August's Dynamic Declutter, 2014

[Harriet]

We hope you'll join us in chatting here about declutter efforts. We hope to give at least the equivalent of 15 minutes a day to clear and organize our lovely homes! You might rather combine efforts into longer spans on a few days, or maybe you like marathon sessions to get a bunch done at once. However you fight against clutter's takeover plans, we'd love to hear about it!

A new space has opened up in our village today! We have a new Cleaning Focus forum for threads in the Organization Tools section below. BookSaver accomplished this for us and has already started a thread for August chats about cleaning our homes. Very cool! No matter what your thoughts on cleaning may be - sharing your own plan, or asking advice, or giving encouragement - the new Cleaning Focus thread should be a helpful hangout!

Some of us use the Focus plan from our Focus forum to rotate room cleaning by week, and that schedule will be posted in the new forum for reference. Our Decluttering can go along with that, too, and some (like me, for instance) like to use the schedule to declutter a room in the week before it comes up for cleaning in Focus, so that surfaces are ready for efficient cleaning.

[Harriet]

It's the kitchen for decluttering for me this week, since I try to stay ahead of where we're heading with Focus cleaning. I still need to clear out the refrigerator and work on the counters.

[Nancy]

Some stuff left this week.
Dgds took all but one of the art books. Plus fine crochet thread for hand work.
Some art canvasses also.
I was able so sort and clear some space in the creativity room and clear off the dining room table! yea!

[FelineFriend]

I decluttered the dining room basket near the phone. I re-decorated the counter by the phone. It's more user-friendly with tablets, memo pads, pens and pencils. I have a humidifier on the eating bar, because of eye Dr.'s orders for eye health. It blows steam on tablets, the pages curl, so I moved them away from the counter, where the humidifier blows on it, and put them in the basket below the phone. I put a caddy with tablets, etc... near the phone. It looks much better.

[indy]

I guess the decluttering I need to do is the dresser drawers so I can tackle the goals for the guest room and our room. Clearing out the drawers will let me put away my piles of clothing again -- I saw no point to folding things neatly and then stuffing them into messy drawers which only compounded the problem -- time to fix it.

indy

[Nancy]

One kit. Trash bag of papers has been shredded.

[FelineFriend]

I decluttered the trash baskets, my bureau drawers, the closet, the kitchen counters, my corner in the kitchen, the bedroom, and need to do my end table sometime today. I decluttered my desk last night, too.

Today, I worked on the office desk again, trying to get more "white space" on the wall behind my opened laptop. Worked on the office shelves, too, rolling carts, etc... It looks a LOT better, but I just want the craft items O-U-T of here, so it's ALL writer's things, except for my rolling carts, which house craft items in their drawers, but writer's things are on top of them. The craft items are hidden in the carts' drawers, but on the shelves, which are open without a door or curtain, it's driving me CRAZY!

[FelineFriend]

Decluttered the groceries on the eating bar and mail on the eating bar with DH. Laid the clean 3 LOL on the sofa back, but decluttered it all and put it away/hung it up, as it was dried 1 lol at a time.

I decluttered my office shelves and desk again and am Very Happy with the outcome.

[Nancy]

One batch of stuff left this weekend.
Trash day here today.

[FelineFriend]

I got yet another box of an ARC donation together, then emailed them to find out when they're going to do their next pick-up in our area. I got rid of some hats and scarves, mittens, and since DD had given me so many items I'd crocheted, I decided along with my own crocheted items, it was a bit overkill. So decided to donate, which cleans out my closet and bins nicely.