DECLUTTERING

[Bijou]

<snip>

Seriously, I like selling them for scrap metal.  Maybe he can get something for them.  Or enter them as a modern art sculpture  .

I just had this flash visual of Bedazzling or hot glue gunning seashells or something on a broken fan and nearly laughed myself out of the chair. I just woke up and am a little punchy, I guess.   

Hey!  You've just given me an idea for a Christmas gift!  I just happen to have a broken portable oil heater, a whole bunch of sea shells, a jar of buttons  and a hot glue gun.  I also came across some fancy edging you would normally use on pillow cases or something.  All I have to do is pick up some glitter and artificial flowers.

[gmatoy]

<snip>

Seriously, I like selling them for scrap metal.  Maybe he can get something for them.  Or enter them as a modern art sculpture  .

I just had this flash visual of Bedazzling or hot glue gunning seashells or something on a broken fan and nearly laughed myself out of the chair. I just woke up and am a little punchy, I guess.   

A whole new version of a wind farm!

[Dazi]

The garage cleaning went pretty well this weekend.  It didn't get quite finished, but definitely an improvement.  I got a bit sunburnt though, lugging all that stuff out to the garbage. 

My exercise calculator is full of crap though, it shows that I only burned 500 calories. HA!  I had to have burned at least twice that. 

[Cricket]

I'm so happy for all your successes! I am finding this thread motivating - in that I have so much to declutter that when I feel like there is just too much to do, I come in here and read what ya'll have been doing. I just remind myself, "One step at a time."

I think my mini-meltdown a month ago (pg 2) must have hit home with DH. He has actually been taking stuff out of the shed and to the dump! This week out electric jug needed replacing. Now, normally DH would take the old jug up to he shed, "just in case."  This time, he said, "Well, I guess we should throw out the old jug" AND HE DID right there and then

[guihong]

I belong to another site that specializes in decluttering and cleaning, but I'm not sure if we're allowed to plug other sites out here.  Anyone interested can PM me (I think that's OK). 

For me, my latest "victory" was cleaning out the truck (an Explorer).  All kinds of DD's shoes, towels from swimming, notebooks, and trash.  Now my rule is "If it goes into the car, it comes back out".

 I just want a clean, organized home and vehicles. 

[siamesecat2965]

I'm so happy for all your successes! I am finding this thread motivating - in that I have so much to declutter that when I feel like there is just too much to do, I come in here and read what ya'll have been doing. I just remind myself, "One step at a time."

I think my mini-meltdown a month ago (pg 2) must have hit home with DH. He has actually been taking stuff out of the shed and to the dump! This week out electric jug needed replacing. Now, normally DH would take the old jug up to he shed, "just in case."  This time, he said, "Well, I guess we should throw out the old jug" AND HE DID right there and then

I do this with my "normal" cleaning too. While I only have a 1BR apt, it can start out clean, then get messy as the week goes on. I've also timed myself on chores I detest, such as unloading the DW. I found it takes me less than 3 minutes to do that, so it didn't seem quite as daunting.

and then I'll either try and clean one thing; like the top of my coffee table, or going through the whole apt, and taking care of all the paperwork, then clothes, etc. its not quite as bad that way, and 9 times out of 10, its neat again in a very short time.

[Ms_Cellany]

I've really taken to Flylady's motto that "you can do anything for 15 minutes," and to focus on hot spots - places that tend to accumulate books, mail, and other clutter.

The Sweetie now says, "Can we declare the end table a hot spot tonight?" or I'll set the timer for 15 minutes to clear stuff out of my truck, or I'll get out the vacuum and do *just* the walking portion of one room.

[Lynn2000]

POD to the last two posts. I found that I increased my willingness to clean a great deal by 1) timing how long it actually took me to do things, and thus realizing it didn't actually take that long; and 2) realizing I could do a little bit every day instead of one huge thing all at once that I would keep putting off.

I've also found that doing something regularly helps it go faster and be less painful to me. When I was cleaning the bathroom irregularly, for example, and dreading it, it seemed to take forever and was an onerous chore. Now I do it every week, usually Sunday afternoon, and since I know what I need to do (having done it so often now) I often just think about something else, and look up with surprise to find I'm 2/3 done.

[siamesecat2965]

POD to the last two posts. I found that I increased my willingness to clean a great deal by 1) timing how long it actually took me to do things, and thus realizing it didn't actually take that long; and 2) realizing I could do a little bit every day instead of one huge thing all at once that I would keep putting off.

I've also found that doing something regularly helps it go faster and be less painful to me. When I was cleaning the bathroom irregularly, for example, and dreading it, it seemed to take forever and was an onerous chore. Now I do it every week, usually Sunday afternoon, and since I know what I need to do (having done it so often now) I often just think about something else, and look up with surprise to find I'm 2/3 done.

I also try and get it done FIRST - before I take a shower at night and settle down to the tv. this way, its done, over with, i can shower and then relax. I've also started making sure my kitchen counters are clear of stuff and wiped down each night. its sounds small, but it really makes a big difference. 

[GlitterIsMyDrug]

I love decluttering. I blame living with my grandma, she grew up in foster care for much of her youth and moving from home to home didn't have much stuff to call her own, so as adult kept everything. Love her to death, but the woman loves her stuff.

Our recent clean out was our closet. See...I like shoes...and purses...and clothes. And so does my partner. Our lovely walk in closet was busting at the seems mostly with stuff we don't wear...or even like! So we started sorting stuff out, it was actually easier to just move what we liked to the closet in the guest bedroom then to actually take out what we didn't want. Then I had a brain storm and called up three very lovely, very broke, young women I happen to know. All three of whom are about our size and in desperate need of clothes that for things like job interviews, office jobs, and even just wanting to update their styles from high school (one recent grad, the other two are two years into college), to young adult. We let them go wild in our closet. If its in there, we don't want it and you can have it was our motto. It took one afternoon and we got our closet back! Whatever they didn't want got brought to the women's shelter and we were done! We also received three lovely hand written thank you notes for the "new to them" clothes and a fun afternoon (we got yummy food and made mocktails for the girls, it was fun).

We've also been helping my mom declutter. She's going from a three bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment. She can't even figure out how she's accumulated so much stuff! Things from her parents (her living parents FYI, just stuff they didn't want anymore), she kept holding onto, so I took pictures, sent them to my grandparents who hadn't the foggiest clue what most of these things were or where they came from (some they didn't even remember owning themselves!) so out the door they went.

Then we got to the "stuff I no longer want but can't just give away to goodwill because it's useful to someone I'm just not sure who", the woman tried multiple times to get us to take this set of dishes. Nice dishes. But..we have two sets of dishes already. We simply don't need them. Finally I gave up and started texting my friends, who knew someone who was in need of some nice basic dishes. Low and behold I got a hit! Single mom, just moved into her own place with her daughter, in desperate need of household items. My mom cheerfully loaded up this girl's car with household items (dishes, pots and pans, a food processor, a vacuum cleaner, two mops, and even two area rugs), not to mention the stuff she found for the little girl. My mom has this need with the stuff she gives up, it needs to go to someone who she knows will use it, apparently the fact that people in thrift stores need this stuff doesn't work for her.

And shredding. Oh shredding. I've given up on doing my own shredding. That just isn't going to happen. I broke two shredders. Then I found out my credit union has shred bins. The big kind with the pad lock, company picks them up once a week and the stuff goes and gets shredded, pulverized, and burned. I go once a month with our shred stuff, dump it off, and I'm done.

The partner moved in two years ago and we're still trying to fit our stuff in one place together. The truth, we need less stuff! Like...only one set of dishes, only one vacuum (we have 3 and we only have carpet in the bedrooms), we just haven't tackled it yet...two years later...

[Bijou]

Did I mention that I heard that starting a load of clothes in the washing machine was motivating and helped to focus on other cleaning?  I guess it's the sound and that you already feel like you are doing somthing but it isn't hands on.  I think this works.  So does the CD of Al green's Greatest Hits. 

[LadyJaneinMD]

The partner moved in two years ago and we're still trying to fit our stuff in one place together. The truth, we need less stuff! Like...only one set of dishes, only one vacuum (we have 3 and we only have carpet in the bedrooms), we just haven't tackled it yet...two years later...

That's what I keep telling people!  They tell me, 'You need to get a bigger place,' and I say, 'I don't need more room, I need Less Stuff!'   

[Lynn2000]

The partner moved in two years ago and we're still trying to fit our stuff in one place together. The truth, we need less stuff! Like...only one set of dishes, only one vacuum (we have 3 and we only have carpet in the bedrooms), we just haven't tackled it yet...two years later...

That's what I keep telling people!  They tell me, 'You need to get a bigger place,' and I say, 'I don't need more room, I need Less Stuff!'   

I say the exact same thing! I have a pretty small apartment anyway, but most of the stuff filling it is decorative, for lack of a better word. Someday I would like to have someplace bigger, for many reasons but partly so my stuff doesn't look so crowded and I can actually enjoy it more, so it isn't such a hassle to get things out and put them away; but I don't think that letting my stuff push me into a larger house is really a good idea, psychologically.

[gmatoy]

So, this week I went over 250 Barbie dresses and started to cut out the Christmas "lounging pants" (PJ bottoms made of polar fleece, but if you call them PJ's people expect tops even though they only wear T-shirts, so lounging pants they are!) I cleared enough space on the book shelves to move some things which in turn frees up a space on the floor. Go, me!

It is a slow thing, but I'm trying to do something each and every day.

[Bethalize]

There was a person upline who had lost a lot of weight but didn't want to get rid of her "large" cloths and was going to store them. 

Dr. Phil would tell you that you are giving yourself permission to gain the weight back; that by getting rid of them, you are committing yourself to your new "self" and won't backslide to the previous "self".

So take those big clothes to Goodwill/Salvation Army and celebrate your new self with cute, well-fitting clothing!!!

That was me.

Dr Phil can say that if he likes, but as nearly everyone does regain the weight they lost that's magical thinking.  Peer reviewed research shows that if you are aware that you may regain the weight at any moment you are less likely to, like alcoholics knowing they are in danger of falling off the wagon.  Certainly the number of people who go from "Fat" to "Thin" and stay there is statistically rounded down to zero percent
http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/fat-officially-incurable-according-to-science/

I get that people say that kind of thing meaning to be helpful but frankly they aren't because they aren't true. Statements like Dr Phil's are fat shaming and I reject that one on the grounds of being downright wrong.