2022 Declutter & Organizing Thread

**GypsyGirl** I need to do pretty much everything on your goal list, so thank you for saving me time to try to think of where to begin to try to get all of my clutter and stuff under control.

I already started in the kitchen. I’ve purged, reorganized and wiped down all my cabinets inside and out, just need to finish the pantry.  

My goal is to do one room a week from top to bottom, clean, declutter and reorganize. Might even do some repainting in a few rooms.  Now that I’m down to only one day a week babysitting it shouldn’t be that hard to get it done. I really let my flower beds go last year so some major yard work is scheduled for spring.  

organize paperwork!!!!!!
clean out spare room so ready for my daughter when she comes for a two month visit.
finish cleaning out the basement so I can move a car into there (the garage/basement are one thing under the living floors)

put back and organize my study after new windows go in in 2 weeks. all the books and scrapbook stuff are in my living room and dining room and after 6 months, time to put that room back together in a useable situation.

organize genealogy stuff and get restarted

organize my dad's photos and slides. last night I went through two boxes of pictures, threw away some, and a stack to digitize.

bring home anything I or my kids want from my dad's house. (spring task)

thinking about trying to talk my dh into doing a major remodel.. I have dreams of digging out the basement, redoing foundation, putting in some rooms, redoing the kitchen and powder room, painting the interior.

on the list, but not wanted: dealing with the fact that my mother in law is declining, and there will probably be the task of dealing with the house, her stuff and so on. my kids would like to keep the house, but we will see.

My first goal is to get Christmas put away and the house returned to it's natural order. It always looks so bare after Christmas!

Thanks for getting us started in the new year. Not sure what I want to accomplish this year. I'd LIKE to buy a new piece of furniture for storage, but can't find anything in the right dimensions for the area I have to put it!! I can't access my top shelves in the closets unless I get on a ladder which everybody thinks I'm too old for a step ladder--
So, my extra sheets and blankets and towels are on the top shelves. When I want anything, I have to call someone into my room to help me get it down. So until I figure that out--I'm stuck with no access. I have boxes of pictures on top of my wall unit. Again, if I want anything from up there, I have to call for help, but I'd love to go through the photos and get them marked with who is in the photos. Getting old is the pits sometimes!! But I really don't want to fall off of a ladder either. I'm stuck. I'll think on it and see what I can come up with as goals.

So happy to find this post!

I am starting over with fresh eyes. Kitchen, laundry room, and storage room will be first priority. Might throw the mudroom in there.

The mudroom needs to be made into an actual, organized space for the purpose of a mudroom. It tends to be a catch all. First hurdle is storing the Christmas trees. One needs to leave the house. This leaves a 6 ft full tree (new) and a 7 ft thinish tree (lived in the mudroom for the last two years of season). This room is a constant battle.

Already did a half-hearted tossing of the condiments out of the fridge.

Attrition: cleaning supplies and hand soaps

Need to ask if they want Girlie’s food for the office dog. Little Bit is down to one tooth on the top, which likely means soft food only. So his dry food will need to be offered to someone else.

The Boy mentioned going through his room. I offered my assistance for the cleaning and organizing aspect. He does not have a sentimental bone in his body.

It is a good start.

Last summer I bought a 2 drawer filing cabinet for my office/scraproom and put all my memorabilia files in it. Friday I went and bought a second matching one and crammed all my lesson planning/ work stuff in it. It’s so much nicer than stacks of paper everywhere and small file boxes stacked haphazardly. I didn’t purge from the files themselves but got rid of quite a few things from the piles of paper that got sorted. Progress. Stupid sickness kept me from getting any big projects done over break. Back to the classroom Monday. A small part of me is secretly hoping we have to go virtual so I have some extra free time at home 😂

I am, by nature, a thrower and not a keeper. I love to clean things out and reorganize, though, so sometimes I will let things pile up so that I can have the fun of un-piling! My goal for the year is to get into the little stashes of things all over the house that were 'put away' and then have never been looked at again.

My family had covid (thankfully very mild!) in November 2020, so I was home for two weeks and did some 'Swedish death cleaning' of memorabilia in our storage room. I'd love to do the same thing to all of the 'extra' photos and stuff (school papers from 2005, anyone?!) from making my annual scrapbooks for the last 25 years. I'm about to do a purge of my closet because it always makes me ridiculously happy to see all the neat piles of clothes (now folded and stored a la Marie Kondo, natch)

I also need to head out to our attached garage and put away the fall decorations properly--my teen boys helped take them down and put up the Christmas ones, but didn't put anything away. I'd love to get my kids to give their rooms a sort and purge now that post-secondary school is on line until the end of the month and they will all be here rather than sitting by themselves in university bedrooms. If nothing else, maybe it will encourage them to get back to the city before I want to strangle anyone

I love this thread because I get to live vicariously through all of you--it's very satisfying for me in an odd way when you guys get something accomplished! Maybe I should see if my friends are really serious when they say they want me to come over and organize their lives ... my dh would probably appreciate someone else being the recipient of my tidying attentions once in a while!

Hello everyone!

I had to take a break for awhile because I started graduate school and even though I only had two classes--they were TOUGH ones! That took all my extra attention and energy for the fall semester. Happily, I did very well--got better than 90% in both classes so I'm happy! My advisor tells me those two classes were the toughest ones so while I expect plenty of hard work ahead of me in this next semester, hopefully it won't be quite so demanding. So I hope to have some more time to work on projects in 2022.

The first project(s) are a bit of a merry go round. The ultimate goal is to get my study set up in the upstairs bedroom. My son (DS20) who was living in Italy came home at the beginning of December and is moving to his university dorm this weekend to start college. The bedroom he was using will be my office. So, what needs to happen:

1. Younger boys' bedroom in basement emptied and thoroughly cleaned. We bought new mattresses and DS20 was using one of them, with the understanding that DS10 would use the other, and DS13 would get the mattress DS20 was using when DS20 moved out. So in preparation for moving the bed from the upstairs bedroom to downstairs bedroom, we'll empty, clean, declutter, sort and organize. Set up new beds, get rid of old mattresses (they're old and need to be retired). Beds used to be bunk beds, still in great shape so I'm going to check with my school to see if anyone needs beds. If not, I'll check with my community group. If no one needs them, I'll take them to the donation center. Or maybe try to sell on FB Marketplace.

2. After boys bedroom is done, upstairs bedroom/future study will be mostly empty. I did a thorough clean when getting it ready for DS20 to come home so it just needs to be touched up. Then I'll move my office furniture from the downstairs office (that I share with DH) upstairs. I'll take advantage of this upheaval to go through stuff and toss old stuff, get papers filed, etc.

3. Once my stuff is out of downstairs office, we can clear out that room and give it a good cleaning. Then DH can set it up the way he wants. One of the reasons for this whole project was that DH will be working from home 98% of the time for the foreseeable future. There will be times when the team wants an in-person meeting, and they will have those meetings at the company HQ but for the most part, they'll continue to work from home. DH would like more space and a little bit different setup. We will probably need to buy some more furniture--I know he wants to make an L shaped work space, so we'll need to get another table top from IKEA that matches what he already has, and maybe another Alex drawer unit. He'll decide what he wants after he's able to move things around a little.

DH thinks we can do the project this coming week. We'll see. I'm going back to work on Monday, DS20 also starts college on Monday and since this is his first experience, we may need to make a few extra shopping trips or something to get him fully set up. Fortunately he's only about 40 minutes away but still, that uses time. I start grad classes again on the 10th so having all this done would be great so I'm all set for school.

Happy New Year 2022 to everyone and may we all make progress on our decluttering and organizing goals!

I'm so glad to see this thread pop up for the new year. The second half of last year went off the rails for me, and I know this year I need to focus on the outside of the house, but I'd still like to work on decluttering a few things. My main goal this year is to get DH to finally agree to get rid of the gym equipment that is sitting in our spare room that he has not used in at least 5 years as he much prefers to go to a local gym.

I also need to help my MIL sell off some of her husband's things. He passed away early last year and she's ready to move some of these things on.

I got through all the boxes of photos I brought back from my dad's (he just died a month ago).. took photos out of three crummy old albums, and sorted all the slides and pictures to be sent off to digitize and have gone through all the media I have digitized.

found a bunch of my dad's work stuff.. pictures of his retirement party, pictures of office mates, old work product from the 1950's, pictures from the 1970's.. certificates.
it was fun. my brother worked at the same office, so he can tell me who most of the people are.

Thank you for getting us going in 2022, **GypsyGirl**!

I'm going to try to finish putting all the Christmas stuff away today. DS and the grands are here for at least one more day, since their flight was canceled, so I won't get any cleaning done. I am always motivated to deep clean after they leave, to get my house back in order.

My main goal is to finish up the last bits of my four boys’ scrapbooks (they each have four volumes that take them through high school, but of course I’m way behind on number four’s and have a few more things to add to the older boys as well.) Then I can finally clear out the last of the scrapbook supplies. That opens up a lot of space in a guest room closet that can just stay open.

This goal has been my goal for way too long. The oldest child is thirty and the youngest is twenty. I’m getting this damn project done and setting my target as by the end of February.

Good luck to us all as we work on our goals!