2023 Organizing & Decluttering Annual Thread!!!

We moved in early 2021 - and ALL of our books ended up collected in first one...then two rooms. It was eye-opening to say the least and I'm not going to admit here exactly how many full bookcases we have. But it's looks like a whole lot less books when they scattered throughout the house than when they are all together.

My goal since then (and actually back into 2020 as we prepared to move) is to read and donate as much as possible. I've also been limiting the number of books that come IN (although my son has a tendency to pick a few up for me at the thrift stores). I do a 25 book challenge with another online group each year and this year I've read 21 of the books so far without buying any. I did end up buying two on Kindle of the last 4...could NOT get them via the library. But once those are done...I'm going to focus on reading books from my personal library and see if I can make a small dent. Not all of the books are mine - DH has a large collection which is continuing to grow albeit more slowly and he's really not a reader...he reads very very slowly and might get through 1 book in a year, 2 if it's a good year. And he tends to keep them once he's read them.

I did find my party shoes!

so it is a successful day--I got one item out of my house. the extra electric pencil sharpener went to church choir where we use pencils to mark up the music.

I have about 6 weeks till we list our house. This week I was back in my closet and purged another large trash bag of clothes and shoes. What is amazing to me is that even though this is my 4th big bag, I don’t have any empty drawers and I still have clothes from rod to rod. I really like that feeling of empty space so I clearly have more work to do. But I do think I have a better mind set now than when I started. So I should probably take another pass through my closet and find more to donate.

I also sat down with a box I had labeled “portraits”. It was an overflowing box of school and sport pics and ones from The Picture People. All were in the original envelopes. So got rid of the envelopes and sorted the pics by kid. Discarded lots of duplicates, and then was done. It’s both organized and the box easily shuts. Felt very accomplished with that small task.

Took 3 bags of trash to the dumpster this week and filled my car for goodwill.

OMG I am so guilty of that too! In some cases the box has to be kept if you need to send the item in for service, like my new Sawgrass printer. I believe it has a two year warranty. Sometimes it’s easier to transport the item in the original box if you don’t have a proper carrying case for it. I have a couple things like that, so I keep the box. 

I’m currently hesitating to get rid of the box for the Ninja Pro food processor I got at Christmas. Not sure how long the warranty is on that, I probably should check. It might be a year, and if so that box ought to go in the basement with the other warranty boxes.

My true weakness though is shoe boxes. I have a pretty impressive hoard of shoe boxes in all sizes. I like them for wrapping gifts that don’t come in a decent box. After reading the Dana White book though, I’ve been trying to do better with that. I got rid of the ones that have a viewing hole in the lid, any that had broken corners on the lids, etc. and used a few more to put collections of things in for donating (Christmas ornaments I no longer want, flash cards and educational things we don’t use anymore that I’ll either put up on the buy nothing group or donate to Salvation Army, things like that). Progress is progress.

On other fronts, I put up a pile of kid art supplies on buy nothing and got rid of that, and have some nice lunch containers that I’m waiting to hear back from the two people interested. I have a box of like new 3 ring binders waiting by the front door to go to Salvation Army, and a box of clothes to go to the free store donation place. I hate the time of year it is because logic would say people still need warm clothes, but the calendar says they want stuff for spring and summer even though it’s currently snowing outside right now. It’s weird.

Hope you're all feeling better


Sounds like tons of progress is being made by everyone. I did an impromptu three hours re-organising and decluttering my scrap space because I lost two stickers I had set aside for layouts and then couldn't find when I went to do the layouts. Tossed some junk - tidied everything up - and found ONE of the two stickers.

It's been awhile since I posted here. Or anywhere.

Spring is here and Im trying to keep up.

Did the first mow on all three lawns on Friday after work.

Pulled weeds & mulched the front garden beds on Saturday.

Today I put away the heavy coats and heaviest clothes. And added the shorts back into the wardrobes.

Still been doing a lot of using it up and not adding when it comes to toiletries. I'm finally seeing a dent in product now.

All of the "extra" school pencils have been sent in.

400+ of them.

My son is the pencil fairy, apparently. I'll have to buy more this next year.

Today I finished scrapbooking a trip we took in 2006! I have no clue why I stopped mid stream and did trips we took after that but whatever…it’s been bugging me and taking up space so it feels like a big accomplishment.

My decluttering came to a screeching halt on March 6 when my younger sister died while taking a nap. She was only 64. So darn sad! 😢

Since then spring has sprung along with the needed yard work but I hope to get back to decluttering soon.

I’m so very sorry for your loss.

I am so very sorry for your loss.

Oh, no! I am so very sorry for your loss.

Oh no!  I am so very sorry for your loss.  64 is much too young for life to be finished.  

Whoo! DD moved into her townhouse and I have been able to take 3 boxes of her stuff over there. It's a start!