2017 Declutter and Organization Thread

[startsmart]

Ready to simplify your life, get organized, banish clutter and finish some big projects? This is the thread for you! 

Jump in at any time to share what you need to get done, encourage each other and track your wins.

How does this work?
We are attempting to clean up, declutter, organize and simplify our lives. Since it's not always easy (or fun) we post our goals, lists, questions and successes here in the community. There are no hard rules - jump in and do what works for you and your home. Please don't post simply to lecture, mock or stir things up, we have no use for that b.s.

Basics for the thread:
1. Be encouraging to one another
2. Share your updates as often as you wish
3. You don't need to respond to every post but it is a great way to participate and support each other
4. Feel free to track anything to stay motivated - phone calls to return, errands to run, some of our teachers track papers to grade - however there are dedicated threads for losing weight, saving money on groceries and eliminating debt so check those out if you want more in depth discussions
5. Remember when giving advice that we rarely know the whole story and this is not a place of judgment. Try not to take offense when others make suggestions to you and use the private message feature if you'd like something to remain private. You may always edit or delete a post but doing so will not remove quotes from other posters.

Why are some people posting numbers?
Some posters will be attempting to downsize a specific number of items. If you see a "count" this is probably what it's referring to - if you're not sure feel free to ask the original poster. It's not required or even necessary, do what works for you.

Tip! If you are tracking your items going out this year, create a "signature" like mine below by going to:
Profile and Settings - Select "edit profile" button on the right side of the page - Choose the "Personal" tab - Write in the "Signature" block and Save. Update with your count or goals as the year goes on!

Moderators: Please keep the 2016 thread live through Saturday as some will continue to post there.  Thanks!

[3catslady]

Thanks for starting this thread, Startsmart.

I think I am going to track my projects that I get done and how many skeins of yarn I have left to use.  I have until Sunday to count them all, 3 Rubbermaid 18 gallon tubs full.  I hope I can get through all of them by then.  That way I will also be decluttering the tubs and etting them out of the house.  

Another thing I am going to count is item that goes out either to the trash, recycle, or donate.  I really feel that this is the year I get somewhere with  all the clutter in this place and maybe I will be able to move things around.

I guess I could also keep track of my to-do list as well.  Maybe I am just wishful thinking.

[Saving4Norway]

This year IS the year that I will make my "office" into a real adult-ly organized and functional space. I must finally face the reality that I will not finish every little project I've ever envisioned so there are several things in varied stages of completion that I need to let go of.

[Iggy aka IG]

Copied from the 2016 thread for reference:

Take down decorations Monday
Deep clean the master bathroom I've been yapping about forever
Start packing
"Encourage" our realtor to start marketing our home, though I heard through the grapevine the people who own the house we put a contract on are now going to build a house? So, no rush for us to sell apparently.
Added:  Dust off the cowboy hats in the foyer, and sweep and Swiffer the main floor.

I also need to do the usual laundry, dishes, and work week food prep this weekend.  Special for NYE is a seafood feast tomorrow night, and tater tot breakfast casserole for Sunday brunch.

I'll refrain from posting my office to do list.  I'm afraid if I do, I'll run screaming, LOL.

Have a fantastic New Year's Eve celebration, everyone. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I'm returning to bullet journaling this year. It's been four years since I've done it; I was trying to keep everything on my phone. That's not working anymore, and I feel incredibly disorganized. I also feel like I'm way too tied to my phone. I started it a bit for the school year and solely for work purposes. I'm going to incorporate my personal stuff into the same notebook for the remainder of the school year. 


For this weekend (of which I also have Monday off)
--complete January notes pages skeleton
--menu plan
--lessons are planned for the week, but I do need to finish prepping
--mop the floors
--cleanup the ridiculous ant mess on the window sill behind the couch
--three areas to declutter: desk, gift wrapping, DD#1's bedroom aka guest bedroom


DH will be straightening up the garage.
DD needs to vacuum her bedroom and finish some Model UN work. 

[Sharon]

Today I got the outdoor lights down and put away.  The porch tree is chopped up and in the yard debris bins.  The porch and driveway got swept again to cut down on the tracking in of pine needles into the house.  I got out the little chain saw and cut up the tree trunks and added them to the wood pile.  All totes of Christmas items that need to go into the attic are now in the attic.

It was pretty nice this afternoon so I also swept out the garage.

[debthaven]

We take the tree down on 6 Jan. I'm getting impatient. The Christmas storage box has been falling apart for a couple of years, so I need to find a new box by then.

I'm still on a reduced schedule this week: I go back to the primary on Wed to say goodbye, and I work all day Thurs. I go back to a full schedule the following Monday: two business schools, no more primary school.
 
We're invited to our best friends' house for NYE. I have to shop and prepare some food.

[moneysquirrel]

I'm back for another year.  Managed to get all of the necessary items done from the last list.  Still working on the craft items but those are fun items.  Created a prototype for one item.  Needs work to get it the way I want but I have at least something to work with now.  Original graph was hard to read and decipher.  (Used an online site to get that one.) The prototype is OK just not what I wanted it to look like. 

All 2016 spreadsheets have been updated and closed out.  2017 spreadsheets have been created and ready to be placed in action. Today I will be backing up all documents to a portable hard drive and a few to google drive as well. 

Still have a few days to relax before I return to school on Tuesday.  Christmas items will stay up another week as I like to leave things out until January 6th. So next weekend will be spent taking down the tree and other decorations as well as the nativity  collection, getting the room back in its normal layout.  

Will be back later with a detailed list I am sure.  I like being able to strike through items.

[plugginaway22]

New Year
New Motivation
Always something in this house to get rid of.
Continue to dream about downsizing.

[dee27]

Dec 31, 2016 2:53:29 GMT -5 debthaven said:

We take the tree down on 6 Jan. I'm getting impatient. The Christmas storage box has been falling apart for a couple of years, so I need to find a new box by then.

I'm still on a reduced schedule this week: I go back to the primary on Wed to say goodbye, and I work all day Thurs. I go back to a full schedule the following Monday: two business schools, no more primary school.
 
We're invited to our best friends' house for NYE. I have to shop and prepare some food.

DH just replaced two of our cardboard ornament boxes with vinyl ones (holds 112 ornaments) he purchased at BB&B. The store did not have them in stock yet, but the manager ordered them for us online and the bonus is we did not owe the shipping charge. With a 20% coupon each box was under $16.

www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/s/christmas-ornament-boxes?ta=typeahead&_requestid=1537483 The first picture is the one we bought.

[debthaven]

Dee they don't have BB&B here.

I already have boxes for the ornaments (I use old cookie tins), but we fit all the Christmas Stuff into one big cardboard box.

ETA: Those look great though!

[dee27]

Okay, we use cardboard banker boxes, too.

[debthaven]

My phone memory has been full for months, which is a PITA. I couldn't manage to change the settings (old phone and I never updated the system). Today I finally deleted the emails from my old email account via webmail, which did the trick. (When I deleted them on the phone they just came back.)

I also got up the courage to raise the boiler temperature. We still don't feel comfortable with our "new" boiler, it's super complicated, but it has been much too cold in the house. Good boiler! Nice boiler!

[zibazinski]

Three huge bags of clothes, shoes, and costume jewelry went to goodwill

[Artemis Windsong]

I had not planned to organize.  Routine cleaning this morning then I was going to hang my new 2017 calendar.  GONE.  I look on my computer desk while sorting through useless papers.  Soon I have a clean desk, exercise, book ideas, and recipe print outs in file folders.

I ordered from Dollar Tree 24 magazine holders for my various file folders in different rooms.

I tried to get a tall wire file holder from Walmart to hold my platters in the cupboard but I couldn't get them apart.

I used my new battery operated pot stir for the soup.  It worked great and no scorch on the bottom from the electric element.

Every time I start to pull things out to donate to the 2nd hand store, the mind goes wait, you might want to use that again even though you haven't used it in 10 years.  Must overcome this.

I don't have a pantry.  I have a need to stock pile food when there are stock up prices.  Slowly, when I will use something then buy just one item to replace it instead of 3 or more. I am going to clean off the shelves I started with, and hopefully get the canned good boxes cleaned up that are on the laundry room floor and adjacent hallway.

My shoes on the floor of the closet.  I do have flat racks but most of the time don't slide the shoes onto them.  I think clear shoe boxes would free up the bottom of the closet and be more tidy.  I have zero idea what to do with my various boots.  I did retain two boot boxes for tall winter dress boots.  Doh!  I tossed the one for my most recent new pair.

I now have a pillow on my bed that ended the nightly pillow fight.  I do need to recycle the useless ones but do have separation anxiety of I might get rid of the next best one.  And need it.

I will used the adage no matter what I do to organize, I have done better than sitting on the couch.  This is taken from exercise.  No matter how slow you go, you just lapped the guy on the couch.  

[vetswife]

Got some shelves in my craft room closet-it looks so neat in there now!! I got rid of a few things but I've done a lot of culling over the year so not too much to throw out.

[Sharon]

I did a lot around the house today and feel good about going into the New Year with a reasonably clean house.  There are lots of things that need to be tossed but the house is clean, picked up and feels relaxing.

Today

Returned cans/bottles to recycle place
Changed the sheets on the bed
Spot cleaned the carpets
Finished vacuuming
Cleaned the Christmas leftovers out of the fridge
Got rid of the last of the Christmas fudge etc
Washed the tablecloths from Christmas
Laundry is done except for the towels
Got the small sewing table back in Kitchen
Got sewing machine back onto sewing table
Ordered cat food
Cleaned the litter boxes
Finished putting away the Christmas dishes

[Jaguar]

I still have a kitchen to organize, and I'll be doing that in January.

[dee27]

I went to Walmart for some canned goods and remembered why I hate this store. The customers are plain rude. A little old lady was in the middle of the aisle on her phone and DH asked her to move twice and she ignored him. He tapped her on the shoulder and her tirade started, and I thought she was going to hit him with her pocketbook. She did move so we could get through the aisle. We finish checking out and the card reader will not take the cc. After 4 tries, the screen goes blank, the cashier voids the sale, and moves us to another register to ring up our purchases again. The customer behind us was mad because she had to move. This is why I dislike shopping. Plus it was very windy and rainy today.

I was in and out of Merle Norman in ten minutes and BBB in 20 minutes. DH was getting grumpy and hungry as we headed home; he ate a snack and took a nap while I prepared dinner. My mind is decluttered after dinner, but Clemson was beating OSU by 17 at halftime. I am done thinking for the day.

[debthaven]

We had an absolutely wonderful evening with our best friends and 5 other people (4 of whom are close friends). They have a huge house so they host often, but since they're English, they always ask their guests to bring a course. (Contrary to the Anglo-Saxons, the French generally don't, except that we've all trained our close French friends to understand that it's more fun to see each other more often and not have the host prepare an entire dinner on their own).

Happy New Year to all of you!

[WholeLottaNothin]

Happy new year to all! I didn't get to 1000 items last year, but did get rid of 926 unwanted items so I still think its a win. I am in again for 2017. Another goal of 1000 items as well as continuing to pay off some debt.

Everyone is sick in the house. I woke up today to the 2 year old having thrown up in his crib and had it in his hair. So he had a bath before 6 am and he was not happy about it lol. Then the five year old went to the bathroom but managed to get poo everywhere. (Sorry tmi). So on the agenda for today is laundry and cleaning the bathroom.

[Spellbound454]

I feel like I'm drowning in Christmas clutter Tree is already down... and I'm on a mission.

Just realised the cupboard under the sink has containers of cleaning product which are empty.........Why is it there?....... grrr
All this rubbish had better get out of my house.....and quick.


Happy New Year to all.

[debthaven]

Good luck Nuttin! Hope everyone feels better!

[zibazinski]

Today the outside lights get put away. They're so pretty that I'll miss them. Everything else is done

[3catslady]

I only got my cotton yarn counted and I have 44 of the 2 oz. skeins and 4 of the 7 oz cones.  That will probably take me the whole month of January and February to use up.  I haven't counted the others but it seems like I have time.  I just started one skein when I was at the laundromat.  If I work fast enough I can get 1 1/2 skeins done while I wait for my laundry to get done.  I time myself working on things there.  The washer runs 32 minutes and I run the dryer at least 35 minutes so I have an hour to knit/crochet.  That's when there is no one there that talks to me.

I am taking 3 items out to the craft-done box, and will try to get the last one I started finished.  Then it will go out.

Tasks for today:
finish craft item
clean litter box
take garbage out
freeze pork roast
go to work

[zibazinski]

Jan 1, 2017 7:55:15 GMT -5 3catslady said:

I only got my cotton yarn counted and I have 44 of the 2 oz. skeins and 4 of the 7 oz cones.  That will probably take me the whole month of January and February to use up.  I haven't counted the others but it seems like I have time.  I just started one skein when I was at the laundromat.  If I work fast enough I can get 1 1/2 skeins done while I wait for my laundry to get done.  I time myself working on things there.  The washer runs 32 minutes and I run the dryer at least 35 minutes so I have an hour to knit/crochet.  That's when there is no one there that talks to me.

I am taking 3 items out to the craft-done box, and will try to get the last one I started finished.  Then it will go out.

Tasks for today:
finish craft item
clean litter box
take garbage out
freeze pork roast
go to work

Where would I go to find someone who knits?

[3catslady]

Zib

There are lots of people out there who knit.  I knit, crochet, quilt and do all kinds of needlepoint.  Check your local Senior centers.  On fb there are knitting pages.  It depends on what you are looking for.

[plugginaway22]

Happy New Year!
We had too much fun this morning with DH's new rotating waffle maker!  With fresh blueberries and syrup they were amazing! (He and I debating, keep the box to store it in or find a place in pantry to store it without the box?)
Outside lights come down today, as well as some of the inside decor.  We don't usually have it all put away until next weekend.

[zibazinski]

Jan 1, 2017 8:03:33 GMT -5 3catslady said:

Zib

There are lots of people out there who knit.  I knit, crochet, quilt and do all kinds of needlepoint.  Check your local Senior centers.  On fb there are knitting pages.  It depends on what you are looking for.

I need someone to knit a new or fix DD's Christmas stocking

[Sharon]

Jan 1, 2017 10:45:32 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Jan 1, 2017 8:03:33 GMT -5 3catslady said:

Zib

There are lots of people out there who knit.  I knit, crochet, quilt and do all kinds of needlepoint.  Check your local Senior centers.  On fb there are knitting pages.  It depends on what you are looking for.

I need someone to knit a new or fix DD's Christmas stocking

Is there a yarn store in your local area.  Not a craft store like Michaels but a yarn only store.  We have a couple in our local area so I imagine there should be some in your area.  They carry the better yarns and usually have a group of regulars.  They should know someone.