June 2021 Sort, Tidy, Declutter!

[Harriet]

What are your SORTING tips? Do you ever take a pile/stack/drawer/contents off to another location to be sorted? Do you dump out and perhaps vacuum before considering each item, and whether it's worthy of going back to its space?

Some people sort clothes closets inside the closet only, some by flopping all clothing onto their bed. Marie Kondo even bypassed the bed, and advised flopping every stitch of clothing into piles on the floor of another room.

What's the most helpful sorting item you use? For instance, is your "junk drawer" simply that, or do you have a drawer insert with cubbies, that forces you to sort a little before you close the drawer on a newly added item?

Let us know your wisdom! Who knows how much sanity you may save!

[Nancy]

I cannot deal with a whole room at a time but I have had success with a drawer or shelf or even half a shelf.
In the shop last summer I put things out on the staging area I set up in the carport from the shop shelving aka half sheet of
plywood cut lengthwise works great one year an old bb back board was the sorting surface. I kept old chicken coop doors to upcycle
and they have been sorting surfaces as well. I have a trash can next to it for items being tossed, and place for keep items, and something to put dontanation items in. Instead of hauling them I had folks come pick them up.

[blessedw2]

dear Harriet thank you so much for starting us for June! it is always a joy to say hello to everyone here - yes it is a joy to say hello with everyone - everywhere- on SHEs Organized!

hello d Nancy. I am the same with decluttering.

Me:
I do a toss out once every other week - surface looking without thought - through drawers.
I no longer go through a big area and emptying - it doesn't work for me as I make a bigger mess.
(it overwhelms me and overwhelms me).
I do the container method - slow but sure - it's become so much easier to see what I actually can do and keep. I learned you can't organize stuff - once I realized that I couldn't organize myself out clutter made me be able to have organized spaces. When there is too much on a shelf, a space, a room or a house then it can not be organized. (that's moving things and not organizing).
I also know my clutter style. I need like things together and the items have to be visible (clear containers - if containers at all) behind my closet, cabinet doors. I easily like things out on counters while I am working - problem with that: if the counters are filled then nothing gets done. my clutter style is limited to the clutter I can handle (clutter threshold). - which is not a whole lot.

What's been great: I find things to donate at least once a week - now without overwhelming thought. the more I declutter - and don't buy - the better I feel.

[Nancy]

I had a small bag of stuff odds and ends of disposable containers ready to go in the trash when it had room,
there was room this week got that tossed yea!

[blessedw2]

woo hoo!! rah rah rah!
yay d Nancy!!!

[Harriet]

Right now we have a dumpster in the driveway, a covered trailer in the back yard.

After various SORTING, the idea is to take items to them, but it sure is complicated by lots of things. The super hot weather concerns me for items I might put into the enclosed metal trailer. Also, so many things are "on the fence" about whether they will work for a move to new spaces, without ways to try them out. I fear I will want to have the dumpster back later and it will be too late!

One (count 'em, one) item of furniture could make the permanent move so far - a wooden chair that would be easy to wipe paint spatters off. Nothing else, even small kitchen items, can go because closets and cabinets aren't painted yet.

Sent to Habitat for Humanity: dstepson's old fridge, old washer/dryer, an arcade game, a grill, dstepdil's exercise machine of some type, and a chest of drawers. That cleared all but one stack out of the house, which is under a tarp, and one furniture item from that also has a place to go with dd22 tomorrow.

So that house is virtually naked, lol. While this house looks like a tornado whooshed by.

The donations in the trunk of the car right now are: an aromatherapy diffuser, unopened; an industrial-size tape dispenser, unopened; a towel rod, unopened; a baby gate and a furnace filter which is now the wrong size but unopened. Oh, also an unopened toilet seat needs to go in.

[Harmony]

Harriet, that sounds amazing. How long do you get to keep the dumpster?

[blessedw2]

well done d Harriet! glad you got a dumpster - so freeing (a lot of work but if anyone can do it - it is you and your d family).
cheering you on during your day!
lovely that you donated to Habitat for Humanity!