September's Dynamic Declutter, 2014

[Harriet]

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!

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! 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.

[Nancy]

I have dropped off donations this weekend.

[FelineFriend]

The only thing I decluttered today was hang up a few things in our bedroom, take dirty laundry to the utility room, and sorted mail in my purse, while at the store waiting for DH to get my rescue inhaler. Then, when I got home, some of what was sorted, which was junk mail or ads, went into the burn bag and the 6 letters, I'm slowly reading through now.

I learned that if you receive a lot of letters, you can read them and either highlight them, to know what to reply to, as you read, if something strikes your fancy. OR you can use red ink pen (my method) and write notes, beside what they say, to refer to them and something similar in my life. Then, when it's time to write letters, you write them quicker, you get them decluttered out of the house and into the mailbox and on their journey.

In October, usually, our local burn ban for outdoor burning is lifted. If we have an unusually wet Sept., it's lifted in Sept. The notice is on the reader board at the fire hall. WHEN the burn ban is lifted, DH will burn trash, boxes, etc... This means I should read and purge some journals, because I'm only keeping pages, which are sentimental or can be turned into stories or poems. Also, I'll keep journals, which touch my heart strings. I have 44 of them, not counting my morning pages spiral notebooks. So it's time to declutter, but what a wonderful way of spending this time, doing this job.

[FelineFriend]

To declutter today I -

1- took the dirty laundry from the bedroom and put it in the utility room.
2- sorted the mail, putting labeled things with my address on them, into burn.
3- tidied the eating bar, but the counters need to be done.
4- tidied the end tables, but they're too, a WIP.

[FelineFriend]

Today, we decluttered together, mostly:

1- the sheets off the bed, washed, put away.
2- the towels in the bathrooms, washed, put away.
3- the dining room table.
4- the eating bar.
5- the DW/sink area.

[Harriet]

I definitely had enough in my donation stack to gather into bags. 2 tall kitchen garbage bags going.

A particle-board desk that was no longer usable and driving HRH crazy was broken apart by HRH and tossed. I'm sure that was good for taking out frustrations.

Bought 4 Rubbermaid-type storage containers. This is for ongoing organization.

[Nancy]

I dropped off donations this weekend yea getting that in to my rounds is a good thing.

[FelineFriend]

DH had slippers, which were too large for his feet, so he'd clomp-clomp-CLOMB the heels of them, when he walked about the house. It's been going on for several months. I kept saying to myself how he sounded like an old Clydesdale horse on a cobblestone road! Today, lucky for me, DH bought new slippers at Costco. When he got home, he put his old slippers in the garbage. I'm so glad.

We decluttered the eating bar from DH's Costco trip and another grocery store stop, by putting everything away.

I hung up my nightclothes in our bedroom, folded a blanket, and sorted the mail mess, so that's been decluttered,too. DH put the dirty laundry from our bedroom into the utility room, so that's been done and he took out the kitchen garbage bag to the can outdoors.

I emptied the DW, so that's in a sense, has been decluttered, too.

But most of all, I decluttered "stinking thinking." I was ill this a.m., I napped 2 short naps, this a.m., too, and FlyLady said something that resonates with me. She says, "KEEP CALM - FLY ON!" It makes things, which ordinarilly overwhelm me, puts them into perspective, and I remember not to sweat the small stuff. I have an anxiety disorder, so when she says keep calm, it means something to me. Relax! And Fly On, means to me, FLY = finally loving yourself. So I made this quote a reminder to come to my inbox 2 times daily, as a reminder,to refresh myself and thinking. So, yes, today I decluttered "Stinking thinking," because I was so sick and my self-talk and my thoughts weren't positive relaxing ones.

[Nancy]

More donations went today a half of a trunk load yea!

[FelineFriend]

I decluttered the kitchen, dining room table, and my great room end table.

After working today, I decluttered my desk.

We're getting ready for DD's sleepover tomorrow night.

I decluttered the floor area around my great room chair, put 1 tote away, etc...