2014 Get Organized & Declutter Thread

[steph08]

I need to join this thread. We just put in an offer on a new house and *fingers crossed* will be moving at the end of February. We really really need to start going through all of our crap and cleaning it out/moving it to our parents' basements while we get our current house ready to be sold.

[sheilaincali]

Welcome and Happy New year everyone!

Last year was a huge decluttering success for me: 2091 items (goal was 2013) left my house forever! They haven't been missed for a single second. We don't have enough clutter left to get to 2014 this year but I'm betting I could hit 500 items. 

Yesterday:  I went through my two little Thirty One file box things and shredded all the misc. papers that I didn't need, filed the rest.  Emptied out the big drawer on one of our antique hutches (lost the key for the top half in a move so I know that's empty ).  Already have the "donation" box better than half full- 16 items in there so far.

DH is off today and possibly tomorrow.  I dumped all of his "misc" cords, cables, power strips, etc in the middle of the family room floor and asked him to go through it all.  He promises he will do that today. 

Major Victory (fingers crossed that he doesn't change his mind).  DH has been a little clingy and sensitive about his things from his mom.  He did finally let me get rid of this super ugly antique sofa last year and now yesterday he announced that he was going to get rid of the wooden chairs.  We have been carting these chairs around since 2001.  They are old and very rickety.  We don't use them and they don't go with his round antique table (which is housed in a closet now).  8 of these damn chairs.  They take up so much room and I have wanted them gone for years.

He is apparently going to list them on craigslist and see if he gets any takers.  Fingers crossed that he does! 

[raeoflyte]

Last night after I posted I decided to just get started and I filled a garbage bag of stuff to donate.  It's a very random bag of stuff, a sweatshirt, a sun hat, some kids toys, etc.  I think I'm going for the 2014 items donated, and I know the bag had at least 20 items in it.  I'm going to talk to dh to see if that is something that would motivate him, or maybe a competition.  Anything to get him working on stuff a little bit at a time.  I've at least gone through my/house stuff and donated a lot every other year or so.  Dh has boxes packed from his parents house that haven't been opened in over 15 years. 

[whoisjohngalt]

I realized that I can't do "number of items" bc I forget to "log them in" and it becomes too much work.

My BIGGEST problem is papers.  Old stuff, new stuff.  I need to spend some time on the computer saving all our statements so I can shred and get rid of whole bunch of paper.

I also need to get rid of my clothes that well......not only don't fit, but really are not age appropriate any more.  I highly doubt that I will be wearing my slutty-club-skirts and tops to any playdates or grocery stores.

But for some reason I have this mental block of not getting rid of any of that until I loose weight.  I don't know why...

Rae (I wish I knew how to tag people) - my husband lives in a slightly more romantic version of reality so he thinks that anything is possible.  And that extends to having more kids.  Ummmm.....yeah....not at my age, but whatever.

[WholeLottaNothin]

Happy New Year everyone! I am in for this year. I am aiming for the 2014 items in 2014. I have already started going through our dresser drawers. I am counting how many things, but not adding them to my tally until they are actually donated/tossed and GONE. With the bad weather heading this way (well, it is here already) I should have some time over the next few days to really get some work done. Good luck everyone!

[WholeLottaNothin]

Oh, and Christmas with the in-laws went okay. She didn't do too badly this year for me but wow, did Roggie ever make out like a bandit! And Every. Single. Toy. they gave him makes noise. Some of those may end up in the donation pile . I left there with the wickedest headache.

[sheilaincali]

I tracked my numbers in a very simplistic manner. I kept a post it not on my monitor at work with my number on it. When I donated, threw away or gave away items I added that number to the number on the post it. Wrote the new number on a new post it and threw the old post it away.

My dad was impressed and really wants me to get my mom motivated (she is a total packrat). I offered to help her by telling her of my success and that I was on a roll but out of things to declutter. She said "no, I'm good. I don't have anything to get rid of right now". I reported that back to dad and he was super disappointed that she turned me down.  He said to keep offering to help her.

[constanz22]

Jan 2, 2014 10:14:01 GMT -5 @tbird said:

I did tidy up the LR and DR yesterday....need to get the gargage recylcing out. I've been avoiding that as it was soooo cold out - but now it is a foot of snow between me and the garbage.....the cold would have been easier..I have about 4-5 trips

it is still snowing....thinking of working from home....

Ugh, same here.  I only have every other week trash pick up.  I didn't put it out two weeks ago cuz we had snow and crappy weather too, and there is no way I am taking it out tonight either!  Sigh...my one can is full and running over.  But, I have a long driveway, we already have about 4 inches of snow and the "big" storm isn't coming til later today, 12+ inches.

[WholeLottaNothin]

Constanz - You live close to me right? Stay safe! I'm at work today. I work for the state and they don't close for much. The drive in was awful and I don't live that far. I got our garbage out this morning but didn't bother with the recycling.

[constanz22]

Jan 2, 2014 10:30:31 GMT -5 WholeLottaNothin said:

Constanz - You live close to me right? Stay safe! I'm at work today. I work for the state and they don't close for much. The drive in was awful and I don't live that far. I got our garbage out this morning but didn't bother with the recycling.

Yep, I do.  I work for the county (Broome).  They never close either. I had already scheduled vacation today and tomorrow so it worked out ok, I guess.  Be careful!

[constanz22]

I haven't done much yet today other than drink lots of coffee and sit on the giant heating pad with the dogs trying to stay warm!  It is freezing here, but balmy compared to what's forecast tomorrow, -15 to -25 windchills.  Of course I am low on heating oil so I have the thermostat down trying to conserve.  At least the space heaters help.  I was down in the furnace room to turn down the HWH a bit (my furnace heats the water too...anything to keep the furnace from running as much!) and noticed a couple things.  1. There is a decent amount of unused space back there.  Not a ton, but some, and it's cleanish and dry, so I need to think about what I could possibly store there.  2. There are a bunch of old remodeling crap in the back that can be thrown out.  It's mostly stuff from tiling and plaster, but it's all 4+ years old so I'm sure it's no good.  I just have to figure out how to dispose of it.  

[startsmart]

sarahjese- did your father pass away recently? Sorry that you're cleaning out his house and yours simultaneously, what a big job! I'm in the same boat about moving, don't know when or where, just that I'll be going soon.

debthaven- my mom did a trunk like the one you're describing and one of the ways she considered adding fabric was to cut cardboard to size and cover it in fabric so it was removable.

Steph- welcome! what about starting a list for easy stuff like collecting boxes from Freecycle, buying packing tape and setting up an area for packing boxes and garage sale items.

sheila- if my parents EVER agreed to Craigslist anything I would stealthily pay a friend to go buy the thing and take it to the . just a thought…. congrats again on hitting your goal of 2013!

lena- tracking the numbers is tricky for me as well, I've been keeping a small notebook by the computer so when I go to consignment or drop off a bag for donation I can jot it down. btw, I got a hilarious mental image of you showing up to a play date in club clothes.

I'm resting up before a marathon of 5 hours of calls with my clients who were not working over New Year's. I was working but on my own stuff and launched a new program today Oh and then I rearranged my living room furniture so I can sit and watch tv without seeing the mess in the kitchen. If it hurts my productivity too much I might just switch it back :-p

I do need to touch up the paint on the mantle, there are a few spots that are bleeding through. The box for consignment is sitting on my kitchen table so I have GOT to get that filled up today (max 20 items a week) and get it out of the house. One thing that has helped is printing out my sheets for donations or consignment and not putting anything in those boxes until it's on the sheet. Really helps when it's time to get out the door!

[sheilaincali]

start-  my mom's problem is multi-fold.

She is the oldest of her siblings and is basically retired (works one day a week) and moved Grandma to a care facility in our house. They left her to clean out grandma's house (largely by herself).  Of the 5 kids- two live in the town grandma's house is in, mom lives 3 hours away, one uncle lives in Illinois and one aunt lives in Maryland. We are in Minnesota.

She's afraid that she might get rid of some precious family item that will cause the others to be pissed off at her. Even though as a group they all 5 went through the house and took what they wanted and divided up the good stuff months ago.

My aunt works for the Salvation Army and one of her tasks is the manage the store in their small town. My mom insists that everything be donated to that particular SA (3 hours from here).

She's concerned that not all of the granddaughters have looked through the bags of misc. towels, candles, etc and that someone will be mad.

Honestly what's left is all junk. Grandma was volunteering at the SA and was taking a lot of stuff home. Random blankets, cheap Christmas decorations, etc. Nothing worth any money and nothing that anyone would really want to haul back to their house. But I'm not going to poke that bear and suggest she part with it.

[constanz22]

Well, I hauled the trash out.  That was fun.  It's solid ice under the snow, slid halfway down the driveway and almost fell, dropped the trash can, but, it's out.  Let the garbage men deal with it being covered with 12" of snow in the morning!

[snapdragon]

Hello everyone! Happy New Year.

I have started to go through the closet again and I HAVE to get ruthless. I have things that don't fit, or I haven't worn in 2+ years that I just need to donate. This is going to be hard but I need to pick up some new clothes and I need the room to put them away. I also need to donate several pairs of shoes that just don't work for me.

I also have to go through the office/library and organize and donate some things...

Oh well, I will work on it and attempt to have it written up and out of the house by the end of next week.

I also need to complete my homework for my Tax lady so I don't have to worry about it when it's closer to tax time. 

[jbxtwo]

Hello everyone,

I have been a "lurker" for some time now and figured I'd show myself thinking it's only fair because I feel like I know some of you.

I actually love to organize and it's an ongoing thing, so this should be fun.

I can say that on Facebook, I follow Peter Walsh (I know he's been brought up here before.) and he has started a 31 day challenge to get organized if anyone is interested.

Yesterday's challenge was to simply clean out 1 drawer, so if you can do that, you're caught up. He's promised to give 1 challenge a day for all of January and that should get you on your way.

Here's hoping for a great New Year!

[constanz22]

Jan 2, 2014 12:51:07 GMT -5 jbxtwo said:

Hello everyone,

I have been a "lurker" for some time now and figured I'd show myself thinking it's only fair because I feel like I know some of you.

I actually love to organize and it's an ongoing thing, so this should be fun.

I can say that on Facebook, I follow Peter Walsh (I know he's been brought up here before.) and he has started a 31 day challenge to get organized if anyone is interested.

Yesterday's challenge was to simply clean out 1 drawer, so if you can do that, you're caught up. He's promised to give 1 challenge a day for all of January and that should get you on your way.

Here's hoping for a great New Year!

Welcome!  I LOVE Peter Walsh and frequently recommend him here.  His book, "It's All Too Much" is one of my favorite ever!  Never even thought about following him on FB so thank you!  I am going to do that right now!

[Wisconsin Beth]

I realized this Christmas/New Year's that I hate our house.  My anger/blood pressure goes up just walking in the damn place. 

I moved the "back of the door" shoe rack from our bedroom door to the small bathroom and put most of my shoes on it.  I tossed out a couple of pairs and found 1 pair that I'm going to use as sloppy shoes for weather I don't want to deal with my boots for.  DH hated the rack on our bedroom door and is happy I moved it.  My shoes were stuffed in the bottom of the closet in the small bathroom.  Now I can see all the crap that fell in there so that's next on clearing. 

The kids got lots of stuff for Christmas.  We need to sort though toys and clothes.  I may try to do that this weekend.  I also realized my kids need shelves and not toy boxes.  Toy boxes get stuffed full and then have more stuff piled on top, so opening them up is a challenge.

We had a lot of snow and icy conditions so garbage and recycling pickups are screwed up.  They finally picked up both.  Sadly, there's a ton of boxes to be broken down from Christmas yet and our next recycling pick up is going to be end of Jan/early Feb, depending on snow.  We put snowplows on the garbage trucks, in addition to using the drivers for salting and on the real snowplowing trucks.  So anytime we get a lot of snow and/or ice, it pushes sanitation work  back a day. 

So, my list for this weekend:
1. haircuts (11am appt. for all of us)
2. work on closet in small bathroom
3. sort kids clothing
4. start taking Christmas stuff down.

Stuff to work on after that:
1. shop for shelving units for each kid
2. measure screen doors for front and back
3. figure out design wants for new fridge
4. shop for new Kindle and otterboxes - I'm not sure if I want to just replace with the same model or upgrade.  Need to think about that. 

As usual, there's laundry and dishes to be dealt with. 

[Malarky]

I'm feeling inspired.

The timer is set for an hour...this will be my break. I'm done working for today and tomorrow is a snow day.  I'll have a chunk of time to devote to this.

I'm going to start by putting away the Christmas decorations and sorting all of the paper that has accumulated in the kitchen in the last two weeks.     

This thread was a real inspiration for me last year. Although I still struggle with it, I only have two weeks worth of paper to go through.  A year ago, it would probably have been at least a month's worth of every scrap of paper that came into the house. Right now, it's bills to be paid and things that need to be filed. The actual crap was recycled immediately. 

  

[raeoflyte]

I've been trying to find a good count down to moving list all morning and don't like any of them.

I asked dh his thoughts and didn't get anywhere.

January we need to purge, purge, purge. I will set up a place to put stuff for dh to go through and that should make it easier for him to deal with. Then he can put away or purge as he sees fit, but hopefully give him enough direction to just do something about all his stuff.

February pack up everything seasonal/not in use and start tackling the indoor projects we need to do to rent our house. So far that's-regrouting bathroom floor, putting in baseboards in family room and touch up paint everywhere its needed.

March-outside clean up-reseed front and back yard. Find a mudjacker to fix drainage issues, then fix existing crack. Deal with hell hole that is garage. *shudder* or set it on fire...

April-purge again. Clean under all furniture/nooks and crannies so that we'll be less appalled and embarrassed when the movers start moving stuff.

May-assess. Dh can't function without deadlines so I told him I want us comfortably ready to move by 5/1. I'm still not positive which house we'll even be in at this point, but by May my parents should know what they want and their time frame. If we have more time, we can put in the fence at the new house and start moving our storage items over so we can show our house to tenants to rent as soon as we're out.

Sent from my ADR6410LVW using proboards

[constanz22]

"I realized this Christmas/New Year's that I hate our house. My anger/blood pressure goes up just walking in the damn place."

Beth-I feel the same way!  And I know it just drains me and depresses me more and more.  I can just feel my mood change the second I walk in the door and see the mess around me.  There is shit everywhere, all the time, no matter what I do.  I really felt it on Christmas too, but mine was after spending the day at BFF's, who's house is always neat and clean, like spotless clean, no clutter anywhere.  Her and her DH both work full time too.  I just don't get it.  I somehow missed the cleaning and organizing gene.  It makes me really pissed off and really sad  and I hate that my house causes me too much stress instead of being my sanctuary.

[Saving4Norway]

DH is trying to get lots of stuff done at work today so he can take tomorrow off. That would be awesome. I feel like I haven't seen him much recently, which is kind of pathetic considering the season.

Today I MUST:

Call ShoWare Lost and Found

Deliver donations to PFH

Print church book study guide

Today I hope to:

Walk the dog

Run dishwasher

Prep for packing up Christmas decor

[plugginaway22]

Day 2:  dumped my top dresser drawer contents on bed to sort through.  Got rid of underwear and bras that have been in this house WAY too long.  Only kept the things I have bought in the past year and the things that I like and actually wear.  So much better to have about half the drawer filled!  This has motivated me to tackle the rest of the drawers in that dresser. 

[Wisconsin Beth]

Jan 2, 2014 14:03:41 GMT -5 constanz22 said:

"I realized this Christmas/New Year's that I hate our house. My anger/blood pressure goes up just walking in the damn place."

Beth-I feel the same way!  And I know it just drains me and depresses me more and more.  I can just feel my mood change the second I walk in the door and see the mess around me.  There is shit everywhere, all the time, no matter what I do.  I really felt it on Christmas too, but mine was after spending the day at BFF's, who's house is always neat and clean, like spotless clean, no clutter anywhere.  Her and her DH both work full time too.  I just don't get it.  I somehow missed the cleaning and organizing gene.  It makes me really pissed off and really sad  and I hate that my house causes me too much stress instead of being my sanctuary.

Yep.  And no matter what I do, the crap keeps coming back.    It doesn't help that the house needs work too.  I've got a guy lined up to fix some trim in spring.  And if his personal life permits, he'll probably be willing to help with out stuff.  I've got a massive list on the white board in the kitchen.  The problem is that stuff goes ON the list but never comes OFF the list.  Or I start a project and don't finish it (I.E. the big bathroom.  I started removing the wallpaper 5 Christmases ago.  And it's still not completely off.  I did buy sandpaper to just sand it down but then lost the damn sandpaper... ) I need Startsmart or Debthaven to come and kick my ass into gear. 

[kilroy]

My biggest frustration is things I have no control over, which means my husband's stuff.  We have books in 4 different places because the main bookcase is taken over by his stupid ceramic cow collection (oops, did I say that?).   And no matter how many times I reorganize the closet near the bathroom it immediately becomes a disaster zone again.  Grrrrrrrrr.

[Wisconsin Beth]

That too.  DH is a slob and we have a 5.5 year old girl and a 4 year old boy.  I swear to God, about 1/2 of my work at home is picking up the same God-damn-thing 3652678x a week. 

[kilroy]

Hang in there Beth.  Not much we can do about DHs, but if you train your kids right that part of the problem should go away over time.  Is there a way to make a game of organizing/putting things away? (I realize they're probably a little young for this).

[Wisconsin Beth]

And I'm a slob too.  It's not all DH and the kids. 

[Wisconsin Beth]

Bins on shelves in their rooms for toys will help.  As will a toy purge.  A ban on eating in the living room would help but I'd have to enforce it at the top of my lungs (I'm not kidding about the volume)

[Wisconsin Beth]

I swear it gets messy faster than I can pick it up.