no way for me to explain what a major victory this is for me without writing a lengthy dissertation. But to give you a couple hints let's just say that up until now he has always had twice as many clothes as me (how many couples do you know where the man has twice as many clothes as the woman?) and has held on to clothes that he hasn't worn in 25+ years. We both got a chuckle over the 1992 receipt that I found in the pocket of his yuppie-style trench coat.

This was a carefully planned, timed, and executed mission. I know wives of my generation who would have just gone through his stuff and secretly gotten rid of things, but that's not my style. I ended up doing almost all of the work (sorting & initial decision-making), even though I had hoped he would do it, because I realized that was the only way it was going to actually get done. And DH is pleased - I unearthed a couple of very nice pieces that he had forgotten he had.

[Gailete]

Major victory this weekend - 40 pieces of DH's clothing/accessories GONE!
There's no way for me to explain what a major victory this is for me without writing a lengthy dissertation. But to give you a couple hints let's just say that up until now he has always had twice as many clothes as me (how many couples do you know where the man has twice as many clothes as the woman?) and has held on to clothes that he hasn't worn in 25+ years. We both got a chuckle over the 1992 receipt that I found in the pocket of his yuppie-style trench coat.

This was a carefully planned, timed, and executed mission. I know wives of my generation who would have just gone through his stuff and secretly gotten rid of things, but that's not my style. I ended up doing almost all of the work (sorting & initial decision-making), even though I had hoped he would do it, because I realized that was the only way it was going to actually get done. And DH is pleased - I unearthed a couple of very nice pieces that he had forgotten he had.

Can you come and get rid of some of my hubbies things? He is in his 50's and still has clothes from HS that he will never, ever fit again. I finally gave up. I don't have the energy to try anymore.

[disneysteve]

Today's progress:

I threw out an old broken blender that we replaced ages ago. The reason I kept it is that I had found a repair kit for it on Amazon and figured I'd fix it and have 2 but I never ordered the kit and we really have no use for 2 blenders. And it doesn't make sense to spend the money to fix it just to give it away.

When I go to the gym this afternoon, I'm stopping at Goodwill with a picnic basket, a shredder, a bag of books, and a carton box filled with 3-ring binders, clipboards, photo albums, and a clock.

As noted in another thread, I also listed 15 of my daughter's books from last semester this past week and I've already sold and shipped 5 of them (and made $37 in the process).

ETA: I also just did a round of shredding. Included in today's destruction was all of our expired passports, which I realized recently were still in our lock box. The oldest expired over 20 years ago!

We have way too much crap in our lives. Step by step, piece by piece, we're working on it.

[scfr]

I say this only half-jokingly: Moving has its advantages! No better way to have a really good "clean out" than a long-distance move (even with the clothes hubby held on to for 25+ years that we moved even though we didn't need to).

[disneysteve]

I say this only half-jokingly: Moving has its advantages! No better way to have a really good "clean out" than a long-distance move (even with the clothes hubby held on to for 25+ years that we moved even though we didn't need to).

Part of the underlying motivation to our ongoing decluttering is the thought that we eventually want to relocate. The more we get rid of the easier that will be.