Setting A Decluttering Goal in Units of Time Using Flylady's Timer Method March 2017

[Chicken lady]

Early morning, I think it's the adrenal response to all the stuff going on when you have little kids and a lot to do.

my hardest challenge now is that my dh thinks I should be on his sleep schedule. Actually, that was a challenge when the kids were here too, but at least he understood why I was tired. I think he should be on my sleep schedule, which is go to bed early and get up early all the time. His is go to bed late, get up early on weekdays for work, sleep in on weekends. It wipes me out.

anyway, good job to those who are cleaning out!

i looked at my studio yesterday and thought that I could probably have the space under control by next spring - there will be no major building components stored in my barn by then, and if I put a little time in every week dealing with the toys that are stored in it and make my kids take or release some of them - it's workable. But I don't know if I want to commit to eating a second elephant. It's like the first elephant calved before I was done with it -lol.

[mschrisgo2]

I can share my kid's toy story. My daughter packed up and left many, many boxes when she moved out. Then she got married and had 3 boys in 4.5 years. That fifth year she came home for our town's annual yard sale and unpacked her boxes. She pulled out the Legos and a couple of other things. ALL the rest of it she put out for sale. At some point, it got too bitter sweet for me, and I went down the street to help out a friend. When I walked back at the end of the day, she was jubilant! Everything was gone.

Like everything else in her life, she had a plan and did it in her own time, and very effectively.

[early morning]

Put in two hours yesterday moving furniture, reorganizing a few things, boxing stuff to go away..... hopefully I can get some more done today. Might help if I get off the computer....

[ejchase]

Hello All,

Well I finally did a little more time on my goals. I put in an hour tonight in the house, so my new total is 2.5 hours. I've been feeling a lot of anxiety about the state of the world, and it helped SO much to just take an hour and clear up all the "hot spots" downstairs.

And yesterday, I finally started tackling my office. I had hoped to do 20 hours by the end of April, but I'm going to have to push that deadline to the end of June. But I started. One hour done on that goal.

Thanks to all of you for the inspiration!

[Chicken lady]

Good job getting back to it!

[early morning]

I've been slacking - but tonight we are going through DD's extensive Nancy Drew collection to put the new old books in and pulling duplicates of the same editions. DD is in her 30s - this is a serious collection here, lol. Different boards, endpapers, weight of paper (wartime editions), dust-jacket pictures, revised stories due to changing sensibilities (guns/no guns, racist language removed, etc). Anyway, it's a box of books out of my family room, lol!

[Chicken lady]

Does your dd live with you?

mine is almost 25, married, and has a house. The bobbsey twins collection is in my basement. The first books were my grandmother's (and maybe my great aunts') My mother added more titles. My cousin and I added more (but she liked Nancy Drew better and we traded my ND books for her BT as adults) and my oldest daughter continued the tradition. She insists that I should keep it because it may be her nieces that are interested in the books... (I feel a little guilty that I never offered to share with my nieces, but my brother wasn't interested and my sil doesn't save books, so they might have handed them out to the girls' friends after reading. - fine for books I buy them, but not these). Also, they are definitely a social history lesson!

[early morning]

Yes, DD and her apartment-worth-of-stuff moved back home several years ago. As DH has some issues, having another adult in the house is very helpful (and good for my sanity). Sadly the book endeavor was a wash - almost as many books came out for resale as went in. BUT they should go to the booth this weekend, or next at the latest. I loved the Bobbsey Twins as a kid. But then I loved about any books I could get my hands on. Purging my own books again - i dropped off large paper shopping bag #4 at the library yesterday. Cleared one hot-spot tonight. Not much but SOMETHING, lol.

[ejchase]

Good job, Early Morning! Getting rid of books is hard!

[early morning]

Thanks, ejchase - it IS hard! Books are the shiniest of my gazingus pins, the things I regret getting rid of the most, and the biggest monkey on my back, lol. I LOVE BOOKS! Not e-books so much. Although I will read almost anything - that part is an addiction. Lack of reading causes me severe headaches and extreme bitchiness! But it's not just the story, it's the feel- the heft, the paper, turning pages - good reading is a very tactile experience for me and computer reading is NOT the same. Call me crazy, but. . . On a more positive note I have not bought a book (other than things I have to have for work, and they pay for those) in more than a year. I hit the library hard, borrow from friends and family, and read as much as always, but the buying part is done, mostly. I'm hopeful that I won't start to replace purged books (but I've been down that road!). I thought long and hard over some of them, kept them if in doubt, and I still have PLENTY of go-to editions on my shelves. Still have several shelves to go through and pare down. It's a process, for sure.