January Clutter Control

[Harriet]

The Joy of a New Year is upon us, and our hopes are high! And they should be! Clear surfaces, organized cubbies and lovely living spaces are available to us with just the commitment to manageable declutter appointments. Here in this monthly thread, we encourage each other to commit to 15 minutes of clutter control time per day, OR the equivalent on other schedules. We hope you'll join us.

What successes do you have to report for 2008? They will inspire more than you think.

What goals will you set for 2009? You will find encouragement and partners here.

Never feel you are alone if you have clutter struggles. We know where you are because we've been right there (and then have faltered after decluttering and ended up there again… … twice or three times ). We know the same prospect looms for our future if we don't stay vigilant! Clutter is picking a fight with ALL of us. We are with you.

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If you’d like some partners while working:

One scheduling suggestion has been a weekly room rotation together. During each current week, those who choose to will declutter in the upcoming week's Focus Cleaning room as a first step toward lovely spaces. We know cleaning is efficient if clutter is not in the way - we can almost have fun with it. But clutter can discourage or stop us if we can't find the surfaces in the first place. Decluttering is a preceding step that can (literally) make cleaning a glide instead of a stumble.

You’ll find some January declutter partners in these rooms:

Week of Dec 29 – porch and entry
Week of Jan 5 – bedrooms
Week of Jan 12 – bathrooms
Week of Jan 19 – office or other room
Week of Jan 26 – closets

Substitute a different room whenever it will match your home’s needs best, and change back and forth from this plan to your own anytime.

[happylittlemom]

I'm excited about the prospect of a decluttered home! Each year since I found flylady, my home has gotten better and better. It lapses when my life gets out of control or my energy issues pop up (I have low energy sometimes have been dx with depression and anxiety so meds are helping a bit). I am looking forward to the declutter focus here and hope that 2009 is a much more peaceful year for my family... and all of your families as well!

Here's to peaceful and decluttered homes in 2009!

[Harriet]

Going along with the rotation will help me right now, I think, because of its simplicity and accountability, so I’m going to be one who is following that schedule. I made up two 12-week first-round master sheets with Declutter on the left and Focus Clean on the right, for both my house and my parents’. That way any room substitutions are already planned – no question exactly where I’m supposed to be at any time!

I don't really have clutter as a problem at either my own or my parents' porch or entry (a 2008 success with my parents' previously cluttered back porch, btw!), so my own first room substitution happened this week! With both declutter and focus cleaning time "open" on my schedule this early week, I chose projects that need attention most.

This week, for my home, I'll declutter in the Quilt Studio and use Focus Cleaning time for putting away all Christmas decorations.

This week, for my parents' home, I'll declutter in their Dining area, and Focus Clean their Living Room.

So Monday, I’ll definitely start sweeping down porches with Indiana’s crew but will also be ready to clean some in the Quilt Studio and in my parents’ Dining Room. Yay!

Another goal I've made for 2009 – I want to QUANTIFY how much decluttering help I feel I’ve been. Either square feet freed, time given, pounds decluttered, whatever. Just getting it down and recorded here will remind me my work is getting me somewhere.

Dd10 and I spent an hour on my parents' decluttering yesterday. One of those big Lawn and Leaf bags out to the trash. I'd say approximately 6 square feet of space freed.

I spent one-half hour on the Quilt Studio decluttering today. (Organization - refiling fabrics after finished projects so there are clear surfaces.)

[blessedw2]

great job on spending an hour on quilt studio! space freed
I love simplicity and accountablity!!! thanks harriet

ahh peace!!! how wonderful happymom

[sherinjoy]

Last year I was very successful (except when at my parents for 6 weeks)with decluttering by being accountable to my list "183 days of decluttering" (started July 1). So I am using that tool again this year with 365 days of decluttering - something leaving my house everyday. What left the house-garage-property today? My other question to answer - What can I release today that will open my life to my greater good? Holding on to the past does not serve the present, I must release the old to make way for the new. Like Harriet's furniture bonanza today - new furniture could come in because she had available open empty space!
So off I go to find something to put on my list!

[happylittlemom]

I sure hope that I manage my goal of getting my household clutter down! I would love to be able to look back in February and see a decluttered house!!

[Harriet]

Look what I found in the middle of a longer self-help article - something interesting (credit bolded). This could be a helpful answer to give when anyone gets TO the room they want to declutter, with all their motivation and high hopes, but then stands there paralyzed with indecision on where to START (and that is common, ask me how I know).

Clutter-Buster: "Edit" Your Rooms

Start in the upper left-hand corner of one wall and start "reading" from left to right and from top to bottom. "The room is a book, a dresser is a chapter, each drawer is a paragraph, the boxes or trays or Ziploc bags in the drawers are the sentences, and the things in the containers are the words," says Alice Winner, an organizing consultant in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. "Get rid of the extra words — things — that are making your life more complicated and unmanageable."

Toss-It Tips
• Any time you feel your attention straying to another part of the room or house, take a break or simply repeat, "Left to right, left to right."

• Resist the urge to skip "chapters." If you jump around the room, dealing with a pile here and a pile there, the room might still look cluttered after a three-hour session.

• Find a motivator for your work. Tack up an image from a magazine or book of a room you'd like to emulate.

Why It Works
• It's difficult to determine the best place to plunge into an organizing project. This eliminates that problem: Just go straight to the upper left-hand corner of one wall. It also curtails aimlessness, because you always know what to tackle next.

• You provide yourself with a prototype as you go. Say you're editing your filing cabinets, and you feel your focus flagging as you encounter another overstuffed folder labeled "Miscellaneous." Look at the drawer you've just completed for a visual reminder of what all the drawers will look like when you're done.

I really like the reminder mantra: "Left to right, left to right" . And idea of tacking up a photo of an uncluttered space for inspiration. Cool to think of "visual reminder" of looking behind you at progress, like a "wave" across a room.

sherinjoy, you are an inspiration with day-by-day consistency (oh there are places in this house that any piece of new furniture would have had to wait a LONG time, I assure you!). Yes, I agree with blessed about happylittlemom's goal of peacefulness. There is a wonderful clarity in clutter-free space that makes you smile. Whenever we get discouraged, we need to remember THAT moment is not the status quo. It's those clarity moments that are, we just need to move back toward them - no worries.

[blessedw2]

365 things out of the house... you are an inspiration!

I do left to right as well (I remember someone telling me that if you can't focus on all focus on one section at a time and it will get done) LOVED the quote harriet "Whenever we get discouraged, we need to remember THAT moment is not the status quo. It's those clarity moments that are, we just need to move back toward them - no worries."

went through reference school books/art books and donated either to recycling or to library donation
I have my donations for this week so far in my front hall closet for Wednesday.
planning on going through bedrooms this week for declutter.
dd13 has toys of hers in my closet because she can't give them away, I will put them in crawl space as it is taking up my space, stuffed animals I will toss all but the special ones. also getting rid of extra girl scout uniform from the 60's to my cousins council in her daughters name.

[sherinjoy]

Hi all - thanks to Harriet pointing out in PWYC that I have been looking out for Hannibelle and Lavenderbliss. Hope Hannibelle posts now that she has returned. Still looking for Lavenderbliss.

I'm still decluttering everyday. It is very important with all going on in my life, that I keep this commitment to myself. I'm doing so much for others in my family right now that I need to keep myself a priority too, and this is a project that needs momentum to be successful.
Today I sat with my DS16 and went through all his school binders and detrashed last semester's papers and set them up for the new semester- which started Monday. He just couldn't seem to do it himself, and I know it helps to have someone sit with you to get started and finish. It was time well spent because we got to talk about some school issues while doing it, which doesn't seem as confrontive to him I think.
So...two big bags of recycled paper out the door today, one of mine from Dec. old papers, and one of his. Good job!

[Harriet]

Great job with donations, blessed. Others will benefit. I am with you of course in bedroom declutters this week - see you "there".

sherinjoy, that was good for your ds, I'm sure. We all need to watch things done first, then feel confident to "make the work our own".

Yesterday 3/4 hour decluttering with dd10 in my parents' guest bedroom. I still despair of cleaning more than half of it next week (when Focus is Bedrooms) unless I can take more declutter time, though - will just have to dust and vacuum what I can. One very overstuffed Lawn Leaf bag (had to tape it) out to the cans for trash pick-up and great organization progress. Dd and I estimated 12 and 10 square feet freed respectively, so I'll average that to 11 square feet freed up.

Perhaps it is hard to imagine that we make this much progress and still can't clean well. I can't really express the level of clutter still remaining in my parents' 2 unused bedrooms, even after a lot of declutter-pushes that did make progress at their times, over years, but assume you have all seen rooms like these. We will change it!

Cleaning in their Dining Room was so much easier with declutter having been handled last week. It still can use declutter work but the view of visitors across the open space from entry to living to dining is quite pleasing now - a happiness for my mother.