I appreciate the encouragement of having this thread.
dh and I worked a long time on the studio barn today. I don’t know how long, but definitely more than 4 hours. I am going to claim 4 because part of the time I was helping him with his stuff.
new total: 20:40 past the halfway mark!
Oh, I wanted to say to NewGig - I think you are trying to schedule too much. List your areas and try to be intentional about them, but set yourself a minimum, like 15 minutes on one of the areas no matter what every day. Then if you have the time and energy, you can go longer or tackle another area. If there is an area you never seem to get to, you might want to ask yourself why.
Went back out for another hour and 50 minutes. Worked on carrying things down from the loft and putting them mostly on my shelves. The loft used to be a guest room, and then we moved the large bed into one of the kids’ okd toons and I buried the loft in inventory and packing materials. There is still a 3’x6’ table covered in inventory, but all the other pottery related stuff is out. There is still room on the shelves, but I don’t know if it’s enough.
i also washed the grubby metal stairs.
22:30
Chicken Lady, it sounds like you are getting a lot done!
I did four hours today. Earlier in this thread, I think I said when I started these batches of 40 hours three years ago, I probably had about 30 boxes of clutter in my house and now have about 6 left. But walking around the house this week, I realize I must have started with more like 40 boxes of clutter, and I'm actually down to 12-15. It's embarrassing to admit, but I think those are the actual numbers.
While I've mostly been making progress, there's one area where I have backslid. When I started decluttering, almost all of the boxes were in the upstairs hallway, my bedroom, and the guest room. I think there are about 7-8 boxes still upstairs, but in the meantime, 6 boxes of clutter have accumulated downstairs, and they are stacked in a corner of my dining room. I intended to tackle them as part of my 40 hours last winter but ended up prioritizing other things. But tonight, after doing some other decluttering, I started on them and got 2 of the 6 boxes completely cleaned out. I'm so excited to finally be facing them.
Also, somebody had sent me a beautiful gift basket of goodies in the spring, and I'd emptied it but didn't know what to do with the remaining basket, which I didn't really have a use for. I posted a picture of it though on the neighborhood Moms Facebook group, and a mom came and took it to use it for a container for a baby shower gift. So nice to send something off to be re-used!
Ah, I feel like I'm really getting going now! So happy. New total: 11.
I periodically check this thread to see how things are progressing. Very impressive to see what you set as goals and then accomplish. So often, we postpone jobs until we have a day to get something done but you are proving that simply setting shorter periods and taking note of the time, a lot can be done in increments. Inspiring!
As Cicero said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
Brother sent two boxes of family memorabilia yesterday. Spent two hours sorting and labeling, burned stuff, removed diplomas from old mildewy frames. Stuff now sorted by person and era.
11/20 hours
Ejchase, do not be embarrassed! You have identified the problem, and you are making progress.
at one point, I had hundreds of random boxes. That is not an expression, that is an estimate. I never took a count, but I know there were over 200, perhaps 300 or more. A “random box” is a box into which you have tossed the contents of your surfaces in order to appear to be neat and organized or to attempt to use a space for it’s intended function. My dd2’s birth certificate was lost unopened for 7 years, and because of the circumstances of her birth, dh filled out the forms and didn’t think about spelling, so that I actually did not know the legal spelling of my daughter’s name. Until she was 7.
when I put things away on my new shelf yesterday, I discovered that I have exactly the maximum number of full scrap clay buckets that can be neatly stored in the allowable space in my studio. Plus 24. So a long term goal for me this year is to make things and use the clay up at a net rate of two buckets a month.
45 minutes. Finished de-studioing the loft.
23:15
Another 45 minutes clearing off a shelf, moving it, sweeping, and mopping. A different already wiped down shelf will go there tomorrow when the floor is dry.
24.
24 hours. One entire day.
I did 3.5 hours yesterday. I have now emptied all the boxes that were in the corner of the dining room but also filled up two other boxes of stuff that needs to be filed/put away upstairs, so that job is not completely done.
I did get rid of a ton of paper though - have filled up the recycling bin outside. I'm remembering how Trash Day becomes a really big deal whenever I'm doing these 40 hours because the clutter doesn't really feel gone until the cans are emptied.
Thinking too about how to prevent the accumulation of more boxes of clutter. I have gone paperless on most of my bills but not all and on some bank accounts but not all, and I think I need to go paperless on everything.
I thought I was doing a better job of recycling junk mail immediately after opening the mail box, but there was so-o-o much stupid junk mail in those boxes of clutter. Argh.
New total: 14.5.
We are starting to clean out one of our small houses because we are placing it on the market to sell. DH brought out sacks of artificial greenery that I had forgotten were stored there. I took a photograph and put it up on craigslist for free stuff – no takers. So it’s unfortunate, but is going to go into the landfill dumpster.
If there are no takers for my free craigslist listing that means there is 0 market for it. There was a time I thought that I would put my house on the Christmas house tour and use all of that stuff that I have accumulated over 30 years, but we did the house tour last June So it is unlikely will do it two years from now, but if I were to do it again I would use fresh greenery.
Fresh greens are my new thing because I don’t have to store them.
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