40 Hours Decluttering Using Flylady's Timer Method - April 14 - August 29, 2022

[iris lilies]

Spent another 1.5 hours in the cellar today. Delivered one of my giveaway items this morning, because the woman could not find my house, and I was not about to pass up the opportunity to rehome something from the cellar cleanout project! Fortunately she lives on the route of one of my local walks.

Yes. While I only did it a few times, I got so that I preferred to deliver free items to people in my neighborhood because I got tired of them saying that come and get them and they never did. I delivered for porch pick up in didn’t try to coordinate if they’d be home or not.

[nswef]

EJ your decluttering keeps me thinking about doing more! Always inspirational. The cleaning one shelf at a time is working. I could do it every day...but I don't. The paper work things flummox me so I avoid them.

[ejchase]

EJ your decluttering keeps me thinking about doing more! Always inspirational. The cleaning one shelf at a time is working. I could do it every day...but I don't. The paper work things flummox me so I avoid them.

Nswef, I feel like it's so hard to do ANYTHING every day, but every day you do it COUNTS.

Speaking of, I managed to eke out my first hour of decluttering for the year yesterday. New total: 29.

[rosarugosa]

I've done another 1.5 hrs in the cellar, so I'm at a total of 11 hours. We cleaned, took apart and reassembled our wooden modular wine rack and glued it this time, so it should hold up for the duration. This allowed me to move a lot of bottles down to the wine rack from other places in the house (mostly mocktails, I'm not so into wine these days), so we maximized the storage utility of that piece. I also drew up a list of subtasks of the remaining cellar-related tasks, so when I'm in the mood to work down there, I won't spend a lot of time spinning my wheels on wondering what to tackle next.

[ejchase]

Rosarugosa, it sounds like you are making amazing progress.

I'm still working in baby steps here. Did 30 minutes yesterday. New total: 29.5.

[rosarugosa]

EJ: forward motion is what really matters! I did another 30 mins yesterday, so I'm up to 11.5 hours. I think 20 hrs. will be enough to complete my cellar project.

[ejchase]

EJ: forward motion is what really matters!

Yes! One of my mantras is "Any step forward is a step forward!"

I did another hour yesterday. New total: 30.5.

[rosarugosa]

I spent 1/2 hour in the cellar today and cleaned out my little cabinet of laundry and cleaning supplies.

[ejchase]

In preparation for my daughter to have 2 friends over for a sleepover tonight, I did 3 more hours. New total: 33.5.

[ejchase]

I'm realizing that I'm not going to be able to complete this 40 hours AND complete another 40 by the end of February because I have a huge work project that has to take precedence this year. So I think after I finish this 40, I'm going to start another 40 with a deadline in mid-June. This will allow me to stick to my regular goal of 80 hours total of decluttering per year but adjust my deadlines to accommodate these new work priorities.

An interesting sidenote, though: the work project I've been focused on has felt HUGE and overwhelming, and I've been really stressed about it. But I've actually been using the timer method with that, and it's really helping. When I feel panicked about it, I just say to myself, "All you have to today is spend an hour on it and then you can stop." After weeks of feeling in total despair about it (I started it last August!), I FINALLY am starting to feel more confident that I can do a good job on it. I think I probably have at least 30 more hours of work to do on it, but I'm starting to gain momentum. This is the exact pattern that tends to emerge when I'm doing a batch of decluttering, so I guess decluttering is helping me deal with the other tasks I want to avoid in my life.

And today I had to come up to campus to meet a student, so I decided to do 30 minutes of digital decluttering on my work computer. New total: 34.