2024 Organizing & Decluttering Thread

Happy New Year everybody! I don’t have any hard and fast goals for 2024 but I do want to keep on keeping on with getting my house more in order, especially the more visible areas.

That’s a good plan!   I have a tendency to get distracted when the rest of life gets crazy.

Happy New Year's declutter-ers!

Last night I was thinking about my 2024 goals, and I definitely have a few forming in my mind. I'll list a few off the top of my head, but am sure to think of more as the year continues.

1. Unwanted books gone. Yesterday I detailed about my decision to dispose of the kid books. Still feeling very good about that.

This morning I remembered about five books that I have stashed. They were freebies from the library that I picked up as just in case reads for during my son's surgery recovery last summer. I never read them. Never cracked them open. Honestly, I have zero idea what they're about. They will go out this week.

As always, I have many goals. 😉

1. Continue downsizing the storage units - hopefully will get them down to just one.
2. Organize the storage unit(s) so like items are near each other - example, store all the Christmas decorations near each other.
3. Clean out my closet/dresser/hanging storage rack in the other bedroom. As I lose weight, this should be easier to weed out stuff.
4. Use up/toss my skincare supplies and ONLY order stuff when I am almost out of a specific product.
5. Decide how I am going to organize/catalog my stamps. I posted previously on the scrappy organization page that I either need to make a storage binder like lasteve1 or commit to Laura W's system, where she cuts her stamps apart and organizes them by theme and gets rid of the stamps she'll never use.
6. Control my urges to binge shop.
7. Sell some of my Portland Leather Goods items that I received in mystery boxes. I am going to a meet up in Charlotte in a couple weeks, and I hope to sell/trade some items there - that route will definitely cut down on shipping fees!
8. Continue reading through my books and get rid of books I'll never read again. I have a stack of books from 2023 that I need to take to church of Christian fiction books.
9. Edit some of my decor items. I have a fair amount of things I've purchased at estate sales/auctions, and I know there is stuff I can release.
10. See about converting my comforter into a duvet cover. I love the pattern of the bedding, but I hate that I have to take it to the laundry mat to wash it and spend about $8 to do so. I'd much rather make it into a duvet cover, so I can pop it into my own washer more frequently.
11. Work on Emily Ley's January Simplified challenge.
12. Use the 2Peas and Scrapbook Generation challenges to use up some of my scrappy supplies.

Challenges:
1. After my job ends on 1/3, I'll have loads more free time. I need to be disciplined to hunt for another job while taking advantage of this downtime to declutter and organize while also working on expanding my professional skill set.
2. As many of you may know, I live with my mom to help take care of her. She suffers from memory issues, and it can be a nightmare to downsize stuff, especially when she forgets that some stuff actually belongs to me (either I purchased it or it was given to me). She also forgets when she has said it is OK to get rid of something, fishes it out of the donate pile, and then gets angry if I try to get rid of it. This is even worse when it comes to the storage units, as she actually does have some stuff in there that is hers. It doesn't help that she helped to pack up my house for my last move, and some of the handwriting on the boxes is hers - she instantly assumes the items in those boxes are hers. 🤦‍♀️ I'm still trying to figure out how to make real progress in there without more meltdowns from her.

Happy New Year! I have lots of decluttering and organizing I need to do in various areas of my life. Being in grad school for the last two years put a lot of things on the back burner so now that I'm done with that, I have time and energy to focus on the things that got neglected. My family was an amazing support and we got through it together--but they have their own lives too so we just did what was needed.

We've had some changes in the household arrangement. At the beginning of November, my younger son moved into the bedroom I had been using for an office. My office is now in the family room. The family room is a long rectangle so I have part of it for my office and then the other part is the actual family room with the couches, TV, etc. I have my desk with my computer, monitor, etc. on one wall, then the opposite wall has my craft table. Currently, the craft table is piled with stuff that I moved out of the bedroom to make room for my son's stuff. My first goal is to get my office area cleaned up. This will accomplish several things: the area will just look better in relation to the family room part, I will have my craft space so I can actually *do* projects, I will get rid of unneeded stuff, find homes for the stuff I am keeping, and I am hoping to move more of my stuff out of the bedroom.

I also want to deep clean my kitchen this month.

Here's to 2024! Good luck to everyone!

Merilee

Happy New Year everyone!

Need to get Christmas down today or tomorrow. Would do it now if my Mom wasn't asleep in the den where our tree is. So I am trying to go through meds for drug take back and my drawers to throw stuff away.

This is my first year joining in. My first step is my closet. I work from home now, 3/4 of the clothes I no longer need and will not wear. Gone. Shoes. Gone.

Then to the grandkids toys.......

I will be checking in at least once or twice a week.
My bullet journal is all ready for 2024 with the priority being decluttering and health priorities. DH and I are both retired and although he does not want to address it, we need to think about decluttering.
More to come.....

Happy New Year!

2024 goals?

Keep labelling/organising mum's photos - 1960s this year (I'll revisit if I finish early)

Sew or donate at least 10 yards of fabric

Donate more books than I buy/get given (I'm starting the year at 673 actual books that I own on my TBR)

Organise/purge/label ONE box of family papers

Continue the maintenance phase around the house by decluttering as I see things I don't need

I started a day early and found some new storage (Lightroom at Target) for a 30 inch drawer under my pantry. I have kept hot chocolate and candy making stuff in the drawer and then my husband got a smoker and thought the semi empty drawer now needed to be a smoker drawer. Found new storage that lets me claim half of the drawer and he's now got an organized half. Good storage lets me keep what is mine.

ETA: Prior to this week, I donated three large suitcases to Goodwill.  I kept 4 and some bags that fit inside of them.  My entire SUV has been filled with boxes and bags twice this winter break. All made their way to Goodwill.  The day after Christmas, there were 8 vehicles in line at Goodwill. Usually you can rive right up or have a one or two car wait. Looks like the busy season for decrapping.

Got Christmas down. Just needs to go to shed.

Next project is washing/drying clothes for booths. We can only have 6 pieces in there at a time, per rules by owner. We probably have 30 pieces to sell. Last batch was in there for couple hours at most. Hope we sell through the rest quickly. It's mainly vintage sports clothing.

Also need to work on my closet and toss a bunch of stuff.

We are planning a small 'buying' road trip in March so hopefully we can get through the storage shed by then.

I'm feeling very If You Give A Mouse A Cookie today, and one decluttering task is leading to the next.

I just finished decluttering the four food pantry cabinets in the kitchen (separate from the dry goods pantry from earlier).

I trashed items that had no right to be as emotional as they were. I'm part embarrassed and part sad. Mom passed a little more than two years ago now. There have been a few seasoning mixes sitting in the very top of the spices cupboard. Things that I don't make. Things that she had bought with the intent of making to try out with my dad. I knew they were there, in a back of my mind type of way, but because they weren't gross and weren't hurting anything, I left them.

For two years.

Plus however long she had had them in there.

They're gone and I feel better, but still sad. They didn't define her. They were not even important. Not even to her. And yet.....Sad.


On a brighter note, I cleaned out and tidied up so much. Is it just me, or do you sometimes find so much more to toss than what you thought was there?

I hope to be much better this year