I ran across 3 prior season Christmas cards from cousins and threw them out. I barely know these people. So I think old photo cards and pictures may be my next decluttering project.
Trash was not picked up today, maybe because the street is too icy or they could be behind from last week's storm. I lost one week from being on vacation and am eager to get rid of the rest of the old insulation so I can start tossing additional items.
Good work, KayLR and Yppej.
Yppej, I can relate about trash pick-up issues. When I'm on a good roll with decluttering, I sometimes fill up my recycling bin and have to ask neighbors if I can put some stuff in theirs. They always laugh about it like it's so cute that I'm in a housekeeping frenzy - little do they know about the monstrous piles I'm tackling!
I did two more hours today, so my new total is 10. Feeling overwhelmed by how much there is to do so am starting with the mantra, "Do what's easy." So I decluttered the fridge and one shelf of the pantry and started to deal with the upstairs hallway which is where my stuff collects when I backslide. I'll take a "before" picture of it and the guest bedroom tomorrow because they are the two spaces that are really totally unpresentable and thus are my highest priority, I think.
Thanks to you all for your encouragement and your companionship on this decluttering journey!
I did two more hours today, so my new total is 12.
I always forget how hard it is at this stage, the beginning. I'm so overwhelmed by how much clutter I've let accumulate that it's hard to know where to begin, and all I think is, "Forty hours isn't going to be enough to get through all of this."
And 40 hours definitely *isn't* going to be enough to declutter the whole house, but it will be another 3 steps forward in this whole "3 steps forward, 2 steps backward" process. And I do think every time I devote 40 hours to it, I make some permanent changes (find "homes" for things that didn't have homes before, get a LOT of stuff out of the house entirely). There is no doubt that certain parts of my house - such as, my bedroom, which I spent a lot of time on over the summer - look MUCH better than they did a year ago.
So. Onward.
ejchase: So you are definitely making progress!
In my house, I bumped into a stash of slips. That's a downside to being "a place for everything person," you can neatly have a bunch of unnecessary stuff lurking that is no longer needed. I wear pants almost all of the time and can't remember the last time I wore a slip, so most of them are now in the discard collection. There are a few which will get closer scrutiny, but most of those will probably end up joining their kin.
Rosarugosa, thanks for the encouragement.
And I look forward to the day when "decluttering" in my house means finding one category of things neatly stored where they belong and then realizing I can get rid of or reduce those things anyway. That seems like a sign of true sanity.That happens occasionally in my house - yesterday, I weeded out some old cloth napkins and tablecloths from a stash of them all stored together - but mostly, I'm just going through piles of unsorted stuff.
But back to it.
Had a big revelation today after putting in a couple of hours decluttering. THIS IS A LONG POST WHICH YOU SHOULD FEEL FREE TO SKIP. IT JUST HELPED ME SO MUCH TO WRITE IT.
Last winter when I was also prioritizing 40 hours of decluttering during my reduced work time, I successfully decluttered the upstairs hallway where I had let a lot of junk collect, and it looked beautiful. Then it occurred to me I might have a few more boxes of clutter from my move into my current house six years before still out in the storage shed in the back yard. Well, it turned out that there were something like 16 boxes of clutter from that move still out in the storage shed, and I brought them all into the house to deal with them, thus immediately filling the upstairs hallway back up with unsightly clutter before I could even enjoy the fruits of my previous labor.
Well, it's been a year now, and I've reduced those 16 boxes of clutter to somewhere between 4-7, but I'm still overwhelmed by them and everything else I want to do to finally make my home a space I feel good in and that I'm proud of.
I've been struggling with my clutter issues my whole life, and they are a huge source of shame and embarrassment to me, and I've really been wrestling with trying to understand why dealing with "stuff" - which some people seem so naturally good at - is so difficult for me. I know there's something a little compulsive about it, and that that it's a little bit like an addiction for me and also kind of a way I push people away (e.g. "I can't invite that person over because they can't see my messy house."). As I've tried to figure this out, I've thought a lot about a problem I had with compulsive overeating from about age 14 to about age 24, which I successfully worked through with the help of a lot of good books and a lot of therapy and journal writing.
Like keeping my home cluttered, overeating was something that I, consciously or unconsciously, perceived as keeping people (men, especially, I guess, because I weighed about 30-40 pounds more then than I do now) away. The method that worked for me in working through my overeating issues was giving up dieting and just focusing on waiting until I was truly physically hungry to eat and stopping eating when I was full (there was more to the method I used, but that's a quick summary of it). But one thing also that was really important was that one of the books I read said that it was really important for me to figure out how to accept and love my body the way it was. The idea was that I shouldn't let my eating issues hold my life hostage, but that I should do everything I could to enjoy my body as its current size, including finding clothes that fit me and complemented it and exercising and doing other things that helped me enjoy it. This piece of advice made me realize I'd been sort of punishing myself for being heavy by telling myself I couldn't buy pretty clothes - or feel good about my body in any way - until I lost weight.
Well today I kind of realized I was doing the same thing with my decluttering. I've sort of taken the stance that I have to get through every piece of clutter in my house before I'm allowed to focus on decorating the house and making it a place that "sparks joy" for me. And frankly going through these boxes of clutter is extremely hard emotional work for me. It's not just tedious. It's extremely emotionally exhausting.
And I realized the decluttering version of buying clothes that fit me at my current size is for me to focus less on getting rid of every single piece of clutter in the house and to focus more - and prioritizing more - the steps I could take in these next 25 or so hours to make my home a space that I feel good in and proud of.
And I'm realizing what that might mean is that I decide to pack up the remaining 4-7 boxes of clutter, label them clearly (e.g. "clutter from move in 2011 to go through" or "materials from old writing groups" or whatever), and put them back in the storage shed for now so that I can enjoy my upstairs hallway instead of feeling guilty every damn time I walk through it. And then I think I want to focus more on going room by room and doing what I need to do in each room to make it "spark joy" for me, my daughter, and our guests. I want to buy a pretty shower curtain for the upstairs bathroom to replace the stained one currently there, frame some pictures of family and friends that remind me and my daughter of all the love we are lucky enough to have in our lives, and do some other rearranging and redecorating that I think will help me enjoy my house more. I actually think if I just allowed myself to pack up those 4-7 boxes it would sort of "clear the way" for me to figure out what I need to do to love my house instead of feeling ashamed of it. And then I can tackle those 4-7 boxes one by one when I can without punishing myself for them.
And because the last couple of days of decluttering have been so difficult and painful, tomorrow, I'm just going to do the easy stuff: take 3-5 boxes of stuff that belong in my office at work to my office at work so they're not taking up space here; take a load of stuff to Goodwill; return a bunch of clothes I bought that need to be returned; put the Christmas decorations and some of the boxes of clutter in the storage shed. I've already figured out where, on Saturday, I can drop off an old printer and an old computer that have been cluttering up one corner of the hallway. Then I'll figure out next steps for focusing on these new priorities which could be best summed up as "figuring out how to love my house." I know those next steps will still involve some decluttering, but I think it will be healthier and more healing for me to focus more on loving and enjoying my house than on beating myself up for what's not perfect in it.
If you read all this, thanks for "listening." It was very helpful to write all this out. I did 3.5 hours today, so my new total is 15.5.
Very interesting read. Thank you for sharing. Glad to know it helped you to just get on here and write!Originally Posted by ejchase
Wow, Ultralight, I can't believe you read that whole thing! But thanks for your kind words. Being able to share my journey here with all this is really helpful and healing.
I read it too.
i think packing all the clutter back to the storage shed and creating the house you want is a great idea. You can then bring the boxes in one at a time and they will be less overwhelming. Also, you will be able to see how the stuff in the boxes fits into your vision - or doesn’t. Which may make it easier to process.
However, as a hoarder who has used the box method to “clear” my space, suggestions I would make are:
don’t bring anything new into the house (decorations, accessories, etc) until you have packed the clutter away.
look to your clutter boxes first before adding new items (want a vase here? Is there a vase in a box? Will it work?)
and do not allow yourself to increase the number of boxes after the initial pack up - box number should slowly go down, not up.
Chicken Lady, thanks so much for your support and good suggestions.
I do realize there can be a danger in putting clutter out of sight - that I might never deal with it or have things in those boxes I could use and therefore save money.
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