2023 Organizing & Decluttering Annual Thread!!!

I don’t keep actual shoes in them, LOL. I use them to wrap oddly shaped gifts or things that don’t come in boxes, like clothing, stuffed animals, that kind of stuff. Or to combine a bunch of small things into one box/gift. I reuse them year after year which is why I have so many. A lot of them are the smaller ones from years ago when DD wore little shoes! I have my family trained to not throw them away when they’re done opening their gifts. I nest them all together as best as I can and squirrel them back away in the basement until I need them again for somebody’s birthday or Christmas the following year. 

I’m new to the thread but have been trying to declutter and organize. I’m curious how you all keep going consistently without getting overwhelmed. I try to break tasks into smaller parts like one drawer at a time, and that helps. But I can get discouraged as I go, like today. The more I do the more I see that needs to be done and it just seems never ending (which I know realistically it is). It doesn’t help that I feel like I’m working against the rest of the family. Ugh.

Anyway, this weekend DS and I painted his room since he took it over from older DS who is now at college in an apartment. Trying to get through his clothes and knickknacks. We also need to go through the closet but isn’t home now to do that. So, I started organizing my scrapbooking embellishments because I’m going on a retreat. Hopefully I can get these projects completely done today so they aren’t hanging around driving me crazy. The completion of tasks is my nemesis.

Have you read the book (or I believe it’s also an audiobook if that’s your thing) Decluttering at the Speed of Life by Dana K. White? It’s a fairly quick read and has a lot of good tips for getting going and KEEPING going with decluttering.

One of her main things is to start with the most visible areas of the house first for the express reason that when you can SEE that you are making progress (even a little!), that helps to keep you motivated more than if you start with a cabinet or a drawer that no one ever sees. I checked it out from the library in part so I wouldn’t be spending money on it and also because having the deadline to get it back on time would prompt me to read through it faster. She also has a blog, a YouTube channel and a podcast, A Slob Comes Clean.

I’m another that goes in spurts as I have the time to tackle certain things. We’ve had a super busy summer. Fall and school starting up will help me because we won’t be going to our lake place as much which means more days to work on things at home.

Added more stuff to donations for ASMSA (residential school). I guess if nothing else, I can try to give it to non profit art center if ASMSA falls through.

My Dad took off recycling the other day. Trash going out has slowed down.

We need to do a major clean. We had a snake (!!!!!) IN THE HOUSE. literally in the house. Still freaked out.

I feel your pain there. My family is the same way, and I feel like I shouldn’t have to tell my grown ass adult DH to pick up his snack trash or put his dishes in the dishwasher vs. dumping things in the sink for me to take care of. My DD is old enough to know better too but she seems to be following his lead instead of mine, ugh. The only reason why I’m able to keep up as much as I do is because I only work part time. If I worked full time like you do, I’d be in the exact same predicament. It’s frustrating, for sure.

And OMG on the laundry too. I do each person’s laundry separately so I don’t have to sort it into whose stuff is whose. I haul it all down a flight of stairs, run it all through the washer, through the dryer and fold it all. Then it sits in the basket for a week or more in the living room for the owner of said clothes to haul it back upstairs to be put away, but half the time I need the basket back sooner than that so I end up bringing it all BACK upstairs too. 🙄 The upside is that sometimes they leave money in their pockets on accident, and if I do the laundry and find their money, I KEEP IT. 🤣

The last couple of years I've done a lot less decluttering than I would have like because I am overwhelmed with how much I need to go through and the thought of pulling it out and the mess it will create is more than I can deal with right now. So while I know I have the guilt of not doing more, I'm still doing something. As I put the washing away I might take 5 mins to have a quick look at what is in the drawer that I'm no longer wearing that can be donated. If I'm looking for something in a cupboard and I have to reach past something that I realise I no longer like or use, I pull it out and add it to my donation pile. When my donation bag/box is full, I make an effort to get it out of the house. It's tiny progress, but it's progress just the same.

But you deserve better than “fine.”  I think is better to own less clothing, but have all of it make you feel good when you wear it. Congrats on the weight loss!

Thank you, dewryce and **GypsyGirl**. I'm trying to hold off on buying clothes, but I have some from when I lost weight in 2018/2019. I'm nowhere near my goal weight, but just like in decluttering, every little bit helps! LOL the good thing about working mostly remote (I have to travel about 5-6 weeks out of the year) is that I mainly need nice tops for work, since my coworkers and clients can't see my bottom half! 🤣

I'll check it out - it reminds me of the Fly Lady's cruising through the holidays plan.

It was pretty hot. Also been dealing with mice. My Mom seems to think the snake was looking for them.

OMG. I think that would be close to my worst nightmare. Add in an invasion of spiders and I’d have to burn down the house, LOL.

School started yesterday and that was the kick in the pants I needed to get going with tagging all the clothes and toys I want to take to the next kid’s consignment sale. I counted up everything I would need hangers for and it was over a hundred. 😳 So I had to go out and buy a bunch of cheap hangers but it will be well worth the investment to sell this stuff. I’d say about 40% of it was literally never worn once which was why I didn’t want to just donate it all. I got almost all of the clothes on hangers and ready to do the tags which actually goes pretty fast once it’s all organized by size and type.

Anything that doesn’t sell this time can be rolled over to the next sale in a few weeks without having to retag, and anything that doesn’t sell in that sale will get taken straight to donation so in any case ALL of it will be out of my house plus I’ll have some extra money in my pocket without having to hold a garage sale or sell things piecemeal on Marketplace. Win-win, IMO.

My son has continued the reorganization of the garage. He is going through everything. He then brings in stuff for me to go through. Usually he will organize and lay stuff out so it’s easy to see and decide. The garage looks great but I’m hoping I can find stuff. I have moved a few things back or explained why some things need to go in certain places. It’s mostly things I use a lot or even monthly. Also some shelves are not as strong so I am careful with weight or things that are heavy and I need at a certain height.

There is a lot of stuff he hasn’t brought for me to go through and I am going to want to go through some things he has unpacked. Yes there were still some boxes that were never fully unpacked from our move 9 years ago. We are also purging some Christmas decorations we no longer use. This is two large boxes . We just don’t have space for them and DS wanted to purge snd DH was good with them to so out they are going. It’s funny he wants to keep a lot of Halloween items that we never use. He was wanting to purge a few things that I looked at and decided no I want to use this year - MIL gave them to us I think. I am hoping that some Halloween will go away after this season but we will see. I don’t want to purge stuff he wants as he isn’t one to keep stuff.

I pulled out some empty scrapbooks to purge, brought them downstairs then decided I may swap out the pages from some cheap ones that are full. I am not a fan of post bound albums snd have switched to D ring but don’t want to have to buy all new ones to replace the old ones. I am hoping to switch them out and then purge quite a few albums though. I’m hoping it’s not as much of a pain as I think it is going to be. I have too many albums for my shelves so hoping they will fit after this purge.

100% this - your good habit will eventually rub off on others in your family/household ESPECIALLY if you decide to sell some things and they see the money start coming in 😁
I did a major declutter as I was basically forced to (a large reno project where we replaced ALL the flooring in our house will do that!) so I had a major reason to be ruthless (I’m not moving this out and moving this back again as I’m too lazy being the main reason!) For the most part I find though that pictures showing myself what I’ve let go of, kids with better mental health as their stuff isn’t falling on them every way they turn, and a healthier bank balance have meant I’ve been self encouraged to keep going. I’ll also watch someone else on YouTube declutter or organise and that starts me thinking about what I can do at the same time. And then I jump on here and tell all the peas about it so they can give me a pat on the back 😇
The number one thing is that the less stuff you have, and the less stuff that comes into your house, means the less time you spend cleaning and maintaining and storing and moving and decluttering and ….

Well I got almost all the clothes entered in the computer for the consignment sale yesterday. The only things I didn’t get in were the few rando items that I pulled out of the other closet and decided at the last minute that I realized could also go, like a few holiday dresses. When I stopped, the dollar amount was over $550, and that was having stuff priced to move. I’ll finish that today and will start pulling out the toys and getting those things dusted off, organized and tagged for the sale. That’s the stuff I’m most motivated to get rid of because it takes up so much space.