Nope, im not getting rid of cookbooks yet. I love my Julia and a few others. On Monday, my future DIL asked for a recipe for,potato pancakes. I was easily able to scan and send her my 2 fav recipes.
I did get the annual book of recipes for the many cooking magazines I had stuffing my shelf. They don’thave the same photos, but sure take less space.
Today, I clearned out a box of nothing that sat in a LR corner. It was holding 4 books I need to take to a friend and the rest was outdated coupon flyers or junk mail. Proud of that.
Question 5 (Would I take this item with me if I were moving?) is most effective for me.
Thank you for posting the challenges. I just attacked a few drawers.
We moved three years ago so most everything is something I definitely wanted, or at least wasn’t ready to give up. I started six months ahead clearing out shelves and drawers and under the stairs. After three years here, I realize I could have given away even more heavy winter clothes. But now I’m afraid if I get rid of them I’ll jinx myself and have to move back to winter.
DH had a lot more trouble giving up stuff and did not start far enough ahead so we paid to move a lot of stuff that we shouldn’t have. Luckily we have a large garage now; it’s full of stored cartons.
We did our major downsize when we sold our house in 2017. We are now in a 935 sq ft condo. Sadly, we have to have a 5 x 5 storage unit off-site. Not sure we will ever be able to do without that, unfortunately. Still storing some stuff for ds, plus luggage and Christmas are challenging. Anywho…
Notwithstanding the recent downsizing, I love a good purge, so I still managed to fill two garbage bags full of clothes today! I have a third bag of old towels, too, but that was a wash as I bought new towels (which we really needed!) today.
Thanks for posting this!
I did 4 kitchen drawers tonight. The stuff we save in the kitchen!!!
Day 3!!!
"Today’s Assignment:
Identify your monster zone and remove three things from it.
Identifying your monster zone might come easy; if you read the lead-in to this assignment with a particular mess pictured in your mind, that’s your monster. If not, what you’re looking for is an area of your home where you’re most naturally and instinctively likely to drop something that doesn’t have a dedicated home. You can use the gadget test to steer you in the right direction.
The gadget test: Say you opened up a brand new gadget and wanted to store the box it came in… where would you put it? That spot is your clutter monster.
So step one is to identify your monster. Then step two is to remove three things from it. Just three things! Open a box, dig into a drawer—do whatever you need. Fnd three items (big or small) that you don’t really need anymore, and send them on to their next life via the “sell” and “donate” boxes we set up on day one, or even just the trash or recycling bin.
If you’re struggling with what to get rid of, use the rules from yesterday’s assignment to help you stay brave and ruthless.
Every weekday for the rest of the September Sweep, we’re going to remove three more things from our monster zones. At the end of the month, our biggest messes will be almost 40 things lighter.
I’ll drop monster zone reminders into every post and assignment from here on out. All I need from you is your commitment to conquering this beast once and for all!"
This is a little tough for me. I feel like I have small monster zones…like the spot beside my chair I usually sit in at night where a few things collect. But not enough there to get rid of 3 things daily. So I think I have to go with the big one - THE ATTIC.
Where’s your monster zone???
@abasket - hmmm. I suppose our monster zone would be our 5x5 off-site storage unit. But, dh is traveling, and I can’t tackle that alone. And, honestly, it isn’t even all that bad. We have pared down SO MUCH! Even made ds go through his things again when he was here in March. So, probably my biggest monster zone would be a “dump” drawer in the kitchen and a couple of drawers in my night stand that I don’t really use (other than for dumping).
Our entire basement is the monster zone. Stuff from 2 kids, inherited stuff, and just left overs. I guess that wil be it, although even 40 items won’t reallly make a dent.
@Singersmom07 , this is your sweep to play! Double or triple the daily amount if that is what works for you! Make your own daily quota!
My monster zone(s) are not places where I instinctively drop things because I keep that area, the foyer, relatively neat. Mine are the bedrooms. I fear them.
Definitely basement monster zone, but there is an end in site when the 3rd kid becomes a grown up and will take her stuff. However, in the unfinished (also known as scary) basement, DH has kept all his old electronic boxes, I’ll be taking them out a few at a time to recycle!
I do have places where stuff gets put down during the day. I am surprised how often I work at clutter, how much clutter piles up so quickly.
“there is an end in site when the 3rd kid becomes a grown up and will take her stuff.”
LOL , I WISH!
Still waiting on my kids for this to happen…
I seem to be the defacto “declutterer” even of their stuff. They would probably be happy to chuck most of it but I"M the “keeper of memories”.
Easiest when they live close and you just finally box it up and ship it off (closing your eyes to the possibility that they chuck stuff that may mean more to you than them. Except when they keep moving around and beg you to store it a bit longer. (Been there that long so a bit longer won’t matter, right?)
Harder when they move much further away and it costs a fortune to mail stuff to them unless you can come up with a better solution.
Just brought a 4-5 boxes of stuff to S1, who promptly put them in his storage unit without looking at anything. DH, who boxed up most of the stuff, kept trying to tell him what “treasures” were in there, but S1 didn’t bite. I wouldn’t be surprised if those things stay in those boxes, unexamined, for a long time.
Monster zones for us are the basement. For me, it’s also the desk in the kitchen. That’s where all papers go, and rarely get filed or thrown away.
I have two. The basement, and my desk upstairs where I file bills/paperwork. I hate that space. Probably because the files get full too fast so then I just stack stuff on the desk until “later”, a time which never comes. I did recently switch all my bills to online, so no more paper bills! Yay!
I’ll find my things for today in the basement. I’m ready to part with almost everything, so that shouldn’t be too difficult. I wish H would part with his computer graveyard. We have 4 old towers in the basement, but he lives in the delusional world of “someday I might need something off of one of those old computers…”
@gouf78 - I feel your pain regarding kids who are far away and may or may not keep moving around. We moved out of state with our downsize, and told ds (who was still in college) that we would hold his stuff as he had nowhere to put it, and we were going to have to have a storage unit anyway. He had allegedly purged his things for the move to storage, but when he came to our new place for spring break, we had him go through all of it again. He got rid of quite a bit more. However, I would say that around 25-30% of what is in our off-site unit is his. He just started his first post-college job, but we are on completely opposite coasts! And, if he ever decides to pursue graduate school, that would likely mean a move for him somewhere else. I don’t want to burden him with it until he is more “settled,” but I really have no idea how we will ever get it to him. I do wonder if we could go off-site storage unit free (we have a small storage closet at our condo, but it’s kinda full, too) how I would feel about continuing to hold onto his stuff.
When I got serious about decluttering a decade ago I made a one box rule for “ sentimental” “memories” items. It’s a big box but each kid gets only one. I made it clear that when they went to college if it wasn’t in the box it was going out. I have one box for me too.
For us this has been the best way to not let things weigh us down. My house has been very neat and clutter free for five years ( I celebrated the anniversary this year by redoing all my closets). This rule helped immensely.
@maya54 – I did something similar-- I got two identical boxes, labeled each with kid’s names and put all the school files etc. in them. It’s great for papers and most memorabilia but not big enough for some of the extras…
and now I’m the keeper of ancestors…
I’m glad to see other people’s desks are their monsters! Since the kids have left home, I have been pretty good about keeping up with closets, etc - but my desk, oh my. It (and the custom built cubby shelves above it) is command central for my volunteer projects, photo projects and uploads, committee work, work I bring home from the office, notes about books and binge shows which have been recommended, notes with newly created passwords, pages torn from magazine, etc etc! Yesterday I attacked the desk drawer which I could barely shut any more. Found about 4 boxes of staples and a gajillion paper clips, both of which I hardly use any more. A whole bunch of dried out rubber bands, too. But taking up the most room was charging cords for old phones, digital cameras, iPods etc. OUT OUT OUT!! The good thing about this drawer clean out is that nothing is sentimental!! So - progress, thanks to this thread!