December Clutter Control

Share your decluttering activities and ideas.
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Harriet
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December Clutter Control

Postby Harriet » Tue Dec 01, 2009 1:56 pm

Perseverance is the art of marching directly forward toward the goal we have set before us, quite ignoring all temporary embarrassments, great or small, save putting forth all our strength to surmount them.

Will power, ingenuity, endurance; all these qualities are mere satellites of the one dominating virtue - perseverance.

- H. Bessler, in "Mental Efficiency", 1915


Stick with it! Keep marching toward your goal. If you become discouraged, just work in a different area for a while. If you feel embarrassment, remember every other declutterer has felt that, too, and it is temporary because you are changing things. You are not alone; we can surmount clutter.

Our greatest strength is perseverance, so be consistent. If we can give our homes as little as 15 minutes of clutter control each day, we can reach the goal and provide clear, calm space for ourselves and our families.

Please use this space for accountability, and to encourage others!

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Harmony
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Re: December Clutter Control

Postby Harmony » Tue Dec 01, 2009 3:52 pm

I get about 4 trade magazines or newspaper type flyers out to my recycle box every day. Sometimes I don't get the magazines out and have to read a stack all at once, but I don't let that get too bad.

I watched the hoarders episode last night and I totally agree with the voyarism (sp? - voyaristic?) element to that show. This one was very sad and I have heard it said that this poor woman was so passive while it was going on they wondered about her mental state.

It bothered me so much I had to jump up and start dealing with the bags of grapefruit sitting in the kitchen making it look very cluttered.

We need to consider what our bad habits of piling stuff up does to those around us.

It sounds like those of us in this village do a good job of letting go.

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Harriet
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Re: December Clutter Control

Postby Harriet » Tue Dec 01, 2009 7:53 pm

Yes, Harmony, and I'm grateful for every time something mentioned on one of our boards over the years has made me "have to jump up and start dealing with" things, too, just as you said. We here are probably all dealing with clutter so much better than we might have been, simply because we have had the opportunity to hear from others, get ideas, advice, admit struggles, etc. I see that as at least one good thing that comes out of all the home improving/cleaning shows, too, even the sad ones. Someone out there may learn the importance of getting up and dealing with things that are making life unhappy, and catch on to the idea of plugging away so things don't get so bad.

I was pretty much just maintaining here at my house for November, but we felt very comfortable at Thanksgiving - I think things were well in check.

At my parents, I worked so hard in a big push again (second one this calendar year). Here are my totals:

In dining room:
...clutter that equaled about the size and shape of a washing machine cleared

In spare bedroom:
...5 tall kitchen garbage bags and 1 lawn/leaf bag tossed

For donation:
...1 tall kitchen garbage bag filled

It's hard to come up with a bottom line, but if I estimate that one of the bags holds about 4 square feet of stuffed-in clutter, I have cleared space as big as 2 large refrigerators. Now, before I get too excited, the clutter in the dining room is still larger than space cleared in the spare room. (It is a "wall" of identical 3' x 3' cardboard boxes stored by the people the insurance co. hired after the furnace blew.) But I would be willing to drape pretty cloths over a couple of the boxes and call them occasional tables! LOL! Whatever it takes to get my parents a dining room back.

.

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Nancy
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Re: December Clutter Control

Postby Nancy » Tue Dec 01, 2009 11:02 pm

Harriet way to go on your progress at dparents place
love the creative way you are considering dealing with
the bigger cardboard boxes.

I got a bag of clothes that no longer fit
that I decluttered from the dresser last week
out to go in the car trunk. Now I have room to put
away the clothes that do actually fit! Yea! :idea:
What a concept.

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Harmony
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Re: December Clutter Control

Postby Harmony » Wed Dec 02, 2009 4:49 pm

Harriet, I guess your DParents are willing to let you do this decluttering in their house, huh? Probably a very good thing.

Nancy, you always seem to be getting rid of something!

I wonder what you guys think makes people sentimental over things. I have things in my house I like very much, but I'm not sentimental about stuff. Like toys from my childhood. I didn't keep any and but I have all those memories. If I'd have kept some of that, would my memories be any stronger?

I'll bet there are only a total of 10 things in my house I would keep if I had to get rid of it all. One little brown chest (Sunny will know), a couple things that were my DMother's. Some jewelry.

Space between things, the ability to move around and clean easily, those things bring me peace. I've read that empty spaces give one's eyes someplace peaceful to rest. And I have a thing about dirt and dust. The more one has the dirtier stuff is, don't you think?

Well, just my decluttering musing for today...

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Nancy
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Re: December Clutter Control

Postby Nancy » Thu Dec 03, 2009 4:59 pm

Harmony thanks for noticing!

I've gotten rid of some papers today
don't want them stacking up like on the hoarders show!

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Re: December Clutter Control

Postby Harmony » Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:10 pm

LOL Nancy! Yeah, those Hoarder shows, the last two were really something. I don't know how they find these people. I think their situations go way beyond hoarding into serious mental illness issues.

On the home front, I have to report:

18 books in bags to deliver to the library for them to sell in their "friends" room.

For Thrift shop donation, 2 DVD's, 1 CD and 4 books.

1/2 tall kitchen container of papers to throw away, old recipes, maps, kitchen appliance booklets. Was all in a magazine holder I'd organized a while back.

All the above purged from 2 bookcases and 2 wall-units.

18 nice picture frames and various mats are packed up into one plastic tote. I will decide later how many of them to keep. Downsized all of this into 3 wall frame collages!

Editing: Library lady says all the books they sell are donated. You'd have thought I handed her 2 bags of gold! I had a little trouble parting with a few of those books, but they are at the library anyway so if I ever want to read them again I'll just go check them out. Not giving up my Mitford ones, though, if I ever do.

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Harriet
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Re: December Clutter Control

Postby Harriet » Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:48 pm

Hi, decluttering people! We can do it!

Great job on your bookcases/wall units, Harmony. I can imagine they are a much nicer place to rest your eyes now. My parents have gone back and forth on allowing my decluttering efforts for decades, Harmony. I would get some done, then they'd stop me, wanting to keep things as they were. But now they seem to have a different attitude. They really need household help now and are grateful to see clear spaces open up and be ready for regular easy cleaning.

"What a concept", for sure, about clothes that really deserve a space, Nancy! We need to be storing the things that are actually right for us. And yes, I'm so serious about putting a pretty cloth over a box! ;) Some of these boxes that my folks can't stand to part with - well, suddenly they may have a new "side table"!

Since first of month, 3 tall kitchen garbage bags, plus cardboard from a couple boxes, have left my parents' house for the trash, carrying decuttered stuff. One of the bags was not full, but still very heavy since it was mostly magazines (catalog type - not anything that could be called "vintage").

I have cleared out the guest bedroom closet at my parents'. A lot was tossed, the whole thing deep-cleaned, and the few remaining clothes and shoe rack there went neatly into the large hall closet. (Clothing is only going to be allowed in the master bedroom and hall closet from now on! :roll: Clothing was everywhere up until now.) Then I put two 3x3 boxes of magazines and records on the guest closet floor, well marked on the front. They are very sturdy. I can use the space above them for storage until a time next calendar year when I can tackle selling vintage items and am ready to pull the boxes out again - can't think about it in 2009.

I've already got my plans made for the spare bedroom closet to have a similar re-do. Two boxes of my ddad's memorabilia are in the room and ready to reside on the floor of that closet in the same way for a while. When I have that room organized, I'm going to ask him to sit down with me in there and talk about letting go of some of the memorabilia.

Also, another 3x3 box in their dining room was decluttered and everything in it either tossed or donated, cardboard tossed, Yay! It's great to see one disappear! There are "only" 13 more boxes in the dining room to go through. :roll: (Just to let you know what I'm up against!)

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Re: December Clutter Control

Postby Nancy » Thu Dec 10, 2009 7:25 pm

Working on the creativity room aka the stash and dash room.
So I have my work cut out for me.
Got some stuff out of the closet and now so I've put some of the room back together.
Lots of paper taming in this room going on here this morning.
Got a batch of things sorted and out to the car.
This progress feels great!

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Harriet
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Re: December Clutter Control

Postby Harriet » Mon Dec 14, 2009 8:25 pm

Happy for you, Nancy.

Just documenting, 1 more tall kitchen garbage bag out to trash from my parents' dining area.

General consolidation of some stray things onto a set of shelves behind the room-dividing brick wall there, so that the view from the living area is clearer.

A big (4 cases - heavy) errant delivery of canned food that my dmom doesn't need still has not been picked up and is cluttering the dining area. I need to clear space in the "mud room" by the side door and put it there for pickup.

The guest bedroom looks so good. Next I need to get curtains up in there, sheets changed just because they are "stale" by now, and the nice bedspread on.


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