July Clutter Control, 2015

Share your decluttering activities and ideas.
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Kathryn-in-Canada
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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Wed Jul 15, 2015 8:56 pm

Best laid plans - did nothing with the car today. Except grab a grocery bag out of the back of it and carry up groceries from the bike basket!

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Harriet
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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harriet » Wed Jul 15, 2015 11:32 pm

General throw away of ditsy-unnecessary things in both car and truck today. I did the car at home and the truck while waiting on HRH at a stop he made and left me waiting in the car with AC. (Had a small trash bag with me.) Also from back seat of car, a pair of shoes and a jacket that dd didn't handle when she should've. I put a set of directions into the glove box that I happen to know I'll need again later.\

Weighted tape dispenser - I experimented and my favorite configuration is to have mine sideways at the front of the drawer so that it's effortless to tear off the tape. When I had it so that the cutting edge was toward the front of the drawer, tearing off a piece of tape was harder. This way I have done it with one hand many times.

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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby BookSaver » Thu Jul 16, 2015 10:00 am

I had to drop out of the declutter challenge for awhile. However, today's topic is Desk and, just by coincidence, I worked on mine first thing this morning so I can check off that I've done something.
*\o/* woohoo!

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Kathryn-in-Canada
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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Thu Jul 16, 2015 2:15 pm

Storage area (in lieu of garage) and shoes are done. So now I'm just behind with the car (yesterday) and desk (today.)

Desk scares me. At least I only have one now. Used to have 3.

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DeeClutter
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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby DeeClutter » Thu Jul 16, 2015 2:50 pm

I'm not keeping up with the 30-day declutter, but at least I'm steadily working away at a list I have. I have just so many spaces to be cleaned out before I head south again & I'm trying to do at least one spot (drawer/cupboard/closet spaces/etc) each day. Today I managed to clean out the 3 drawers that are under our closets in the bedroom. Took some things out and some t-shirts for dh to decide keep/throw? He's got so many. Think a couple he has I may try wearing myself like a pink breast cancer shirt sold by a local fire dept a few years ago.

I have listed each space & have room on the sheet to print the dates I accomplish those. I'm really thinking about getting a matching cabinet to one that we have on our deck which houses jackets, etc. This one has 4 adjustable shelves & I think I could store all our big cookware, etc in it. Sounds tacky, but it's really not.
Begun is half done -SO! JUST BEGIN!!

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Harmony
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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harmony » Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:35 pm

Well, let me see where I am with all this.

Clothes, didn't get to go through them, did toss one shirt.
More clothes - still no.
Underwear drawer - tossed 3 pairs so far.
accessories - Want to go through my belts at least, not done yet.
Shoes - not done, though about a month ago I tossed an old pair of tennis shoes
Junk drawer - well this is a whole week challenge for me. I have a ster lite 3-drawer plastic rolley cart in the garage that we throw misc. things in. That thing's a royal mess, because our life creates lots of little hardware pieces, screws, bolts, spare keys, etc. and I've had it on my mind to redo that for ages. There is one drawer in the kitchen where I keep spare office supplies and I went through that a few weeks ago.
garage - week or so ago I did toss another couple plant trays.
car - I try to keep current on that, a few months ago I brought in big bin of tools and organized.
desk - ha ha that's looking bad again, and I try to stay current, but needs done again.

You wouldn't think 15 minutes a day would be hard to keep up on. but in most of these categories 15 minutes doesn't do a complete declutter for me. I suppose if I did this schedule only 15 minutes for several months in a row sooner-or-later it'd get all done. I prefer to work on one area until it's done completely, whether in one big chunk or several days in a row. So this has been interesting.

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Harriet
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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harriet » Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:11 pm

Desk - I made 30 small decisions at my desk. (toss, reorganize, hand off to others, etc.)

Books and magazines - I tossed 40 magazine-like items. Mostly the electric cooperative's magazines, charity magazines, and other magazines that are mailed freebies, such as gardening. This made a pretty heavy paper grocery bag full. It's hard to believe I live with this much freebie-arrival stuff. Each has a temporary value and someone works hard to get them right each month, I'm sure. I have saved electric cooperative's magazines for dsonil, since it will have regional pieces, and a somewhat masculine angle. But then when he is here, he hardly has time to read them, and probably wouldn't notice whether I do this for him.

Harmony, I do think of 15 minutes a day as maintenance, although I can't honestly say I think of it as progress. Every home is different and I'm sure I have friends who would wonder what to do for 15 minutes a day. Betcha even those friends would tell us that it can quickly become bogged down with just a few household complications, though. Thinking of your home, and to a lesser extent, mine - someone is working from home, so that's automatically tougher.


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Harmony
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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harmony » Fri Jul 17, 2015 3:05 pm

Yeah, I always have so much to handle around here; I'll bet fully half the spaces are taken up with business things - whole rooms, 2 out of 4 counters in the kitchen, actually there are 5 desk surfaces and that spills over into kitchen and dining room often, not to mention the mess in the garage from all this extra.

But I did look at today's declutter and considered books (already took stacks to the friends of the library donation) and I try to keep up on trade magazines that come in. There was 1 sitting there and I looked at it and tossed in recycle bin. I tear out any regulatory news for DH and I might keep an idea or picture for me in a file folder, the rest is just fodder for recycling!

I'm getting caught up on backlog at my desk. Was too busy to finish today.

I got my donation bin out and transferred it all to that big long bin and I took it all to GW and gave it to them, bin and all. It was heavy with all the Christmas things in there.

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Kathryn-in-Canada
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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Fri Jul 17, 2015 8:22 pm

No progress today. And not likely any tomorrow either unless I do the car on the way home from dropping dh at the airport (I just need to find an office building parking lot that is almost empty to work in.)

On the plus side, ds says that not only does his parking garage have a car wash bay (which he uses to rinse mud off his Spartan Race clothes!) the bays have electric outlets so I can take my car there and plug in a vacuum to clean out the inside. I'm pleased to have that option since I miss being able to vacuum out the car. We used one at a car wash but were stressed to get the work done before the time ran out and found we missed having different sizes of attachments to get into crevices and a proper carpet brush.

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Re: July Clutter Control, 2015

Postby BookSaver » Fri Jul 17, 2015 10:18 pm

I was able to work today's area first thing this morning before turning on the computer. Throughout the day I caught up with 3 others on the list.

Of course, I'm limiting myself to only 15 minutes per place. No, most areas will not be finished in 15 minutes, but I'm spending extra time in the areas I had originally planned for this month.


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