2023 DECLUTTERING CAMPAIGN Mrs SD

EnergyShifter

Arghhhh. I've had my first experience of losing a long post - frustrating..... 

This will have to do as I haven't got the energy to rewrite it....  

Busy & emotional weekend socially, busy week work wise & DS & I had an impromptu declutter of the "office" yesterday - it started as a flipping of the rug (covers almost all of the floor so furniture needed to be moved) and ended with demolishing a set shelves and reconfiguring the room.

Tasks:

Reconfigured "office"

IN (running total 109)

0

OUT (running total 436) 

437. Shelving unit

438. Small table

439. old flip chart and other detritus

440 - 444. 5 x books

Love to all  

Dfw38

Thanks @TC77 and @Moorviews! Ziggy is very loving, and also a rascal! Going to spend the day at home and start sorting through. I have a tip slot booked for tomorrow and will run anything I can to the cs. Action stations! Hope everyone has a lovely day 😻

Florenceem

First morning with no number to add to my decluttering total. This isn't because I have finished - just such a busy day yesterday out of the house. Plus looking after Mr F takes time - he used to do certain things that I am now doing.
Washing machine is on.
Got ironing to do.
Need to go shopping today.

Siebrie

My downstairs loo is situated underneath the stairs in the hallway, so it's triangular. The pointy part has 2 deep shelves, which house my gardening books, vacuum accessories, bottles of personal care stuff (shampoo, body wash, etc) contained in a nice halfhigh cardboard box with wood print (supermarket, contained avocados or something similar), bottles and boxes of household care stuff (wu liquid, all purpose cleaner, dishwasher tablets, etc) (in similar box), a shoebox of hotel soaps, and underneath it all is a very large fancy cardboard box with paper items (kitchen roll, toilet roll, female hygiene, etc).

I'm looking for a replacement for the large box, because it is starting to sag, but it's not urgent.

I have removed the 2013* issues of Gardener's World from the gardening books shelf, and will pass them on to a friend. In between that pile of GW are some home improvement magazines and some Dutch gardening magazines, a total of about 3kgs. I have reread the GW issues several times, but the last year their place had gone stagnant; time to get the 'air' or 'energy' flowing again.

* I just realised that the wording is ambiguous; it's the year 2013, not 2013 individual magazines!

Gers

After a long while of only doing maintenance, also know as inertia, I've now mostly emptied my only wardrobe. Three far too big jackets two far too big edge-to-edge cardigans three far too large and never worn tops and four unloved and unused mugs. Plus two woollen blankets, all going to Barnardos later today.

As for sentimental stuff, I still have a small number of beautiful table clothes which my grandmother either embroidered or did pulled thread work on. Of course, I have no use of them and there's only one granddaughter in the family.  Not many people use a formal table cloth today and I don't even have a table!  I'm clinging on for goodness know what - I'm sure they'll be edged out later this year. Meanwhile I am keeping my late DM's two favourite tea mugs which I bought her more than 12 years ago from Marks. She wouldn't drink tea out of any other mugs, said it didn't taste right. These I will use even if they are on the small tall side.

Memories shouldn't be invested in things when they stifle life, I must repeat, remember and react to it!

Reading what everyone is doing here is really inspiring, thank you all for sharing it.

Siebrie

@Gers I use my embroidered table cloths when we sit or eat outside. I was hesitant, because they are embroidered and a lot of work went into them, and they are very nice, but in the end I decided that it was better to use them than have them linger in a drawer or wardrobe.

2Scratters

@TC77 we all love thinking of happier times. Having an item that holds these reminders, it is probably holding us back and not being/wanting to move on to find more happier times that are there waiting for us in the future. Maybe have a memory box, small items only, so not to hold onto too many and then let the other physical ones go.

2 Scratters xx

QueenJess

Still feeling terrible today and like I haven't slept at all (must be me fighting off the infection). Had DS's sports day in my diary today as I put them in at the start of the year/term when all the dates come out.  Apparently it isn't today at all and is next week.  I know I wouldn't have got it wrong, so I must have missed a subscript somewhere when they changed the date.  Feeling like a bit of a failure as everyone else seems to be on top of all this stuff and I just can't seem to keep up with anything.  I can't keep up with emails as I get way too many, so I need to make more progress and faster on cutting them down wherever possible.

I looked at all the personal emails I received yesterday and categorised them - I got 16 in total (I personally would like less than 5, although not sure if that is possible...):

• 4 - related to deliveries (mainly the same one!).  I try to limit orders as much as possible because of this, plus obviously other decluttering/minimalist and money saving aims
• 3 - kids stuff.  Not much I can do here sadly, although I should get on top of the orders/cancellations for holiday club/after school club so I can just do it in a single bulk email.
• 1 - sales I made I have to deal with   This is a return and the one that made me just give everything away and cancel my other sales.
• 5 - surveys.  This is obviously more of an issue. I just cancelled and deleted 2 surveys that were very slow burners and I just don't have time to do (yes I had cash in there that I forfeited, but it would have taken years to cash out and I need my time back more).  I have 1 I get emailed that I enjoy and another one that I enjoy if I have the time.  There was a test for the latter one, so I might filter to get that one going straight to trash to see if I enjoy the quiet as I can't bring myself to cancel the account for now.
• 3 - finances stuff.  2 related to interest rate increases, but they spam you for every account you have with them.  I tend to ignore them and check on rates periodically, but can't opt out of these.  I set up an email filter to divert these ones straight to the bin.  The other one was rubbish, but I can't think of a way to filter it out based on the title as there is a risk I will miss something actually important.  Will see how many more of these I receive.

Doesn't help the overwhelm, but I did realise that my even more minimalist approach to the house also needs to be applied to all my digital stuff.  I looked at my laptop and notice I have 21,999 files on there (although that includes all the photos I've ever taken!).  Interestingly only around 13k of them were in photos although obviously they take up most of the space.  I am slowly going through the documents file purging everything I can in there.

I also need to finish the house, but there are no quick wins anymore and it will be a slow progress to get there.  Need to keep some motivation up to get through it, but currently seem to have run out of steam.  Will try to keep trudging through the library stuff until I see some progress in there.  I think it may be as much about tidying as it is about decluttering in there.  I don't think it does me any good to work in a mess everyday though.  Maybe I should start small and log 10 books into the app and start on clearing the desktop for a feel good factor.   May be back later to report..

Digital:
18,345-18,346 - unsubscribed from emails
18,347-18,440 - deleted documents
18,441-18,442 - online account deleted

nannywindow

Hello I didn't feel well yesterday. I hadn't slept the night before as I was coughing, sneezing, shivering and had a runny nose, so spent yesterday either in bed or cwtched up on the sofa. I felt a bit better this morning although I'm still coughing, so we decided to do a tip trip. We were getting everything ready at the front of the house when the scrappy man passed. He asked if he could have some of the things and then he took half of it (mostly the big stuff 👏) so he saved us making 2 trips, plus he was very polite. Fabulous timing that. We now need to break down the old fence panels along with anything else I can unearth, then hopefully we can go to the tip again next week 🤞. The tip was quite empty of cars too so it must be a good time to go.
Gers I still use a tablecloth every day but then my table is a very heavy old round one that was left to me by my Great Aunt who passed away in 1986. I also have the matching chairs and the welsh dresser, sadly they don't make them like that any more.
Hugs to anyone in need.
nan

Wednesday2000

I totally forgot about cleaning the washing machine! I just did a load of laundry and it came out fine, luckily. It is drying outside. It feels much warmer today and I think the weekend will be nice weather too which is good as I'm going out.

I had such a restful sleep last night. I think I am going to have reflexology much later in the day from now on so if I get any side effects I can just sleep them off. I feel so much better today.

I have made up the donation bag, three hardback books (including the Dilly one, I did flick through it again) one skirt and two tops. I added some arm weights that I bought and never used. They are too heavy for me and I hurt my shoulder last year so they are gathering dust in a drawer. 

I am going to give all the upstairs surfaces a good dusting and move some things around as I have a couple of empty shelves now.

I want to start buying fresh flowers next week for the downstairs living room as I haven't done that for a while and I really like how they brighten up a room. A trip to Aldi is on the cards next week.:)