Challenge: I am tasking myself with going through my entire house and getting rid of everything that we don’t need anymore. I’m also taking this opportunity to repair things that are broken, eliminate annoyances, develop new systems, and just streamline as much as possible. See more posts in the series >>
Hey there! It’s been a while. Summer schedule has taken hold, and I’ve made a conscious decision to post less frequently in favor of regaining my sanity. To be honest, I’ve thought about retiring this blog altogether, but something inside me isn’t letting that happen. Anyway, I’m still here, though I’m spending most of my free time/creative energy working on my shop.
So… decluttering. Where was I again? The decluttering process is not easy to document. Sometimes it’s so slow and gradual, filling boxes bit by bit. Other times it’s let’s just pitch all of the things RIGHT NOW and get them out of the house immediately. No time for photos! The stuff has to go!
Since my last update, we’ve gone through all of our books (mostly Dan’s books) and condensed everything down to a single bookcase. (The kids have their own books in their room.) It took a lot of mental effort to get the courage to do it, but once we were there, it wasn’t difficult. We got rid of something like 100 books. We are readers, but heavy library users, so most things were old acquisitions.
I got rid of some of the kids books too. Things that no one cared about. Books that were falling apart beyond repair. Garbage books with no real artistic or intellectual value. The kids have so so many great books. There’s no need to keep filler junk.
We also went through the DVDs, which are also mainly Dan’s territory, and got rid of a handful. And we checked to verify that each case actually held the disc it was supposed to. Luckily, they were not all that mixed up. (I suspect our CDs will be a different situation.)
Then it was onto the papers. You guys, I got rid of so many papers. I recycled manuals for electronics, old college notebooks, expired coupons, receipts, old birthday cards, two or three years worth of Christmas cards, old magazines… I didn’t even know we still had a lot of this stuff in the house, and there’s probably more hiding.
And then my plan to declutter by category as suggested in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up just fell apart.
The getting rid of things by category system works when you have categories to work with. Clothes, papers, books, etc. But it doesn’t work for the most challenging spaces: closets and the basement, stuffed with stuff that’s all mixed up. Boxes full of stuff that I don’t even know what’s inside.
Anyway, I reached some sort of tipping point and an avalanche of stuff flew out the door. I scheduled a charity donation pickup and found out about an Earth Day recycling event (yeah, this update is way overdue), and started collecting anything I could grab.
We got rid of:
- A giant stack of styrofoam packing (It had been hanging out because was too big/too much to fit in our trash can.)
- A bunch of plastic plant pots/containers
- An assortment of dead electronics and wires
- Stuff from thrift stores that I had planned to rehab (but hadn’t been touched in two years)
- And boxes and boxes of random things that were so unnecessary, I don’t even remember what they were. You can’t miss something if you didn’t remember you had it in the first place.
If you live in a big metropolitan area, and charity pickups are available, you really should take advantage. It gives you a deadline and all you have to do is get the stuff to your porch. And then it’s gone! You don’t have a chance to procrastinate. You don’t have a chance to take things back. I’ve done two pickups since April, and I’m about to schedule a third. It’s my new secret weapon against the clutter.
And then it was on to the baby stuff…
After all that was gone, I finally made my way into the closet with all of the baby gear in it and was sort of amazed. More than half of that crap could just go. Our Pack ‘n Play days are over, so I donated a bunch of still usable baby things to a local charity that works with babies and moms in need.
I feel like I’m exiting the “acquisition” phase of my life. We have a house. It’s mostly furnished. (Of course, there’s always fine tuning.) We’re out of that tiny newborn phase and done with the baby gear. While we are always growing and changing, wearing things out and using things up, the large waves of accumulation are over. And now we’re in a phase where I’m valuing quality over quantity, trends, and junk. No more saving for what ifs. There are too many what ifs to save for.
Next up: not sure, though that basement certainly could use some help.
I’m in much the same phase myself – going through a massive decluttering right now. In my case, it’s because I’m moving from Chicago to Seattle in September; I need to downsize my massive hoard of junk. This is both to save on moving expenses, and because apartments are smaller and more expensive where I’m going.
With nearly ten years in the same apartment, I had accumulated close to 5,000 books; a few months ago ~90% of these went to charity – open-books.org, which sent a van to pick them up. I didn’t even have to carry them down the stairs, their people did that. (And most of my new acquisitions are on Kindle now, not on paper).
Old computers and cleaning products went to the city-run recycling center; surplus kitchen equipment to friends; old clothes are bagged to take to charity drop boxes; anything collectible that I no longer cared for went on Ebay. Unwanted bookshelves and furniture went into the alley (and in every case, someone scavenged it within an hour or two).
You mentioned DVDs in cases – I was able to shrink my DVD collection to about an tenth of its size by discarding all the cases, and putting the disks into three-ring binders. Hundreds of discs now fit into three binders, in an unobtrusive Rubbermaid tub. For CDs, I didn’t even bother to do that – I set them in a box on the sidewalk and the local kids grabbed them all within minutes. Most of the music I like can be found on Spotify, no need to maintain a private copy.
Even my car is going to go – will sell it next month, a few days before my insurance is up for renewal – and rely on Zipcar and Uber and taxicabs, or take the bus. I don’t need a thousand pounds of rusting metal either.
And after it’s done – after I’ve paid someone to load what I have left into their moving van, then gotten onto an airplane with two cat carriers – I’ll be mindful of accumulating too much, and, as you have said, aim for quality over quantity.
I didn’t know you were moving! Yes, that’s definitely a good reason to downsize. If I were moving cross-country, I would definitely be getting rid of so much more.
The DVDs are not really my department, and I’m pretty sure Dan would not be willing to separate with the cases. Give us another 5-10 years on being able to let go of more CDs and DVDs. We’ll see how technology goes!
But really, those types of collections are not really our problem around here. It’s all the odd items without homes, stuff in boxes from years ago, surplus art/craft supplies, and things that I’ve saved because I had planned on re-using or fixing them up. That’s the kind of stuff that’s just dragging me down right now.
I’m so glad you told me about this book! I am still in the “clothes” section, but it is going really well and I am motivated to keep it up. I think the mindfulness is a big part that I have been missing. Especially clearance items and “cheap” purchases that I really do not need.
Yes! A lot of times now I try to think how I’ll have to get rid of the item before I buy it. Will we wear it out? Or will I have to figure out some special way to dispose of it? Can I recycle it? Helps cut down on those extra purchases!