Originally Posted by
ejchase
I would say the guestroom is pretty decluttered - though my clothes are in the closet there, and I'm planning to make another "pass" through them in this 40 hours. But everything in that room is in its "home." There are no boxes of unsorted clutter or anything like that. That's pretty true of my daughter's room too, and the bathrooms. And in the spaces where there is still clutter, there are small pockets - a couple boxes in a corner, that kind of thing.
The most cluttered space has been our upstairs hallway, which is unusually wide and spacious. There are several boxes there - maybe 8 or more - stacked in a couple corners, stuff I need to go through and have had trouble making decisions about. When I started this process, though, there were easily 30 or more boxes up there. Seriously. I had a baby a month after we moved into this house, and I just didn't unpack those boxes . I felt too overwhelmed. And there were lots of boxes of clutter in the guestroom and my bedroom back then too. Those boxes are completely gone from the guestroom, and the clutter in my bedroom has been reduced by about 80%.
I know it's hard for "normies" to imagine why it would take so long for me to do this, but I've just always been a packrat, always had a tendency to accumulate too much and had a hard time getting rid of what I don't need. Also, I realize as I do this, that a lot of times I've just never thought through how to organize certain kinds of stuff ("Where should I keep the resusable shopping bags? The small paper bags sometimes good for lunches? The plastic bags I need for laundry when I'm traveling?"), so I am slowly developing that skill finally. This whole process has helped. And it has done wonders for my mental health. I've had such shame about my clutter for literally decades, so finally dealing with it has felt very empowering.
When I was watching the Marie Kondo show on Netflix last year, it was clear to me that it took some of those families hundreds of hours to Kondo their places. In general, I don't have that kind of time. But committing to 40 hours twice a year really works for me, and the support I get here makes a huge difference. And, as I slowly go through the house and develop systems for where things go and find homes for things, it's easier to maintain the progress I've made.