Decluttering Thread 5 - Slowly Does It

[Pigtailsandall]

We filled the previous thread quickly! I'm still in the middle of my annual leave and working through my old sentimental items so I need to keep the momentum going! It's taking ages.

@incessantnamechanger
@EllieQ
@nordicmum
@IndianSummer78
@Realfastfoodie
@nordicmom
@CornedBeef451
@thingshavegottogo

@stealthninjamum
@pissedoffneighbour22

Sorry for anyone I missed! Hope you find us!

@IndianSummer78 - you are my consistency hero! Something every day!

I’ve been trying to get things back into sensible locations and clear out more of the loft. Trying to remember to just let go of things and not wait to sell or dispose of “optimally” (selling etc) or wait to fix everything so I have a house full of broken/incomplete stuff.

1 yoga ball and pump - olio
2 old cushion inserts
2 old pillows
1 slightly broken lamp
8 CDs /DVDs / case - bin
1 baby gate - passed on
1 bin bag full of rubbish /broken/incomplete stuff

55 total for November
1478 total

I’ve listed a few more things for free and for sale too, booked a bulky waste collection and started disposing of a load more packaging/ boxes from house building work etc

I’ve been doing paperwork and the Room of Doom for about six years. I’m probably 95% finished with them but can never motivate myself to get 100% finished. There always seems to be a few papers hanging around with no home. I’m determined to be 100% finished by Xmas.

So I shredded bank statements from 2011 and 2012 and recycled instructions for an old hoover. I also went in to dc’s schools’ parent portals and downloaded all their school reports. Dotted around the house I have various scruffy school reports with notes when I have gone to parent consultations. It’s an area of disorganisation so now I have them all saved and I’ll print and file them in one place. Probably once every couple of weeks I find a school report in a drawer and think ‘I really should file those’. So now I have allocated document folders and they’re all going to be in one place in the Room of Doom bookcase.

I also timed myself spending 15 minutes decluttering my laptop. It’s a disorganised mess and I’d like it to be organised.

Well done @stealthninjamum! paperwork is a nightmare, I agree having dedicated spaces for the important ones is good.

My listings on olio and FB have been a bit successful… so that’s some coat hooks and a yoga mat gone now too. 🎉

My mahjong set person finally came and collected it so that’s gone.

I spent a good hour in DDs room' (without her) binning anything rubbish-like = a full bin.

Made a pile of stuff I think she can get rid of so she’s looking at that.
Also made a pile of stuff I think she can put into her memory box to keep it safe but not add to the mess in her room.

I will get the memory boxes out of the loft cupboard soon and go through all of them - I allow us each a plastic storage box, me and DH cut back a lot of stuff years ago but probably can still find something to go.
I’m sure the DC will choose to bin some stuff too.

I keep their school reports separate, for now, once they’ve finished school then I think they can go in the box too.

Feels like I haven’t done much though, or made much of an impact anywhere recently. Work again for 4 days from tomorrow.

Two empty cardboard boxes. I rehomed the contents elsewhere in the room. Total is 1575

A couple of more things I’ve noticed :
-1 old single duvet
-1 pair of rusty scissors
-1 grubby dog toy
-1 unwanted body scrub
-another book DD finished
Also cleaned the fridge year day so that’s all sparkling !

And
-1 my finished book
-2-4 too small kids mouthguard kits some are from DS time and I just noticed they’re either for under 10 y or unclear about the age so all going

One worn out bit of sports equipment gone. Total is 1576

Does anyone have any recommendations for TV programmes to give inspiration? I absolutely love Sort Your Life Out… is there anything else like that you’d recommend? I haven’t quite got into any of the podcasts… maybe I should give them more of a go.

@Realfastfoodie I liked sort your life out and watched a couple of Marie Kondoes which I didn’t really enjoy. Lots of people recommended the Home Edit.

I find it easier to listen to a podcast at the same time as housework.

Another digital declutter day. I tidied up some computer files and deleted about 100. I also printed all dd1s school reports and put them in a plastic folder. Now whenever I find one of her reports I can just shred it.

i also threw out the instructions of a toy I gave to a charity shop.

Podcasts for housework and cooking work… I’m breastfeeding a 7 week old who is fond of snacking, so mindless TV would be ideal…!

@stealthninjamum sorry that was meant to be a reply to you!

I agree about Kondo programmes, I didn’t enjoy them. Also I Find her stance on books off-putting and I simply can’t do a “collect everything in one place” approach, except maybe a tiny mini-category at a time…

There's something about seeing those bags and bags of binliners full of stuff going to the tip in the Kondo programme that made me feel a bit sick. Basically people just send so much stuff to landfill, without much consideration for the environment NOR did they address the issue of why they had so much stuff. I bet all those homes look pretty full-up again.

I also didn't like home edit because they seemed to push their own "product" so bad. They literally got a container inside a container inside a container to put in 1 item. It seems insane. Every single different-coloured snack had to be in their own container. Like, no one needs that.

I sold a jumper on Vinted. Not much else so far this week, total is 1832.

@Realfastfoodie @stealthninjamum if you enjoyed Stacey Solomon's Sort your Life Out, definitely watch Nick Knowles' Big House Clearout on Channel 5 (3 series of it on their online catch up). It's essentially the same thing as SYLO although I think it came first? They add in house valuations before and after too which makes it really interesting!

@Realfastfoodie Big House Clearout has been my mindless breastfeeding/contact napping viewing, definitely fits the bill. Mine is 6m now, congratulations on your 7w old 🥰

😘 thank you @Toddler101 this sounds ideal!

I totally agree @Pigtailsandall - over consumption is the problem, clutter is the symptom. If you don’t address the cause it will all come back

I remember Big House Clearout when I think they’d just done the pilot. I might have to watch the season, thanks for that recommendation @Toddler101

@Pigtailsandall i agree about seeing stuff going to the tip. I am very mindful about getting rid of my stuff in the most green way I can. I have been feeling bad this week about throwing plastic away when there’s really nothing else to do with it. At least now dc are teens they ask for more recyclable stuff.

Because Ive been decluttering for a while I have found I think differently about buying things now.

Everything I buy I now also think about how much I actually need it, can I use something else instead, where will it live, what will I get rid of so that there's room for it and how long will it be before it becomes clutter.

It doesn't always work but does mean I don't buy much now and I'm much better at repurposing things too.

Didn't stop me buying 3 skull mason jar drinking glasses for Halloween but I did know where they would live once Halloween was over.

I've also developed a bit of a plant buying habit because I have space for them now I've got rid of all the junk!

I have a bag of old uniform that needs to go to the charity shop and I need to negotiate with DH and DCs about our plastic glass situation, I think they're breeding in the cupboard.

@CornedBeef451 that is definitely a good way to look at things and to really think about them before you buy.

For us, a large part of our clutter problem is that nowhere really has a 'home' or place/space to go already! We are having a total overhaul of our storage opportunities as part of our upcoming house renovation which will hopefully help ☺️ A little bit of rooms and house Tetris going on makes it feel overwhelmingly chaotic at the moment! Work should be completed by late Feb!!

And the other side of clutter for us is - paperwork. It comes in the door downstairs and has to go upstairs to be filed or shredded so it tends to sit around downstairs for a while. I should be better at doing it straight away but it's tricky with a baby and toddler both yapping at me all day long!

@CornedBeef451 I’m similar to you, I really think before I buy something and I’m much less impulsive shopping. When dc tell me they need something these days I’ll only buy it if we’ve checked to see we don’t have it - this mainly applies to stationery.

I have just been shredding papers - notes I took of meetings I’ve had with dd1s teachers and copies of her school reports I found. It’s great to know I have a complete set in one place now. Also stuff like homework timetables, old worksheets etc. I would say I have shredded about 12 things (Ie a school report would be 1) and so that’s 12 fewer bits of paper lying around the house.

later I’m going to Currys to drop off a broken hoover and phone wire.

Agree with everyone about trying to buy less. But it does make Christmas and birthdays harder I find.

I’ve agreed with Ds2 that his main Christmas present will be a new bed. Which may sound weird but we normally end up with hand me down/Freecycle furniture so I’m getting him to help choose the details. Ordered fabric samples and he’s picked one (binned the others straight away instead of keeping them ‘in case’).

I put two big cardboard boxes out for a person to collect but they didn’t come, sigh.

Also slight chaos this week with DH away and me working so I mostly missed the binmen, Grrr.

I also have a laundry basket full of stuff from DD’s room that doesn’t belong in there but probably isn’t rubbish, needs sorting though.

I had a little moment of decluttering happy today…

I was heading up to the loft and picked up a few bits at the bottom of the stairs to go up - some party decorations and a little pile of clothes that my eldest had grown out of. Both little piles I immediately knew which boxes they were for, and where those boxes were. Putting away was easy.

I also went up to grab slippers for my son, and found them straight away, and could bring the whole box down as the other slippers (and similar items) have a place to go now in our bedroom (I had cleared a drawer in the divan for them a few weeks ago).

Almost whatever I’m doing at the moment I am having little decluttering thoughts and ideas. Cat’s food timer - haven’t used for ages, that could go. Plates for cheese - let’s use them, if we don’t they should go. Putting a load of pants and socks in the loft - let’s just keep the best ones, no need to save them all, they can go in the baby bank bag.

Our house is still messy by most people’s standards… but it feels like it’s starting to work better for us.

Noticed another house maintenance job I’ll have to add to list for the spring ; the drive way is now sprouting moss between the tiles and that didn’t used to be there just a few months ago I swear grrrr.
Feeling more sick again as well as is DH just as I though I was better and not actually getting a proper cold this time . Trying to keep up with housework and laundry and to get admin done anyway . Now prepping Christmas too . Booking what seems like a hundred appointments for everyone and should do more of my medical stuff but it’s not happening atm . There’s so many issues I don’t feel like I can decide where to start .
Got the damn clean laundry folded at least .

A couple of things going out :
-5 DD small summer school shirts i decided not to keep after all
-2 more DD small shorts
-1 DD small sweatpants
-1 DH old T-shirt
-3 pairs of old pants
-8 pairs of old socks
-1 grubby dog toy
-1 chewed up plastic dog toy
-1 wooden spatula

Hoping DD could read through more of her books she’s got such a collection and tends to just start new ones . Im also in the middle of a few so trying to finish those myself .
I’m set in having a good load ready for DS to take to the convenient charity warehouse drop off point in the Christmas holidays he’s home from Uni that’s only open in the weekdays when DH generally can’t take them since I don’t drive . He’s home for a few weeks so hopefully it’s open then at some point .

Just one magazine out today. Total is 1577

Old ironing board cover gone yesterday. I need to sort the kitchen counters out today, lots of stuff on there that can be put away of binned like old biscut tins and tea pots that get used once a month.