This thread is different than the “bag a week” thread. This is a specific effort from Apartment Therapy website to declutter for 15 days (I thought it was 10?)
Today’s task below - I will set this up in a corner of my bedroom where already have a “sell” pile.
"Today’s Assignment:
Figure out where you’re going to set up your drop zone.
All month long, you’ll need a spot to set aside the things you want to get out of your home. So try and gather up boxes lying around from recent deliveries, or baskets or bins you can repurpose. Whatever works. You’ll need three of them total.
Grab your three containers and put them somewhere out of the way of daily activities. As the original Apartment Therapist Maxwell likes to say, make it “a place you can comfortably allow to get messy and chaotic for a short while.” A closet or guest room is perfect for this, but any small area or corner will do—maybe under a table or even under the bed, if it fits.
Label one box “sell,” which will ultimately be for items you think have value, just not for you right now. Label the next one “donate,” for things that are in good shape but not worth selling. And label the third one “wanderers;” we’ll use it along the way to collect objects that you want to keep, but that don’t exactly have a home they belong to yet. I find those objects—important papers, action items, and sometimes new and useful things—are the most tricky sort of stuff to manage.
That’s it for today! Don’t worry about filling up these boxes just yet—we’ll get to that tomorrow."
Share any and all thoughts you have about completing the daily challenge.
You will also need a trash bag. As you go through your closets, cabinets, and drawers for items to put into the sell/donate/wanderers boxes, you will also find stuff that is just trash. When we moved, we did a similar exercise: one room at time, touch each item once, either label with a price for the garage sale and move to the garage or pack into a moving box and label, but the trash bag got the most use—all those twist ties, magnets, dried up pens, partial pads of paper, broken toys and kitchen utensils, general garbage not even Goodwill wants. I was surprised at how many trash bags I filled from my “immaculate” house.
Duck makes “Pack & Track” labels. From a phone app you scan the label (QR code) and on your phone you can list the contents of a box, take a pix of the contents if desired). Then you add where you stored the box. It allows for item specific retrieval–so you can look up “red sheets” on your phone and it’ll say “box 3, left garage” for example. You can revise anytime. Works great. It’s 15 bucks for 40 labels at Wal-Mart.
According to the challenge we are not going through our closets yet! Today is just get the three containers out. Tomorrow we will get another task related to the containers. Or labeling!
Trying to keep this thread to the challenge of the day.
I did scan ahead at some of the tasks they have planned and I’m already on top of a few. I have very surface clutter in my home. That’s not my personal issue as much as stuff that gets shoved out of the way in closets and the basement.
So, my strategy will be to sub in decluttering a little drawer/closet cleaning if I find a daily task doesn’t apply to me to keep in the spirit of the challenge.
Thanks @abasket for this thread and posts…it is motivating me-- I didn’t sign up because I already have too many emails clogging my inbox. But Always have time for CC posts…
What a timely post. My DH has a terrible habit of wanting to keep everything. I was going through some cupboards in our office where we keep books. Books that have been there for 25 years and more just keep getting thrown in. I weeded out 35 books I’m taking to goodwill. It’s just ridiculous.
My drop zone is my LR. Unfortunate, but I have to have that space under my nose or a year later I happen on some pile. No guests for another month, so ok.
I know you said not closets yet. These are things not in closets. Boxes of my mother’s things, former Maybes, etc. Will stop here, so I don’t derail, but update another time.
Well, that was easy! I have drop spots upstairs and downstairs. I’m not sure I would go to the trouble to sell anything, but I guess it’s possible. Donate and Wanderers, definitely.
Day Two:
Today’s Assignment:
Clean out one drawer.
Armed with the rules, your September Sweep assignment today is to clean out just one drawer. Anywhere in your home. The drawer you pick (and how much work it needs) is totally up to you. Maybe you want to tidy up your junk drawer, your messy makeup drawer, or the catch-all drawer in your nightstand. Or maybe it’s not a “drawer” at all—you can dig in on a storage basket or small cabinet if that’s where you’d like to start.
Take everything out of the drawer and run it through the rule book (below), casting aside anything that doesn’t pass the test into the “sell” and “donate” boxes we set up yesterday. Take everything that does pass muster and put it back into your new, leaner, lighter drawer.
I also really love these “5 Questions To Ask Yourself” - when you’re holding an object in your house or a piece of clothing in your closet you’re considering whether you should keep or not:
The Rules
If the answer to all of these questions is “no,” get rid of it.
Have I used this item in the past year?
This one's easy. Try to remember a time when you used the thing you're weighing on. If it hasn't been worn, used, or appreciated since last fall, let it go.
Will I use it in the year ahead?
Try to resist any thoughts about how you "might" use it, and find something more concrete: Will you use it? If you don't have a real need or plan to do something with it, the answer is "no."
If I was shopping right now, would I buy this again?
Does it work? Does it fit? Do you have another thing that does the same job? Do you even like it anymore? Try to be present and mindful about your current tastes, habits, and priorities.
If it is broken, is it worth fixing?
Consider whether you would use the broken item if it were in good shape (see question #3 above). And weigh the cost of fixing the thing against the cost of replacing it. And will you actually get it done? Soon?
Would I keep this if I moved?
Would it be worth packing up, moving, and unpacking in a new space? We tend to be a little more ruthless and honest with ourselves about what stays and what goes when we're moving from one home to another.
They also talk about how the process of cleaning and getting rid of things is mentally exhausting. The attachment we have to some items can be emotional. But emotion can’t be the only reason to hang onto things.
My report from yesterday. I set up my “sell it” and “donate/trash” bins yesterday. I already had a “sell” spot actually - my H does sell on eBay so I often post clothing or small home items on there. Tonight I’d do the drawer challenge - either kitchen drawer(s) or bedroom drawers (socks, undies, tights, etc.)
A strategy I have used with clothes is at the beginning of each season I put all the clothes for that season on a hanger and hang them with the hanger backwards. At the end of the season anything still on a backwards hanger gets put in to a pile and if I can’t justify why I need to keep it it gets taken to good will or thrown out. It’s amazing how many clothes you quit wearing but just hang around. I don’t do a lot of clothes shopping either.
Lol. I “appreciate” all the stuff I save. That’s the problem, the emotional connection. I try hard to use Kondo’s tip to thank something “for your service.”
I didn’t receive today’s email from the September Sweep people. Thanks for posting the details above. I’ve tackled the worst of the drawers recently, so decided to do some bottom cabinets in my kitchen. H is gone, so it’s time to be ruthless. Sadly, if he sees me getting rid of things, he focuses on the fact that “good money” was spent to buy the items - even if they were gifts, or purchased 20+ years ago. Some items I haven’t used in years, have moved on to other small appliances/gadgets, or are unnecessary to me now that I’ve tried using them and just don’t. So, a large box and two large bags in the car to donate this morning!
How do you all feel about cookbooks? I have 15 in the donate box, including Julia Child. I just don’t look at them any more - there are millions of great recipes online.
I’m passing this along to my D, too. She’s in a decluttering mood and has been reading Marie Kondo’s book. She showed me her dresser and it looks amazing with things folded and standing up so you can see everything at once.
I redid my and husband’s dressers with Kondo’s folding technique. LOVE it! I can FINALLY find things and know what I have. (also got rid of a ton at the time!) Also makes it super easy to pack for a trip.
(Kondo says do kitchens last in your clearing out sprees).
Cookbooks. I weeded mine out years ago and could probably do another reweed. I only kept the ones that I use frequently - which was very few. Pinterest and my NYT recipe box (online) and my old-tyme recipe index cards are all I really use now.
I don’t release any cookbooks unless they’re dumb ones. I also have MIL’s which are are outdated. Maybe donate yours to the library. Ours holds book sales tthrougout the year.
I have two not very big shelves for cookbooks. Any I own need to fit there. If not then something goes.
I have also taken out pages of the few recipes that I use and purged the rest of the book.
My books are covered in cooking ingredients so no loss not donating.
Trying to get to one shelf today that holds a million staples and stuff. Will donate.
Depending on what I find will post on NextDoor and see if a teacher could use the stuff.
Tomorrow we will get another task related to the containers. Or labeling!