2020 - banish the clutter

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

1. DO NOT PUT OFF TO TOMORROW WHAT CAN/SHOULD BE DONE TODAY

2. WRITE AND USE “TO DO LISTS” - MINIMUM 10 MINUTE BURSTS OF ACTIVITY UNTIL THE DECLUTTERING MOJO RETURNS (Thanks oceanspirit 👏)
3. LEAVE A ROOM TIDIER THAN WHEN I ENTERED
4. KITCHEN WILL BE LEFT CLEAN & TIDY EVERY NIGHT
5. WHEN DEALING WITH CLUTTER I WILL USE ‘Daisy1571’s idea of ‘WHAT WOULD I DO WITH THIS ITEM IF IT WAS SOMEONE ELSE’S?

Thursday was rain, rain and more rain ☹️ DH ventured out to get his hair cut. My decluttering today was 3 drawers in the wall unit. So successful that I now have one empty drawer 👏 The only other thing I did today was make a chilli con carne - takes forever but it was soooo tasty 😋 DH & I had with rice & soured cream - plenty fo more meals & freezer portions. DSis is not a lover of chilli so she had lo chicken pie & chips. 

495 - 507 Three magazines, newspaper, glass bottle, 2 Uu glass spice jars, cardboard packaging, egg carton, foil tray, bag of kitchen recycling, 1” leaflets/brochures from drawers - Recycled
508 - 509 Small bag of detritus from drawers, coffee tin of kitchen detritus
510 - 521 Dozen Atlanta 1996 pin badges to DSis
522 - 523 Ceramic decorative bell (no clanger 🤭), replica Atocha coin - CS bag

Yippee 🥳 a Gold Star ⭐️ for me 😂 

Good work Nicnak 👏 

Welcome aboard ldee2111 👋 Nice to see you. You have taken the first step on your decluttering journey by joining us 😉 Looking forward to reading about your successes 🙂

Such a shame about the coat hangers  stellata 🙁 but they are gone now so Well Done 👏 

Great work newlywed 👏 Wishing you continued success on the weight decluttering 🙂 At least the item is going straight back out rather than being put away & dealt with some time in the future 🤭 

Brilliant work ailz95 👏 Two more Gold Stars ⭐️  ⭐️ on their way to you - 39/52 CS bags & over 500 items out 👏 You have 4 Gold Stars to polish now 😉 

Oh dear never_too_old 🙁 Happy to say - no Tupperware so no problems 🤭 

Good work TC77 👏 Spring cleaning - what is that? 😂 With 2 of you decluttering 😉 you will soon be clear of clutter 😉

Good work nannywindow 👏 still decluttering - even if you are away with the fairies 😂 in Zombieland 😂 

Permanent Decluttering tboo 👏 VHS tapes out, NO DVDs in 👏 

Consistent decluttering shangaijimmy - well done 👏 Reclaim our homes - a succinct description of our decluttering challenge 😉

StickyTheStickInsect & Marpau - Reading your posts I nearly fell off the sofa laughing 😂 A great double act 👏 

See you later

MrsSD  ⭐️ 
494/2020

oceanspirit

Mrs SD, so good to read that you have cleared a drawer from the wall unit.  What's on the cards for this weekend?

2 boxes papers shredded/recycled
1 food item UU
2 items paperwork recycled
1 item CS

My desk is now clear - scooped it all up and spread it around the room so I can see what's there and will start sorting it a couple of pieces a day.

gilly1964

Hi All,
I have not been here since 15 January, 
The new forum was ticking me off, so not been logging on but then read that it works okay in Chrome so here I am.
De-cluttering has been on-going but too much to list here in one hit, so here are the main ones I remember

78 books of various styles to the CS
15 Uni books to WeBuyAny Books
152 items of various clothing to CS
1 laundry basket to CS
15 badminton rackets to the bin
6 kitchen knives to DD
1 wok to DD
then there has been leaflets, cans, glass, plastic, local papers to recycling
The above brings me to 575 without the recycling, so starting again from here

Keep up the good work everyone xx

gocurlygirl

Never heard of we buy any book - DD probably have suitable books for them
Now to begin.The 2020 challenge. Decluttering
Having seen Hoarders on tv I have to think thank goodness we are not in that league,but admit we have kept things `just in case '.
We either need more storage(I would like some smart new furniture -no excuse to keep things) or a good declutter.
Better still,both!
Here goes- 5 books to charity shop.
Trousers  and blouse to C S.
7 to begin.

Willowtree222

I found Ziffit pays more than we buy any book. x

elsien

3 items sold on ebay.
Including a pair of 14 year old headrests from my written off car. Who'd have thought it?  Although explaining why I'd hung on to headrests from  no longer existing car is somewhat beyond me. 

RepententHoarder

Well done for your gold star Mrs SD - keep it well polished!!
Re coat hangers - too late for Stellata (sorry) I have a friend who runs an ironing business and is always grateful for spare hangers - I doubt she’s the only one! 

Been a busy week in RL this week but managed a ‘shallow’ sort of a tall cupboard in kitchen. Got rid of several ood baking ingredients, halved my collection of glass cake stands (six is too many for anyone surely!!) and moving on my collection of jugs bought on holidays over the years. They’ll be a lovely splash of colour for someone and they are now clutter for me. I stopped collecting them several years ago so not a growing collection (thankfully). 

I’ll need to replace the baking ingredients when my arm is fully fit but right now the space is so satisfying ☺️☺️

In total another 19 items offloaded to CS and 2 to bin.
new total 529 😃😃😃
Looking after DGS tomorrow so no decluttering will be done and I’ll be slumped in an armchair all evening in a state of exhaustion!!
🤞 for good weather this weekend - the sunshine was such a joy today ☀️ 
Thanks for all the support fellow declutterers
RepentantHoarder

elsien

I'm hoping for good weather as well - car to clean and seeds to plant.

Jami74

Please can I join? I really need help, I am feeling so stressed and don't really know how to do this. What's worse, is that on top of the junk, dust is gathering. 

We have lived in this house for more than ten years and my kids have grown-up here. I was very minimalistic before kids but now we have ten years worth of outgrown toys and other junk. I have a whole toy box full of McDonald Happy Meal toys and little plastic party favours. I have boxes and boxes of books, some left over from my childhood (Stinking Enid Blytons with yellowed pages, none of them worth anything, mostly picked up at jumble sales in the eighties). Old mobile phones that no longer work (boxed and in pristine condition), outgrown ice-skates, a massive box of DVDs. Cables and cables and cables that may or may not fit any gadget we currently own. Gift bags saved for re-use but never the right size or design for what we need. Pictures and cards drawn over the years. Bottles of half filled perfumes, I just can't get through the stuff quick enough before another birthday or Christmas comes round (and I beg people every year to not give us 'stuff', yet still they do). Old candles, decorative and for the just-in-cases that never happen. Etc etc....

I am happy to get rid of stuff, but how?
Our rubbish bin is collected fortnightly and there is no room in the bin for any more than our basic kitchen and bathroom waste. I can take things to the tip, but I really hate throwing things away that may still have some use in them.
Our local charity shops don't want any more childrens books or DVDs.
Over the past couple of years I have periodically listed some items on my local Facebook selling pages, Friday Ad and Ebay and had no interest whatsoever. Years ago I used to sell quite a bit of stuff on ebay, but that was when it was more auction based. I don't necessarily want lots for it, but don't want to give it away to be sold on if I can make some money out of it. I am thinking of doing some car boot sales when they start for the toys and the more sellable items.

Sorry for such a long post. If anyone can offer any help or advice I would really appreciate it. I'm feeling very overwhelmed.

newlywed

Decluttered: 1 nail varnish, one miniature liquid soap used up, a fluffy make up remover cloth in a very bright colour that matches nothing so is a pain to wash, recycling. Decluttered a load of dust from my bedside cabinet and relocated the few bits on it. Now it’s tidier than the drawer (which incidentally has remained very tidy for a while now).

shoe rack is finished so cleaned the bottom of my wardrobe because boots no longer live there and relocated a yoga massage roller to the wardrobe as OH doesn’t like it in the front room. Some areas are starting to look tidier.

washed, dried and put away wine glasses from eBay that match my set and decluttered all packaging appropriately.

charity bag delivered.   

Time a new one was started... the two large skirts are still in the half way pile and I have a rain coat that’s too sticky and plastic like that has its days numbered