Hello.

A little over 5 weeks until we are officially in fall. Seems far away and close at the same time! What would you like to have accomplished as this season ends? What do you NOT want to be dealing with STILL as you cross into Fall 2016?

What are you working on clearing out/cleaning up/organizing/re-doing/re-claiming? How are you organizing your living and work spaces to better support your weight loss efforts?

Post any and all efforts here! Give and get some hope and move yourself forward!

Going to get serious about clearing this place out. I want to see... emptiness. Clear space. I want to be able to simply walk from room to room and not negotiate the stuff on the floor. I want to clean up surfaces and break down boxes and throw out useless things that only serve to make me feel sad and ashamed that I haven't been able to clean my environment up yet. I am tired of the pressure I put on myself about this. I need things to be different and so I need to act differently. Time for change.

Hello

So today I am going to use an old support system that never fails: Flylady crisis cleaning. Thankfully this is not a crisis, well maybe an emotional crisis cause I need some progress. I'm going to do the following steps for a few hours today. http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-sta...isis-cleaning/

Goals:

To reclaim my space. This means:

Kitchen:

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BONUS: cleaned put drawer under the stove. One box of stuff from on there to toss.
Living room

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Dining room

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Hallway

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Bathroom

• clear top of cabinet beside sink
• sweep floor

Bedroom

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BONUS: washed the sheets on the bed and the blanket. Bought new.set ans washes them. They are pn the bed now. Also washed pur blanket for tonight

So, definitely a longer list than a day can accomplish. I want to complete these items and make the goals I have set a reality. My goals after this will be about maintaining the status quo and refining my definitions. I have been at the edge of that so I know I can do it.

I have not felt like this about my room in a long time. I literally went through all my articles of clothing and slam dunked ones I haven't used in forever in the GOODWILL bin and the rest I organized to winter clothes in a suitcase under my bed and the rest in my bureau and closet.I had enough hair supplies to make a hairstylist cry so that got tossed or organized......woooooo!!

I cleaned places that people only think about in spring and I had a blast. Listening to imogen -Just for now singing off key.

SO cleansing to just do something for myself because that's literally what it is.

Lrivers4thanks for posting your joy at decluttering your place! It really does feel good to work on this kind of stuff.

For me today I feel frustrated. I had planned to be home all yesterday to declutter. No. Had to get a bunch of other stuff done and then poof. Day is gone.

And yesterday's work bleeds into today's. So again can't do the day but maybe an hour or two in the late afternoon plus maintenance before bed. I had wanted to do a big push because we have real garbage day tomorrow so they would take it all away.

My all or nothing or perfectionism is really showing here. Moderation is the more-than-usual day after day approach. I feel that's not good enough and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I wonder why? What springs to mind is a sabotaging thought: you can't possibly keep this up. This is so close to how I secretly think about food and weightloss efforts it's not funny. The only way to tackle this is to see myself do it.

So today I will choose three things to do and do them plus dish maintenance.


chaise cleared off
sort boxes on Chinese chair
empty kitchen table top


Before bed: dish maintenance YES

OK so it seems my days are going to be busier than I anticipated and I want to feel successful in this so I am changing my approach. No choice, but to do dish maintenance at the end of the day or the beginning of the day. And then I will do one thing from my master list. So, today I will do dish maintenance and one of the following projects:

chaise cleared off OR sort boxes on Chinese chair OR empty kitchen table top


Before bed/workin the morning: dish maintenance YES

Thanks So much for starting this thread. DH and I tore all the old dirty carpet out of my craft room. Planned to lay tile on the floor then started looking around and decided it was time to re-paint my DS and granddaughter lived in that room for a long time and then I turned it into a craft room (code for junk piled up to use someday). So now we have started prepping the walls for painting and a lot of boxes, organizing cabinets and clear containers have migrated to the bedroom and front area of the garage. HOPE to have room painted at least first coat by fall and then final paint and tiled before the holidays. DH has Parkinson's so has days he doesn't work on it at all. Since I work full-time seems we often have plans for the weekend that don't include working on our project. Wanted to go through box of jewelry making stuff and organize it this week but haven't accomplished it yet. I need to remember that even small steps will get me somewhere and feeling overwhelmed so doing nothing will not be beneficial. That last statement was SO much of my weight loss journey before Oct 2014 so I need to know that as I have done small steps consistently in my food program I can do so as well with de-cluttering my home and having a orderly and beautiful home can be in my near future.

millie56 thanks for posting. I understand how plans for the weekend often don't include the big cleanup etc., but yes, small changes over time do equal getting to your goals. Right now I have to believe that as once more, no tackling of the Big Areas, "just" dish maintenance. Today once more I am putting

chaise cleared off OR sort boxes on Chinese chair OR empty kitchen table top

on my to-do list. I'm getting tired of seeing them there so perhaps they will get done.

Dish maintenance is my No Choice item.

onebyone, super kudos for making your dishes a no choice item. I found when I made that commitment I also started coming up with ways to decrease my dish pile. Washing pans and knives as I cook is still so helpful to me. My theory, why scrub caked on stuff when the immediate clean up is so easy.

LRivers4 and millie56, glad you are joining us here!

Me, still on my usual 15 minute per day no choice. I accomplished several extracurricular projects this week. I painted the large dresser in my office and totally cleared out a "junk drawer" which had many "precious" items. In a bold move, I moved a pile of keys which I have no idea about to the metal recycle. They have been sitting there for years. Not taking up much space except in my head. I also let go of other "small" items which I deemed "ridiculous" to save. These actions relate to my dining room table "hotspot". I now have space to put my keys, lipstick, etc, which can now be reliably accessed without having to sit out all the time.

In the yard, I moved forward by completing a small section bordering a sidewalk where the weeds have continued to grow despite all efforts to tame. I put weedcloth and bark then topped with a few pretty rocks. I like it. The rest of the yard looks pretty decent. I made extra effort and picked up all my tools yesterday. Credit.

My extra projects put me a bit behind with my daily duties. I have made the commitment to catch up today. I look around and realize how fast it can spiral downward when I discontinue the daily.

The more I do this, the more I see the sensible approach that flylady takes in achieving the desired end result. Keeping my kitchen sink clean and decluttering 15 minutes everyday has changed my life. Grateful.

ETA-On the way to recycle the other day I picked up the mail. I had gotten a tool catalog I had not requested. I pulled off the back cover and recycled the rest. I called this morning to be taken off the list. Junk mail is a waste of time....over and over again.

Thanks for starting this thread. I really need to get my space organized. My motivation has been lacking to get any decluttering done. I moved into this space a couple of years ago and have too much stuff for the space and haven't been able to get motivated to start decluttering. I am going to try to do 15 minutes 3 days per week as a starting point. I'm hoping this will get me started then I will be able to add more days.

I'm going to make the dishes my no choice item as well. I like this idea.

onebyone - thanks for recommending the flylady website. I checked it out and it sounds like a great way to declutter. For about the past 4 years I have been meaning to declutter and everytime I looked at what I had to do it felt like it was such a huge task and felt totally unmotivated to get started. After looking at flylady website I felt a bit inspired. I am going to try to put her plan in place with the baby steps she recommends (31 days of tasks). So today was Day 1 and my task was to clean my sink - DONE. I followed her instructions for doing this and I have to say it looks great. I also ordered her book called "Sink Reflections".

Congrats on your progress so far.

Lexiss - it sounds like the 15 min of daily decluttering and keeping your sink clean has worked for you - that is inspiring

I will totally agree. Lexxiss, on the kitchen clean at end of day and how it makes me feel so much more on top of things! I might hit the sack with the dishwasher running vs. emptied out, but it's still a visual clean.

Cleared out a few more items to donate and will clear that pile out of the garage tomorrow. I'm holding out hope that I'll get back into more clothes, so restrained myself and my frustration from taking all I don't fit into and clearing out the space. I'd much rather clear my 'fat me' clothes.

Garden chores got set aside for awhile and I've finally tackled them today. Tomorrow's goal is a bit more, along with flowerpot rejuvenation. Not necessarily a decluttering, but a peaceful environment project.

I have a closet full of boxes of stuff that I have been meaning to go through for the past couple of years but never got it done. One of my goals is to work on clearing out the stuff in the boxes and decide to give away, discard or keep. One of my problems is lack of space so I just put everything I didn't know what to do with in the closet.

Yesterday I spent 30 minutes going through my clothes to see what I could get rid of and put about 1/2 dozen items in a box to donate. Still have more to do but made a tiny bit of progress.

It was great waking up to a clean sink this morning.

I got to spend a few days in Glenwood and the first thing I did was clean the kitchen sink. It must be becoming a reliable habit. Got all my travel stuff unpacked and put away this morning. Cleaned up the kitchen, too. Laundry was finished before I left. Todays pre-work declutter will be to put away some bedding that has been in a chair in our TV room since after a friend spent several nights. My DH comes home soon and I don't like the last minute crunch. Yesterday when I returned my refrigerator was almost empty. I seized the moment and washed the shelves and bins before unpacking groceries. It was a good time to part with a few items I know I won't use. Credit.

This is so good to read.