January Declutter Strategy, 2024

[Harriet]

What's your strategy for tackling the organization and decluttering your lovely home needs in 2024?

You are the expert who knows your home best!

Attention to organizing allows us to have some visual "breathing room". Sorting, filing, labeling are activities that give us back our control over items that otherwise might become chaotic.

As we move through the years our difficulties in keeping a clear living space get tougher. The inheritance of items from parents and other older family members is a big influence, as is gifting, and assuming our own houses don't just get bigger in response (which probably wouldn't be wise on lots of counts), it's tough to bring all this in, and we don't want to say "no" to beloved items.

Thankfully, another thing that happens as we move through these years is that we get to be pretty smart cookies!

So do tell about your strategy! Just think what a help it may be to the rest of us!

Have you made specific goals?

[Nancy]

I am doing the one thing a day method currently.
I have some items to deal with and if I do them this pile will be done by the end of the week.
They are were from lh and need some thoughtful and consideration.
One at a time I can do this.

Okay I have decided on the items put away the keepers, sorted out 2 of the not keepers one option I will see if the person I have in mind is interested in it or not. The other things will be going in with donations.

I have cleared off that shelf and a working on decisions from today's discoveries!

[blessedw2]

I made two small donations yesterday -One item that I had spent good money on, was a fancy thin back pack - business type for women for the computer etc. I used it on a flight and that was the last time I used it. I kept it bc I did spend a lot of money on it but it did not fit my needs. Yay, it's gone!

well done d Nancy!

thank you do Harriet! You help me think and get past the ADHD moments!

[Harriet]

Good job, Nancy and blessed. Yay for the clear shelf and yay for allowing someone else to use the back pack.

My specific goal is to be able to put a checkmark in the DECLUTTER line of my chart in my planner as often as possible and MORE OFTEN than other lines. I won't say every day because there are 5 other lines and they will vary in need. But, decluttering is the most likely consistent one, not just because there is (ready or not) an every-Wednesday trash collection and an every-other-Wednesday recyclable collection IF we will take advantage of them (and we do pay for them!).

It's also constant because how can you do the other things that matter to you if you don't declutter in advance? For instance, with Christmas doin's, some of my sewing room got cluttered temporarily with both fabric and paper projects. That's not a bad thing unless I don't declutter. With decluttering and organizing, it returns to the condition that allows SEWING for 2024. And I've always said you can't really CLEAN until you have decluttered. You're going to have to do it consistently and in advance OR you'll still have to do it immediately before cleaning, which causes problems, delay and disappointment. Likewise, LAUNDRY depends somewhat on decluttering or you won't know the needs or even what you're doing. GARDEN, too - you've got to organize with that or where are your tools and what did you plan to buy/start, etc. And where will you actually be standing/lying/sitting when you EXERCISE? Unless you can get outside every day, you need to have an indoor plan for that, too, carved out from any clutter!

Anyway, just some thoughts on why DECLUTTER is my strategy for helping all my 6 main areas of focus for the upcoming year.

[blessedw2]

thank you d harriet!
I wrote your recommendations of decluttering, progress in my planner. It's a good way to focus.

I don't declutter in the summer but I should - at least I should declutter the outdoors patio, garage, garden etc.
I can't declutter in October through December but this year my focus will be to stay with the cleaning focus. This Christmas took was not good for gifts for family. I kept chasing them down all the way to the 24th of December. It won't happen this year - I had so much stress with gifts this year and it wasn't fun.

This October my plan is give a Christmas ho ho ho reminder with a bit of Christmas cheer gift: cookies what ever and a printed list from one of the sites you see online. I will put in big letters that if I don't receive their list by Thanksgiving that they will receive gifts that I choose and that they can no longer give ideas. Yes, I am being a bit of a Scrooge. Maybe I will do a poem about it.

Right now my decluttering for January is the 15 minute room by room work. If I find something to declutter, great; if not it's okay too. (At least things are getting done pick up and put away!)

[blessedw2]

the hard thing to get rid of right now is the potential planning catalogs for the garden. Deep down inside I know which catalogs I would by from.

I am also working on want or need:

I want the sunlit garden collection light shelves!
My imagination:
I will grow flower seedlings for people at the food pantry and give them pots and potting soil and extra seeds.
it's easy to want to get something if you have dreams of being a garden philanthropist.

Truth: I don't need it. I want it but don't need it. I have to also pay my cc back down before spring.
I need to do what I can with my garden - having this will only add to my stress and too much stuff.
How to make it simpler:
buy one grouping of seeds and give them to the center or
just continue growing veggies for dh to bring to food pantry.

It's amazing how my imagination can trick me with over purchasing and adding too much that I can't possibly do this year.

my next goal in the next 15 minutes - go through the new seed catalogs and only keep what is realistic.
kept 4 catalogs from about 10 catalogs.

[Nancy]

Tossed a broken dvd player.