Hello Everyone

We are having an early brush with Spring this weekend and the extra sunshine has illuminated my poor neglected cluttered spaces in my home and studio. Do you have clean up/clear out/renovate/remodel/remove/donate/discard piles and spaces where you live or work, or in the car or out in the backyard? Post your to-do lists, your accomplishments, your successes and your challenges here. I and others have found that as we succeed in our environments these positive changes are reflected in all areas of our life including our food and our eating. Change begets change. Post as often or as infrequently as you wish.

Hello

It's like I needed the two full days of sunshine to get charged up enough to begin the declutter process once more. Over the fall and the winter my apartment has really fallen back into disarray. My depression over my inability to master cleaning up and discarding overtook me and I, simply, ignored it. I can't cope with it anymore though so I have begun a *thorough from the beginning* assessment/evaluation/elimination/re-assignment off my earthly possessions. I need to simplify and shift focus this year so I really don't need as much stuff. I will call this Goal One.

Goal Two is to only cover the cost of the locker one more month. Payment comes due Feb 22. To be rid of the locker, I have to notify them in two weeks, so let's say Monday March 6th. So this goal is reduced to two parts.

Part A: Feb 20 to Mar 6
clear out space to receive the stuff that can't be discarded
"space"is available in three places: apartment/studio/studio storage

Part B: Mar 6-Mar 20(vernal equinox)
sort through stuff in locker bit by bit

DAILY: 15 min to 120 min making decisions about my stuff. Once I am through my obvious messes, I want to tackle bookcases and drawers, closets. Even consider furniture pieces.

UPDATE re: today I... emptied and broke down two small boxes and started a garbage bag for discards. I have also found items I want to sell online and will begin this today too.
Today:

Thanks for starting this thread, onebyone. I always welcome these decluttering threads.

There are several areas that need to be sorted out here, mostly stemming from the fact that I bought an excellent cabinet to store our clothes in, and there were knock-on effects. The cabinet has transformed getting dressed in the morning so that is all good! Now to tackle the collateral effects.

I think I will look at one book a day on the pile on the big drawer, make a decision about its future and act upon it.

Book 1 - How Things Work. From aerosols to zippers.
If this is any good, I think it's going to go in the hands-on, practical DIY section. I'll look at it this evening.

This is going to be good!

[/QUOTE]
Book 1 - How Things Work. From aerosols to zippers.
If this is any good, I think it's going to go in the hands-on, practical DIY section. I'll look at it this evening.

This is going to be good![/QUOTE]

Silverbirch! I already want that book! I hadn't considered mulling over a book at a time and posting it here. I am going to join you in that once I am at that stage. For now, one of the boxes I emptied had about 30 ceramic magazines from the 70's and 80's saved from the discard pile at the potters' guild. I removed them from a box and put them on a bookshelf. Alo about5 regular books have been placed on shelves. Books, and magazines, and flyers from past art shows are a big issue for me.

I look forward to reading about your process re: tackling your clutter and of your success!!

Yes. I quite understand this. I have a number of things I've saved simply because of the pre-computer typography ... I'm in favour of space but I'm also in favour of beauty.

Perhaps I shouldn't give the book titles here because you're going to want them all ...

Oh, I don't know!

Onward!

Silverbirch... Please share the titles if you want! I'm OK! You're going to want what I have too. And then we'll both decided while we want them, needing them and housing them are a different story...Yes? Yes!]

TASK
Part A: Feb 20 to Mar 6
a) clear out space to receive the stuff from the locker that can't be discarded
b) "space"is available in three places: apartment/studio/studio storage

DAILY: 15 min to 120 min making decisions about my stuff.
*so far 60 min spent
*have broken down 5 boxes & sorted their contents

Yes, I've sorted the contents and now I have another, new, growing pile, which needs to be sorted further. these are all art materials and paperwork related to artwork. I have thrown away much more than I have kept. And I have made space once again on the dining room floor.

Next I will work to clear off the chaise once again and the coffee table top and below it. If possible I will also clear the space in front of the tv again. These three areas are truly my "hotspots" where everything always lands and gets DH down to see the constant mess.

OneByOne - Just a question on the areas that collect stuff ... do you need a coffee table? Or is it just a spot to place things? I had one and then when I passed it on, I realized that cut down magnificently on a place that clutter could pile. Mine is currently the end of my dining room table where we don't sit, so I've had to commit to having it cleaned off of the mail, periodicals, meal plans, coupons, whatever, each night because I hate to see it and waking up to it was getting me down, even if it was just a couple of things, it meant (to me) that I wasn't keeping my word to myself.

Got "approval" from DH to pass on the enormous glass vase his mom gave us a few years ago. It's too big to use for arrangements and even when I bought glads to put in there, I had to trim the bottom buds to get the stems in there... YAY. One big thing will be gone this weekend. It's just sat on the floor by the wall shelves. That will trigger another culling for Goodwill.

I'm torn between passing on TOO much and then having to spend money to replace things (well, not the vase, but things I'd use down the line) - trying to balance the fewer things with finances.

Onebyone, you are doing so well!

From aerosols to zippers has gone into the charity shop bag - it came from a charity shop in the first place. It is primarily a physics book and the DB tells me he reads other things when he reads around the subject - no-one here needs it.

Today's book is King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green, published in 1953 and reprinted many times. Mine is from 1976. It has the most beautiful cover and illustrations by Lotte Reiniger and here I must thank onebyone for encouraging me to talk about each book. Lancelyn Green is a great British children's author and I bought this book in a charity shop, admiring the illustrations and not knowing that Reiniger is very famous for her early animation work. I'll put it on my bedside table on the 'to read again' pile (read another Arthurian book recently) and then will keep the book.

Note to Bill, if you're reading. Some of the DB's best books over the years came from charity shops, books which are no longer available in most bookshops, with great stories, excellent illustrations and phenomenal writing. I mention this because I'm sure your DGD is already a reader!

I hope to process a yellow folder about an old planning argument this evening.

Silverbirch - I'm going to enjoy your book finds here as well ... I've kept all books we've come across lately, in hopes of building/creating our own Little Free Library here and having a lot to start it off and supplement it with... That was to be a project for DH and me...but real home repairs keep coming up. I love getting ideas from images of them.

Nationalparker: I also want to.build a little free library. There are.none in this town.

Update: cleared off chaise. Broke down 5 boxes. Kept one sturdy one to put printmaking supplies in. Have another for ceramic.supplies
Have thrown out a lot of paper into recycling. I do have this (see picture) an ice skater ornament that I think was attached to a Xmas present when my older sister was doing Christmas up big! I was going to throw it away but I think I will disassemble it instead. I may be able to use its construction method in my ceramic work coming up. A maquette of sorts, in which case it goes in the ceramic.bin!! Yay.

Going to do dishes.and kitchen table and table at end of that table. Want to be done before DH is home.

Coffee table will wait. Living room looks to be in bigger mess than before. Oh well. At least the mess is different.

Bye PS. Sorry for the extra periods. On my phone...

Good morning,

Thanks to onebyone for starting this thread. I think I am practicing avoidance about clutter. Our basement has way too much stuff in it. This may give me incentive to go down to the basement and clear things out. There is so much stuff that others could be using.
I will have to come up with a plan to do this.
Silverbirch how fun to share titles of your books.

This is a great approach to have. It's something the DB has told me he thinks when he's clearing out things. (Tiny room so he's learnt this lesson early!)

Glad you like the book titles. Today's is The Timetables of History. A horizontal linkage of people and events. This is a big book, bought by the SO a number of years ago because he thought it was a great idea. It has six columns for areas of endeavour (eg, history and politics; science, technology, growth; daily life) and rows for years. The idea is you can look up a year and see what was happening in all the different areas. I agree it's a great idea; the DB agrees it's a great idea. None of us has ever opened it to use it, and none of us can see that we're going to. Into the charity bag!

(I'd never heard of the Little Free Library so thanks for mentioning it, nationalparker and onebyone.)

I put yesterday's yellow folder into my briefcase to take to work where there is a good shredder. All the contents are for shredding.

The next folder is green and is called DIY (Do It Yourself). It seems to contain a series of carefully cut out newspaper articles dating from around 1990. I'll deal with that tomorrow.

KarenRN and anyone else reading.

My husband and I have been trying to up our game when it comes to cleaning, organizing, decluttering, etc. We have our weekly cleaning hour on Sundays when we do bigger tasks. We are trying to slowly increase this time. Last week we did 1 hour 15 minutes.

Each Sunday we also pick a cupboard to clear and clean out. So far we have cleared out three cabinets since we started this a month ago.

This weekend I am going to clear out some items. A couple of dressers, a craft table, and some odds and ends. We actually don't have that much stuff but I don't like having stuff I don't use.

I got rid of a 20 volume craft book series a few weeks ago. I loved that thing! I had it for about 15 years. However, I never used it and it has been collecting dust and just taking up a lot of room.

This weekend's goal is to get rid of at least one dresser, the craft table, my husband's old clothes, our old coats, and decide what to do with (fix or sell) my antique bed. We will be doing quite a bit of hauling.

I just love decluttering. It gives me something to do besides eating and gets my heart pumping. Plus it's free. I'm still vacillating between selling or donating the bigger furniture pieces. I don't think I have the time,energy or desire to post an online ad. We shall see!

Happy decluttering!

That all sounds good, Cinnamonhearts.

We had a power cut yesterday and that changes everyone's plans, as you know. I turned to a bit of decluttering. I got rid of one V pillow, two cardboard boxes (thought of you, onebyone) and the DB and I went through a lot of tools, screws and nails. Plus a few other things. We're both feeling pretty good about it and keep congratulating one another.

I also started considering French love poetry, a selection in parallel (French one side of the page, English the other side of the page). I think I'd better keep it because (1) the SO gave it to me (2) I have a professional interest in translation (3) I'm interested in French (4) I studied a number of these poets when I was 17. But somehow I want to get rid of it ... No need to overthink this. I'll just find a place on the poetry shelves and put it there for the time being.

No progress on the DIY folder yet.