Hoarding - Springing Ahead

whitewing

My husband has poems etc that he has written. I think it is acceptable to keep it, in good storage boxes. For me, decluttering is about having the time and space to express my actual personality so keeping personal paperwork like this is very valid.

pigpen

Having run the flylady thread here for 3 years.. it really isn't overwhelming it is just not a constant bombardment of spam .. small successes are celebrated yeah you might not have washed your kitchen floor for 6 months but you have done it today! You may feel you have done nothing but 'nothing' is an awful lot.. There are a few newcomers who think they fail if they do not succeed in doing every single thing each day but if you do one thing you wouldn't normally do that is reason to celebrate and be positive.

also a lot of the people on the thread here have disabilities, illnesses, work full time are single parents or have other huge committments so they don't have time to read 20,000 emails full of claptrap and just want to crack on before they collapse in an exhausted heap.

I think the spam flylady is so mindbattering it puts you off after about 15 minutes.. if it works for you.. marvellous.. but I lasted about 20 minutes and 15 emails later they were blocked site was unjoined and slovenliness resumed.

Catriona_P

pigpen wrote: »

I think the spam flylady is so mindbattering it puts you off after about 15 minutes.. if it works for you.. marvellous.. but I lasted about 20 minutes and 15 emails later they were blocked site was unjoined and slovenliness resumed.

Wow, just had a look at the Flylady website and about 10 emails a day?! :eek: Surely that just creates email clutter? Lol.

pigpen

Catriona_P wrote: »

Wow, just had a look at the Flylady website and about 10 emails a day?! :eek: Surely that just creates email clutter? Lol.

I don't think there are enough hours in a day to read the emails and do the cleaning suggested!

idristhedragon

I found the actual flylady site with the emails hard work too. I also found the whole "making a folder of tasks" (control file or something) just appealed to my omnipresent inner dialogue that goes like this:
"TodayI am going to sort my life out. I am going to use flylady to do this. So I will go on amazon and buy flylady book. Flylady site/book says I must buy a folder and dividers to sort my life out. Great I need to go to Paperchase to buy this stuff. Paperchase is in the mall. great thats an all day trip and at least £50 of uneccesary spends. Bring it on"
*off i toddle to the mall, spend money I shouldnt, and dont start sorting house for another day*

I must admit I am currently sitting on my botty when I could be doing something useful BUT I have just spent an hour in the freezing/snowy park with the kids and the baby is asleep and the others are watching a film so Im enjoying 1/2 hours peace and quiet!

I cannot stress enough how much better my clear bedroom has made me feel. It is making me a bit more twitchy about the rest of the house. I was scowling at unused toiletries in the bathroom this morning and the boys room is making me positively wince everytime I go past. we are swapping big boy and littlest girls rooms at the mo so maybe I will enlist DH to help with that on our week off next week. Maybe then he will decide what to do with his stash of stuff in half of DDs room (equivalent of a loft) Golf clubs anyone? Boxed spaceman action man? Weird green alchohol? Snow boards?

I might do 40 bags in 40 days- can someone explain it in full to me. Does anyone else fancy joining in?

Catriona_P

idristhedragon wrote: »

I might do 40 bags in 40 days- can someone explain it in full to me. Does anyone else fancy joining in?

Basically, you declutter a bag a day (a bag of any size, your choice, I did carrier bags but others were doing bin bags), with whatever you want rid of, for 40 days. The bag doesn't have to go in the bin, it can go to charity, friends, sales, wherever, as long as its gone. It's more of a Lent thing but I see no reason why you can't do it any time of year. There is a Facebook group but it's mostly Americans (some of whom are quite religious, if that's not your thing) and the group is winding down as Easter's approaching.

There's plenty of links to pages via google if that helps. I found filling bags was the easy part, it was getting them out of the door that was difficult! And keeping a record helps with motivation. Good luck

idristhedragon

Thank you Catriona! It is a month tomorrow til my birthday so maybe I'll do a bag a day until then!
I really need to move two big bits of furniture in the playroom to get started on my declutter mission. Maybe I'll ask DD to help me now and get cracking. Sometimes theres just such a mental block on starting, isnt there!
I also really want the weather to cheer up so I can do a car booty!

blossomhill_2

Hi everyone
Just popping in with a few comments

The local dump is empty at the moment, it will be packed after Easter, if you can dump your kipple today, or tomorrow ...

I've done two trips today and it feels good to go when it's empty, makes me feel I am ahead of the game (just don't know what the game is)

2 large boxes of stuff going via freecycle tonight - I don't post up many offers, I just wait for someone to ask for something I have and think ... yup ... they want it they can have it

I ditched 2 items yesterday and seconds later realised I needed them for an alternative use ... but it's ok, they represent about 2% of what's gone out and 98% perfect is pretty damn good

2 really big items have gone back to the real owners, who paled when realising they'd have no more free storage!

DDDDDDDDDDDeeeeeeeee! Welcome back!

This_Year

idristhedragon wrote: »

I am so cheesed off with eBay BUT I have loads of good sellers to put on (perfume, high end high street jeans, shoes, etc) but I am also a month behind in my college work so need to prioritise non work hours. I did however notice that my feedback is back up to 100% today

.

Watch the perfume, Royal Mail have tightened up on what you can send with them, I've read where people had their package destroyed by RM as it contained perfume and then had to refund the buyer anyway. Would hate you to be out of pocket like that. I'm not 100% sure of the rules on that but please check

JayneC

Lobbyludd & Pavolov I agree about joining Flylady and I too find the thread on here too overwhelming (sorry pigpen) I quickly realised that it is impossible to keep up with all the e-mails so I only read the daily task and it does help. I've found the monthly habits have made the most difference, making my bed every day, doing a load of washing, swish n swipe (tho I confess that isn't always every day and I'm completely hopeless with the sink shining, although I mostly manage to wash up each evening now). It got to the point where I'd mostly already done the daily task so I don't follow it religiously now but it definitely helped me get on the right track.

Still not making much more progress - I'm needing a carboot too so hope the weather improves soon. I need to get stuff out so I can carry on and really can't afford to just be giving it away if I can make a profit from it. But I'm managing to keep my room and the bathroom clutter free(ish), so that's a plus.