September Clutter Control, 2015

Share your decluttering activities and ideas.
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Harriet
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September Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harriet » Tue Sep 01, 2015 10:40 am

Welcome to our thread in which we chat about declutter efforts. We try 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!

Look what I found from one year ago today - happy anniversary to The Cleaning Focus forum.

A new space has opened up in our village! We have a new Cleaning Focus forum for threads in the Organization Tools section below. BookSaver accomplished this for us, with monthly threads about cleaning our homes. Very cool! 8-) 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.


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Harriet
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Re: September Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harriet » Tue Sep 01, 2015 12:09 pm

If you want an area to be easier and faster to clean, it helps to get clutter out of the way or organized first. Some (like me, for instance) like to watch the Focus schedule to declutter a room in the week before it comes up for cleaning, so that surfaces are ready for efficient cleaning.

Here are the rooms that are coming up in September, in our Fourth and Final Round for 2015. You may find others are already in there working, if you peer around the corner to check the clutter level. :D

week of 8/31 declutter the bathrooms (Focus clean bedrooms)
week of 9/07 declutter the office or other room (Focus clean bathrooms)
week of 9/14 declutter in closets (Focus clean office or other room)
week of 9/21 declutter laundry (Focus clean closets)
week of 9/28 declutter storage (Focus clean laundry)

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Nancy
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Re: September Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Nancy » Tue Sep 01, 2015 6:18 pm

Hope this is the right spot fot this post.
Decluttered one bag of stuff this morning.
Trash to the curb took small branches from the wind storm the other day.
Last edited by Nancy on Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Harmony
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Re: September Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harmony » Thu Sep 03, 2015 3:47 pm

Is anybody else confused?

I looked in the Org. thread and didn't see anything about cleaning or focus that fit what you said, Harriet. Also I looked in the Decluttered Home because you said "below" but it isn't there either. I'm sure it's just me...but I get used to posting in the same threads all the time and find other ones hard to find or navigate. I looked in 3 places and wasn't able to find it. Focus cleaning is where I actually fail and could use some help there. I guess I have cobwebs for brains...

Editing: when I clicked on your link, Harriet, there it was. But when I went straight into the Organization and ...whatever.... tools I couldn't find it listed. :?: Clicking on the focus subthread, I didn't find it there either. I'm obviously doing something wrong. If the only way I can find it is by opening up this thread and clicking on your link...that's too many steps.

It occurred to me that when we all had a simplified list to follow, a check off for decluttering, a lot more people participated. Maybe it's just that my brain is getting old and it's already cluttered up with a lot of schedules, time deadlines, etc. that I need something really simple and find that more doable. I have a cleaning chore here - well 2 of them - that I've been neglecting for years. I can't seem to find the motivation to do them. If it was on a checklist or a simple thread with more participating, I probably would have done these 2 chores a long time ago.

I do appreciate all that you do to cover all the bases on our little site here, and I know there are many different areas to address and many ways to do this... and I really feel bad even mentioning any of this because I don't have the time to do any of this work... but just an observation where I am with it all.

Okayyyyy now I get it :idea: A whole bunch of thread titles are under the heading "Organization and Tools and Skills" but at the bottom of that list of threads is the Cleaning Thread Harriet was mentioning. In the middle of the list of threads in this section is "Organization and Simplification Tools" and I think this is where the subforum Focus is located. I really never noticed that the whole section of threads had a title! Dumb me.

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Re: September Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Nancy » Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:07 pm

I did some decluttering today, got the frames sorted the ones I am not keeping are ready to go, one bag of clothes is too. And I found a spot for the pics. That were in the frames.

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Harmony
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Re: September Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harmony » Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:22 pm

Into the recycle today went a whole bunch of cardboard, boxes I decided not to keep, flattened and ready to go out. Boy did that clear out a bunch of space!

Found a bag of stuff I'd set aside to donate and never did, clothes, that's in the donate box now.

Made a couple more decisions. Going to get rid of dress form, it's like having a person taking up a whole shelf! I've not used that thing for 16 almost 17 years, when I used it for DD's wedding dress I made. I guess it's time.

Last night I found the online receipt / record for GW donations. This works pretty good, I used it one year. All I must do is check off the items and put in my own amounts and hand to guy taking donations and he signs. At the end of the year, a whole completed report shows up in my email. I've figured out how to get some bigger pieces out of the house I'd been contemplating for a while. I'm not sure how to get the baby crib apart or transport, not sure where to list to sell, have decided just to donate and take the tax credit. Will have to wait till DH's pickup is available to use.

Tuesday 9/8: I decided to gather together what I could and not wait for the truck. Made trip to GW and I donated: 4 clothing items, the playpen, child's potty chair, high chair, dress form, adult potty chair, couple household items. Printed out my receipt before I went and guy at loading dock signed the bottom. Easy-Peasy!

Crib & mattress is now gone, 3 men's suit coats and a twin size mattress pad used once.

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Re: September Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harriet » Wed Sep 16, 2015 12:53 pm

So much declutter has gone on for us. Many things were let go and I don't know how to quantify it because ds and I were both working and he's a mover and a shaker. He stood with me at one closet in the hall and we just powered through it even though we were both tired. Most things went. Because of the nature of the re-do, happening at the same time, a lot of iffy textiles like older sheets were put into service as paint drop cloths, even though in other circumstances they might have been kept.

Another day dd17 and I worked on the last remaining bedroom, which had already been relegated to "catch all" status long ago, so was the most difficult. I was just handing papers to her - " important; throw-away; for your brother " - and she was tossing them like a mail-sorter into the right spots.

Ds had found a charity in the city for which he works, a local one that he's seen help a lot of displaced fire survivors, etc., and he took all donations to them.

Today I'm not so happy because the trash and recyclable trucks seem to have exchanged their schedules and it was the recyclable guys who came super early, so I missed putting a lot in that can. Sigh. Had it planning but just couldn't get to it last evening. Had instead put all efforts into the trash - and they hadn't even come by 1:00 p.m.

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Re: September Clutter Control, 2015

Postby blessedw2 » Mon Sep 21, 2015 3:22 pm

my dd is getting more and more stream lined as she works through peoples homes and businesses.

I love seeing all of you work. very well done
it is always a joy to be here with you!

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Re: September Clutter Control, 2015

Postby Harmony » Fri Sep 25, 2015 10:16 pm

Harriet, it must feel wonderful to have all that decluttering done. blessed, how does your dd get more streamlined in her work?

Went through office closet today. Was looking for something. I ended up tossing some files and things I just wasn't ready to get rid of the 1st time around. 198 papers shredded or tossed. Had to empty the shredder and sweep the floor. Glad to have at least that much gone!


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