February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Share your decluttering activities and ideas.
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Harriet
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February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Postby Harriet » Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:52 pm


Welcome to our thread, where we post our strategies against clutter. Here is where we report from the field 8-) , encouraging each other to try for the equivalent of daily 15-minute stands against our common enemy. We hope you'll join in the strategy sessions!

How far did you get in the 31 days of January :?: Back in December, the battle may have had to slow down as holiday events took priority. So January gave us a chance to shine. Do you have some areas that are shining beacons for you now? Do tell!

“Hire an expert” in February! :idea: No professional organizer can know as much about what your home needs as you do. So why not "hire" yourself? Take a look at your decluttering plan as though you are a pro looking at the home for the first time, and make sensible suggestions. When you come to your declutter appointments, work briskly and efficiently to do your best for your very nice “client”! Even if you can only give 15 minutes a day, by the end of a month that's the equivalent of hiring an expert for an 8-hour day of attention.

Isn't it wonderful to see a formerly cluttered area become clear and pleasant!?! Everybody likes it when they can see they've made a difference. When you get just one space decluttered, as you go through the house you see that one room and it inspires you to keep going!

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Harriet
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Re: February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Postby Harriet » Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:03 pm

Handy-Dandy Reference :D for decluttering AHEAD of Focus Cleaning :idea:

This is for those who want to go along with the Focus Cleaning schedule in the Organization and Simplification Forum and would like to do their decluttering in each area first. Here's the declutter schedule.

this week - laundry
2/6/2012 -storage
2/13/2012 - outdoor
2/20/2012 - kitchen
2/27/2012 - living room

Tweak as desired to fit your lovely home!

Looking for Indiana's Focus Cleaning threads instead? HERE'S YOUR SLIDE! (calendar thread is at top of forum, look for 2012)

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Harriet
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Re: February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Postby Harriet » Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:23 am

It's laundry week for decluttering ahead of Focus, and even though I'm adding an upstairs area to the week (my laundry area is small) I've still been thinking of how I can simplify and organize laundry. I've learned that I actually have 7 main regular loads and 4 mini regular loads. Things are not the same as they used to be - my ddad has added loads here, and I guess nobody is wearing much white these days because the "lights" washing that used to be large for years is a mini load these days. Still thinking about what I can do with this knowledge, but I'm sure it will help me to have the overview. I'm working on getting to the bottom of laundry baskets regularly!

SHEM

“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small pieces.” - Henry Ford

sherinjoy
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Re: February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Postby sherinjoy » Sun Feb 05, 2012 1:34 am

Decluttered all day! I had 3 large bins of Christmas wrapping paper, bags, bows, etc. Before I put them back up in the attic with the Christmas stuff, I wanted to declutter them down to 2 smaller bins. I did that this morning - yeah! I will donate the extras that were in good condition to Goodwill tomorrow.

Then I continued in the afternoon to sort and declutter all the Mrs. Grossman's decorative stickers I have. I go to the warehouse sales they have and buy lots of stickers that I use throughout the year to make cards and papercrafts. Well....I have accumulated way too many bins of stickers. My church Youth director has asked for donations for craft projects, so I talked to her and asked if she wanted Valentine's and spring holidays stickers. She said she would take any I wanted to give her, which was a great motivator to sort and donate lots of stickers. I finally finished tonight sorting all the stickers into categories. Yikes - I'm a sticker hoarder - kind of scary how many stickers I have! I took all the hearts and Valentine and St. Pat's and Easter and Spring stickers and divided them by 50%. I am keeping half and donating the other half to church tomorrow. Wow - that's out of the house. Now I need to find homes for 50% of all the other sticker groups. Maybe the local elementary school or YMCA after-school group. Big project that is spread all over my living room. I'll have to clean it up tomorrow and finish donation bins.

A big pat on my back for decluttering all day - I'm tired!

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Harmony
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Re: February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Postby Harmony » Sun Feb 05, 2012 9:21 pm

I don't think I've decluttered anything recently, just the everyday stuff I keep ahead of. Excess grocery bags, that sort of stuff. But DH must have cleaned out a truck Sat., because the garbage can was almost too heavy to wheel out to the end of the driveway tonight. It was full of little bits of this and that, also I saw old catalogs, old boxes, trash from lunches. Was great to see that, and this time I didn't have to ask him to do it!

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Re: February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Postby Nancy » Tue Feb 07, 2012 12:46 pm

H. is making a dent in the boxes of stuff to be shredded and we filled up the rest of the can this week with that. More for next week. Plus the last of the leaves that I bagged up before the snow came went in as well yea!

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Harriet
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Re: February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Postby Harriet » Tue Feb 14, 2012 9:54 pm

sherinjoy, the reason I will pat you on the back is that I'm not sure I could ever bear to part with nice stickers!!! Must have taken some discipline! I hope the ones you let go bless others.

Good work on shredding, Nancy and dh!

Harmony mentioned her catalog decluttering. It reminds me I sent one-half a paper grocery bag of catalogs and unsubscribed magazines to recycling today. Isn't it amazing how many mailings we get - and these things are so glossy and nice. There's lots of money in getting people to buy from a catalog I guess.

I was happy the front rooms looked good when dcousin came over.

We've been doing well on getting recyclables and trash handled fast.

This week is outdoor decluttering as I go along ahead of Focus cleaning, and I do have some of that, but not a lot at this time of year. I've scheduled most of my decluttering time back in the master bedroom keeping up with that ongoing project.

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Re: February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Postby Nancy » Fri Feb 24, 2012 12:05 pm

Part of my strategy is doing one shelf or drawer a week.

This mo. not as much progress here due to illness but I have gotten progress on de-cluttering books, old coffee parts, pens and art supplies, and plastic bags to be recycled am adding those to this so every little bit helps. Yea for progress! :mrgreen:

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Harriet
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Re: February, 2012 Declutter Strategists

Postby Harriet » Tue Feb 28, 2012 12:02 am

Starting on declutter of living room this week. There are only two sources of clutter in my LR: magazine-type and the cluttered look of DVD/VCR shelves (I guess that's not really clutter, just can become disorganized). But they can really get out of hand, especially the magazines. Now that we bring my ddad's subscription to the regional newspaper here to this house, and it usually ends up on top of the magazines on the end table, it just gets worse there. I read today that those upright cardboard magazine holders are an extremely popular item, and I can believe it.

I get a couple clothing catalogs and I have become ruthless in throwing out any old one when the new one comes. It's a little harder to do that with quilt/sewing catalogs, because they are more like magazines with usable info.


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