Decluttering and organising thread 8 – it’s nearly summer

[stealthninjamum]

These threads are accountability threads for mumsnetters who are decluttering and organising our homes.

We’re all at different stages of decluttering from the beginning to the maintenance phase and use different techniques. Join us for support and chat .

We discuss all things to do with decluttering, the things that stop us decluttering, how to get over them, where to dispose of our clutter, how we can encourage our families to join us, and pretty storage solutions which is the fun part.

I’m doing one last big push to get rid of loads of stuff before the long summer holidays when it’ll inevitably turn to chaos again.

Useful tips
Some of us have found the Toss app (on apple) a great place to start with decluttering.

Many of us love Dana K. White (A Slob Comes Clean) on youtube and podcasts.

Many of us at the start just take a timer for 5 or 10 minutes to just make it seem less daunting. I used to start by clearing surfaces.

If you want to make a big impact quickly then increasingly charities will pick up your furniture, books and clothes so you don't even need to leave the house. Or if you have hundreds of books / CDs it's really easy to use the Music Magpie, ziffit or We buy books apps to get them taken away and earn a (very) small amount of money at the same time.

The BBC TV Program Sort Your Life Out is particularly inspiring.

When I do housework I listen to podcasts from a Slob Comes Clean, Clutterbug, the Declutter Hub and The Art of Decluttering. If you think you have ADHD then Clutterbug talks about this a lot as she has ADHD, and Amy from The Art of Decluttering did an ADHD season about 8 or 9 months ago which gave some good tips. My dc have ADHD so it’s something I’m very interested in.

Do you time yourself and then have timed breaks or just keep going until you need a mug of tea and then carry on? I think there is always the risk of losing momentum and breaks getting longer....

@timoteigirl I used to set a timer for a small time like 10 or 15 minutes because I saw decluttering as a boring chore and more often than not I’d get into it and spend an hour or two decluttering without a break. I also went through phases of filling carrier bags and aimed to fill one a day.

These days I tend to listen to a decluttering podcast so if I listen to clutterbug I might spend 30 or 40 minutes decluttering / cleaning at the same time. I listen to 4 decluttering podcasts a week. Sometimes I pick an area and ‘finish’ it. But most of my house is decluttered (other than a couple of bad areas) so i do a lot more organising and deep cleaning than decluttering these days.

Today I have decluttered my spare wardrobe and removed a dress of dd1s and a jacket of mine. I’ve also decluttered a puzzle magazine. I enjoy doing them but never finish them so this one’s going.

Excuse me, @stealthninjamum, what decluttering podcasts would you recommend?
I've been listening to Slob comes clean and, while I find her very funny and clever, I don't resonate with a lot of things. But I don't know where to start looking for new podcasts!

@msneis I listen to a slob comes clean, clutterbug, the declutter hub, the art of decluttering and I sometimes listen to one that the apple podcast suggests like minimalist mom (although I find her really annoying). They all have their good sides, but I think to keep doing 50 podcasts a year they all do topics that I don’t really relate to. Often Cass from clutterbug does a long self help monologue which I zone out from. I think it’s called ‘habit stacking’ where you pick up a good habit by linking it to another (I have probably learnt that from one of these podcasts!) and it’s great because at least three or four times a week I make myself do this stuff and for the duration of the podcast.

@stealthninjamum thank you very much! That's a great idea! Habit stacking is something that I discovered recently too (in ny case, by reading "Atomic habits", which I recommend by the way).
I'll check those podcast, thank you again!

Yesterday continued with the garage and shed. Piled up some stuff to consider. If I go too fast, then I might panic about my decisions.

Recycling - one broken plastic spray bottle.

Another 5 books gone. To the charity shop this time.

My son has a huge stack he’s planning on selling to Ziffit so I’ll hopefully be able to add those to the tally soon.

63 + 5 = 72

Not much done in the last week as we've been away. I'm away again next week so will have to start afresh in September.
However, I did sell something on Gumtree yesterday and got rid of some soft plastics at the supermarket.

We’re away for a few days to visit PIL, and we’re staying at my SIL’s house nearby as were pet-sitting.

It is such a contrast to our house - neutral paintwork that is fairly fresh rather than shabby like ours, clear surfaces (except where DH has dumped his stuff 🙄), lots of storage space (though to be fair it is a bigger house than ours), and my niece’s room is nicely done out, unlike DD’s room that is still being used as storage for various ‘stuff’.

I’m trying to use it as inspiration rather than just feeling bad about our house, but it’s hard.

22 of my sons books Ziffit-ed for some extra holiday pocket money.

72 + 22 = 94

We are back from holiday now. Predictably there are a few tshirts I packed for dd that she never picked out. A few things she took that didn't fit. Also all the summer stuff I sorted to get rid of before we went.

Question is should I just donate it all right now or try to sell some on Vinted? It's summer stuff so I highly doubt it will sell. The tshirts might and the leggings possibly.

Again I think it just reaffirms that dd doesn't need this many items of clothing. We went in Primark and bought her a new tshirt that she managed to rewear for quite a few days.

As an aside, apart from school uniform I'm going to let her pick what ever she wants to buy as she sees it going forward as I then know she will wear and love it.

Decided to to list some items, will upload a few a day and again donate if no joy within two weeks.

It's silly but it's easier to let go knowing it's got no value

Not managing a lot of volume out at the moment but feel like I’m getting better at removing things from our life that we don’t need.

2 car seat and base
1 candle binned
1 pair shoes given away
1 broken toy binned
3 bits rubbish

For an August total of 38

Yesterday - Handed down outgrown joggies from one kid to the other. Won’t be able to do this much longer as they’re each developing their own style.

Tidied a bit more in garage. Binned a filthy bag-for-life full of trash that was lying around. Two empty plastic containers into recycling tub.
Tidied car boot. Binned twelve-year-old sunscreen, eyedrops, ointment.

Tidied bits of garden. Two full bags of leaves and branches for garden waste bin. Five burnt or damaged pieces kitchenware that DGC would use to make potions for the fairies in the garden destined for the scrap metal section of the local dump.

Dd2 is letting me get rid of another two small teddies, a book, a junior scrabble game and I got rid of a Matsui remote control that might’ve been for a video recorder.

One magazine and one moisturizer finished up today. Total is 2720

Timotei I didn't time myself I just look around and see what I can bear to part with. I've been through all areas several times now so there's no big decluttering sessions needed any more. I still have far too much but have got rid of what's easiest to get rid of already so now I'm onto the difficult decisions and using things up so I can bin the container etc. When I was doing a big session before, I'd pick an area so a cupboard, drawer, box or pile and start going through it. First decluttering it, then cleaning, tidying and organising it. Then another area the next day. The aim was to make it better than before, each time. My gradual approach has seen things come together a lot in the past 18 months.

No additional areas tackled but charity bag started with a pair of my trainers that have never really been worn, three pairs school trousers with logo removed two more single sheets and two pillow cases.

Incessant seems like youve found a good compromise there. List for a limited time then donate, as you say a way of checking for value then moving on. It’s another 80% of listing weekend so I have a couple of larger items to try and list. This is about the fourth such weekend Ive intended to try but have not got around to it mind 🙄

1 x booklet
1 x novel
4 x broken plastic filing sleeves

Total is 2726

I did 3 decluttering sessions on my emails - about 10mins on each of my 3 email addresses. I feel very accomplished and just that bit of time means my inbox is so much tidier - hundreds of emails gone. I'm counting that as 3 items off my 2024 list.

1305+3=1308.

I have a few physical items that have left/are leaving too but I'll need to tally those up and hopefully I'll remember them still 😅

Friday’s garage declutter binned -

one holey work glove.
strip of ratty polythene packaging.

broken litter picker.

half-empty broken spray can.

more filthy oily rags.

Recycled - too large to be useful lidless cardboard box.

Right, few other bits mainly used up or given new homes...
2 small storage bags
Kids hoodie listed and sold on vinted, shipped yesterday
Magazine finally read and recycled
Cleanser used up - finally making a real dent in the stash
Skincare sample used up
Bath oil given to a friend
DC and a baked and used up a very old coconut sugar bag
Broken umbrella found at the back of the cupboard sadly binned

Total is 1317

I took two bags to the charity shop yesterday including a pair of trainers I love but they’re just not that comfortable. They were hard to give up.

Today I’m going to focus on shredding and organising paperwork. It won’t take long but I’m aware that I have a few papers sitting on top of a chest of drawers in my study and I want to file them.

Saturday’s decluttter -

Watering-can leaked while I was making up weedkilleer, so that got binned straightaway. Also the two milk cartons that I used to measure and dilute. The old sheet that I mopped the spill up with.

I used one bag of playsand to cover up and hopefully absorb the wk. Another bag taken to garage from playroom just in case it’s needed in the future.

Also binned snapped bootlaces and found a new pair in the shoe cupnoard.