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You go, girl! :)</p>
<p>I strive to have one completely empty drawer in each room. I just declutterer my bureau (does anyone else use that term? Dresser?) and now have one. There’s something about allowing empty space. My nightstand has 3 drawers and only 1 has anything in it.</p>
<p>"One way is to take pictures of things. " - My mother does that. Very effective… one small photo for memories instead of the big object. </p>
<p>I’m thinking of photographing each kid with all the soccer trophies. Then they can each keep their favorite and donate the others … there’s another thread I see on that.</p>
<p>I recently donated about half of my books. Some I simply knew I’d never pick up again, others I have downloaded through Kindle, and still others I could download for free because they’re in the public domain. I prefer reading on my phone, so I knew I’d never read a hard copy of Pride and Prejudice again even when I do want to re-read the story itself someday.</p>
<p>I have high school books. They may go to recycling as nobody seems to want them … they are highlighted and some have broken bindings.
Any other ideas?</p>
<p>to answer the OP’s question … marry Mom3ToGo and your life will forever be organized</p>
<p>RE: High school books. Go to textbooks.com and key in the ISBNs. They won’t take the ones with broken bindings, but the others may be worth something. They pay shipping, so you are only out the time and the packing materials. They describe the conditions on the books that they will accept. Good luck. </p>
<p>I will start tackling clothes closets next week. One of the problems I have is that my mom does the laundry, but is unable to climb the stairs to put all the clothes away. Consequently, I have piles of clean clothes on the piano and bench. I need to get better about taking them up.</p>
<p>High school literature books and extra textbooks that you have purchased can also be donated to the school library for those students who may have left theirs at home or lost or damaged a book. </p>
<p>In our city, if you donate them to the main branch, they get sold to the public at the annual book sale. If you donate them to the school, they go right into the collection for use by the students.</p>
<p>We try to always buy a set of my D’s textbooks on ebay for each term and get quite a deal - it’s not usually worth it to relist them, since we paid almost nothing to begin with!</p>
<p>I admire the folks finding ways to get money back for their books. For me I’m just relieved to move them on… once I decide ok to part with them. Next week I’ll be after college freshman to fill some boxes with books - some are literally stacked on the dresser. I guess I’ll give the kids option to bring to the used book store for credit.</p>
<p>
Thanks! My best laugh of the day!</p>
<p>I need to do everything in the 110 posts before mine. </p>
<p>I would advocate taking some care in paperwork disposal though, esp. if it has come from a prior generation. My parents have a marble topped 1800 buffet–came from the gg aunt, g grandmother, grandmother, to my dad–stopping at several various houses for each generation.</p>
<p>I think he was the first one to open the drawers–original land deed for early 1800’s, president signed certificate naming ggrandfather postmaster, 1865 picture album with tin types, wills, etc. As a genealogist, I simply cannot convey this thrill. I also know several purgers where this type of stuff would have been easily tossed over the years. So, I always try to consider if it will have any value to ancestors.</p>
<p>Yeah, I could still fill some dumpters with “other” stuff-ha.</p>
<p>At a New Year’s party last night, a friend and I agreed to get ready for a tag sale next May. So this morning I started walking around the house with a box. I put seven items in, and guess what – DH came along and removed two of them. </p>
<p>This is going to be challenge.</p>
<p>VeryHappy - you have to do this when no one is home 
If you can secretly remove items from your home between now and May and no one misses them, you’ll know you made the correct decision.</p>
<p>Update
My DH looked through the books left on his workbench, and declared them OK to bring to Goodwill. Yay!</p>
<p>rom828: Everyone will be out tomorrow, for around 10 hours. I have to be careful, though, and just remove one or two items at a time from one place. Too much and DH will notice. </p>
<p>I did take one of the items he removed from the box and hid it. If he doesn’t notice that it’s no where to be seen by next May, it’s going!!</p>
<p>Interesting… I had not contemplated getting rid of DH’s things without discussion. I’ll need to think on that. </p>
<p>Here’s a trick that works for me. Under the built in kitchen desk, I have 2 baskets with hinged lids. One is for catalogs - occasionally I clear it out. keeping only the newest. (And yes, I do call for cancellation on unwanted catalogs). </p>
<p>The other covered basket is for paid bills, electronic payment bills (best thing ever!) etc. At the end of the year I sort it all and decide what to keep. Perhaps the utility bills should be shredded immediately (or switched to online like some of them)… but I prefer to just do the decision making at the end of the year. The important stuff I keep gets filed with the tax paperwork.</p>
<p>In the pantry I have a set of plastic drawers, and one is for unpaid bills. I also keep the stamps and return adress stickers there. That way when I ready to pay bills (usually after checkbook balance and another time or two mid month), everything is ready.</p>
<p>Oh, the pantry has another plastic drawer just for “tax” paperwork that comes in the mail throughout the year and especially in January. I like having everything in the kitchen because that is where I sort the mail and pay the bills (it’s adjacent to the family room tv).</p>
<p>I’ve decided that all the organization in the world isn’t going to help us, because we simply have TOO MUCH STUFF! One of my goals this year is to do a major purge of our belongings, and I have decided on my plan of attack. I’m going to purge one room per month. Omitting D’s bedroom (which is her problem), and counting the hallway (which has several closets bursting with junk), there are exactly 12 rooms. </p>
<p>Obviously, some rooms are going to be much larger jobs than others, so I’m interspersing the easy and difficult rooms throughout the year. So for example, the kitchen in April will require major work, but then I get a break in May with the laundry room which should take about 20 minutes.</p>
<p>I put a Windows 7 sticky note (7’s best innovation IMO) on my desktop, so every time I fire up the 'puter, I’ll be reminded.</p>
<p>If I didn’t get rid of my husband’s socks with holes we’d have a large drawer-full or more of them by now. I don’t ask if he wants me to get rid of them, and he doesn’t get the opportunity to tell me otherwise!</p>
<p>Clutter actually makes me anxious, which is why I rarely visit my mother at her house that is littered with mostly papers and bags of unopened things. Sadly, she is resistant to help and is not ready to move in with us (which could be a blessing in disguise). It’s not a health hazard, so we let her be even though my brothers and I have a very hard time with it and rarely visit her there as there isn’t a cleared surface to even sit down. Funny thing is, she will BUY organizing products in a futile attempt to organize the junk she already has, which only adds to the problem! What really needs to be done is a dumpster purge! I know I make her nervous when I do come by since I have NO problem tossing stuff!</p>
<p>My personal philosophy on material goods:</p>
<p>Use it, or wear it out,
Or make do, or do without.</p>
<p>I’m of the belief that excess stuff holds psychological weight, that it’s heavy and a burden. As a result, I’ve been gradually clearing away and paring down the things I have in my house. I don’t add anything decorative to the house without considering its meaning, and so I rarely bring more things into the house (outside of food, of course). Planning to sell the house in the next couple of years has also been an incentive to minimize the clutter. </p>
<p>My sons and I held a couple of garage sales the summers before they each went off to college. I’ve sold a lot on Craig’s List and have given a lot away on freecycle. I have about 100 books listed on [Half.com:</a> Textbooks , Books , Music , Movies](<a href=“http://www.half.com%5DHalf.com:”>http://www.half.com), and if they don’t sell in the next 6 months I’m going to take them to a used book store and/or donate them to the library. The only things I’m holding on to are DS2’s trophies (he can’t bear to part with them) and some favorite children’s books (so many memories of reading Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny to my boys). Surely there will be grandchildren to read these to one day?</p>
<p>I’ve taken a lot of clothes to Goodwill (they don’t usually sell well at garage sales). I have a large dept store bag in my closet and gradually add clothes to it as I determine that I’ll never wear them again. Once it’s full I take it to Goodwill and start another one.</p>
<p>The most recent clearing out has been my desk, which is just a work surface, no drawers. I have a file cabinet and a movable drawer unit that holds stationary, extra checkbooks, credit and membership cards that I don’t need in my wallet, tape etc, both of which are tucked into the closet. On the desk itself is my computer, a coffee mug that holds pens, pencils and scissors, and a box that holds 5-6 hanging folders that I reference often. I also have a beautiful glass bowl that I use to keep stamps, return address labels, and checkbooks. That’s it. Incoming mail is dealt with immediately, and work papers are filed or recycled. I love having an uncluttered desk since most of my time is spent there (I mostly work from home).</p>
<p>On the subject of incoming mail, I’ve been relentless about getting off mailing lists. There’s a way to opt out of credit card offers (can’t remember how I did this, it was several years ago). I also opt out of all catalogs by using [Catalog</a> Choice - Control the catalogs you receive in the mail](<a href=“http://www.catalogchoice.org%5DCatalog”>http://www.catalogchoice.org). All of my bills come via email, and I pay everything online. Any charities that offer email vs mail updates, I choose email.</p>
<p>Anyone remember George Carlin’s rant about stuff? [Funny</a> Story number 85](<a href=“http://www.writers-free-reference.com/funny/story085.htm]Funny”>http://www.writers-free-reference.com/funny/story085.htm)</p>