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

[ejchase]

Hi Everybody,

Setting decluttering goals in units of time has really been working for me (along with other techniques), so I am going to keep doing it here.

My two goals for this spring:

Spend 20 hours decluttering my office at work which has gotten pretty bad. I'd like to complete these 20 hours by April 30.

Spend 40 more hours decluttering my home by June 15. My work schedule is about to get really busy, but I think I can manage this bit by bit.

I'll report here how I'm doing, and if anybody wants to join in with their own goals, that would be great.

Elizabeth

[Chicken lady]

So, this isn't decluttering, but it's spring(ish) and my goal is to spend ten hours a week on work that provides food without leaving my farm. This may include cleaning out work in the green house or barn, but it will also be clearing, digging, mulching, planting, weeding, and cooking.

also I want yo spend ten hours a week on pottery. That will definitely start with cleaning up and clearing out. Those are pretty ambitious goals, so we'll see....

[Chicken lady]

So, yesterday I only got two hours in - all barn and garden related. That means I need to do an average of three hours a day for the rest of the week to meet both goals.

[ejchase]

Sounds great, Chicken Lady. Good luck!

[Chicken lady]

Only 45 minutes - garden yesterday,
but 4.5 hours in the studio today, mostly cleaning up. Box to go to school and much more organized.

totals:
2:45 food
4:30 pottery

still a little short to make the week.

[early morning]

Impressive goals, you two! I'm hoping that having a goal and agreeing to post progress might improve my willpower... so I'm going to commit to 3 hours a week clearing hot-spots, decluttering, and finding homes for the stuff sitting everywhere. It may not sound like much but it's all I think I can do as the weather breaks and outside beckons, and considering the small amount of available time to work within.

[ejchase]

Wow, Chicken Lady - it sounds like you are making a lot of progress.

Early Morning, 3 hours a week sounds like a good, attainable goal. Let us know how you're doing with it.

[Chicken lady]

Nothing on Wednesday.

3.5 hours yesterday - all "food" - mulching the fallow section of the garden by laying down cardboard and covering it with used bedding, so also got a clean stall and less stored cardboard out of the process. And weeded one small patch of overgrown rhubarb.

totals
6:15 food
4:30 pottery

very sore.

[ejchase]

Good job, Chicken Lady! I've been too busy at work to do anything yet, but I'm hoping to take a couple of baby steps this weekend.

[early morning]

yesterday, I spent 15 minutes shoving things around and moving a cupboard (temporarily) to another room so we could move out a vanity. Today, we spent two hours total moving things to get TO the vanity, bringing it downstairs, pulling/pricing/packing a box of glass to go to our antique mall case, and loading it all into the van for delivery. Yay, a few more things gone! 2.25 hours spent on that endeavor. Priced/packed more items tonight to take to our booth in another mall tomorrow, and I have another bag of books to donate to the Friends of the Library sale, spent another hour on that. So I've met my goal for this week!

[ejchase]

Good for you, early morning!

I took one small baby step forward today: spent 30 minutes cleaning up our daughter's old sandbox and outdoor play kitchen so that we could hand them down to neighbors. Half an hour done. 39.5 to go!

[Chicken lady]

That's a start.

and good job early morning!

i spent an hour and a half baking yesterday. So my totals for last week are

7:45 food
4:30 pottery

i really need to make the pottery a priority. I think I need to set specific blocks of time to work on it. If I don't treat it like a real job, it's just going to continue to be a semi-profitable hobby.

[Chicken lady]

So, new week, new start.

2:30 working in the studio today - and actually made some things, didn't just clean and organize
30 minutes planting seeds.

[early morning]

Yesterday I spent 15 minutes and cleared a large hot-spot from the kitchen. I have no idea why I let it set so long when it took such a short time to clear it out.:|(
so, only 2.5 to go yet this week...

[Chicken lady]

Monday was zero.

yesterday I put in 2:15 in the studio (mostly clay, a little organizing) plus ? In the house in the evening on some finish work. I didn't time the house work, so I'm giving myself another 15 minutes - it was more than that.

5 pottery
30 min food

i decided that if I can get into my classroom an hour away by 9:30 twice a week, I can get into my studio by 10 two other days (tu/th) even if I exercise first. Going to try that tomorrow.

[ejchase]

Great work, you two.

Early morning, I totally relate to what you say about that 15 minutes. I learn again and again that the hardest part is getting started.

Sunday was my five-year-old's birthday and while she was still at her dad's, I did a quick pass through of her room, organizing it a bit. There's more to do, but in thirty minutes it went from relative chaos to relative order. Interestingly, when she came home and saw it, she made a little pile of books that she wanted to give away. It seems like when she can actually see all her stuff, it's easier for her to weed out what she doesn't want anymore.

Then I spent 30 minutes more decluttering the downstairs. New total: 1.5 hours.

[Chicken lady]

Yay!

i have a really hard time with transitions, so the getting started is a big one for me too. Yesterday I did exercise, and then for some other reasons only partly involving procrastination, I didn't get to the studio until 11. Still put in 4.5 hours and got some work done as well as straightening up. Only pulled a couple of things out, but the "clean as you go" plan is starting to show results.

Yesterday I wanted to move the cookie cutters closer to the slab work area, and I asked myself "what is in this cupboard anyway?" - answer: craft stuff from when my kids were little. It was a really easy decision to give the partial boxes of ten year old macaroni shapes to the chickens! Other stuff is going to school. I ended up only keeping 10% of the cupboard contents.

i also trimmed some older work, threw a dozen bowls, mixed the casting slip back to usable, wedged a bunch of reclaimed clay, and tidied up.

only 20 minutes on garden prep - it got really cold here again.

9.5 pottery
50 min food.

[Chicken lady]

Hour and a half in the studio - noticing that which area is more successful is very tied to weather.

also that roughly 12 hours seems to be my window around other stuff in my week.

i am going to stop logging this because it isn't really the right forum, but it has been an interesting exercise that I intend to build on.

[early morning]

WTG, you guys! Chicken Lady, I'm impressed with all you do! And yes, it did get cold, didn't it just! I'm sure I'll be missing this weather soon. I really hate hot weather and the older I get, the more I dislike it. My yard and flowers show it too. I've about quit gardening due to the summer heat, and that's in Ohio. I don't see how people live in the south, I really don't. But - spent two hours today going through stuff, getting rid of stuff, putting away stuff. Baby steps. You'd think that at 60, my baby step days should be far in the past, lol. But regression seems like part of my life, I was so organized and on top of thing when my kids were little - worked full time, went to college, had a garden, raised rabbits for fun and food, had chickens, cooked only from scratch, sewed a lot, my house was always clean -and now! Our house and yard are a mess, when one adult daughter lives at home and helps with house and yard work. We have no meat animals, no kids to drive to meetings/practices/events. I have only one job and no after work classes, and my mother, who took a lot of my time the past few years- is now gone. We eat simple meals because I don't want to cook (but also don't want to buy much frozen pre-made crap). I have gotten so lazy! So it's back to baby steps, I guess. It's better than crawling, right?!?

[19Sandy]

I read somewhere that busy people get more done that people who don't have lots of stuff to do (that they have to do). Nowadays, I try to do marathons of cleaning, but getting rid of stuff is making it easier to clean. I don't have a yard to take of though. It would be nice to have a garden, but it is a lot of work.

[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.

[early morning]

Frustrated! My progress is in fits and starts. Two steps forward, two or three back. *sigh* Went yard sale-ing yesterday and bought mostly for resale, but I did get a cloths rack that won't fall over, and the one it replaced is setting by the road with a free sign on it. - so one in, one out there at least. I got another one to replace the rickety one upstairs but that will be a later project, since I can't easily access the upstairs rack. At least the new one is in pieces, not taking up much space! Been working on cleaning/fixing/pricing for our upcoming large antique sale. Coffee dyed tags on Friday and hung them on our rack in the living room - for some reason, I love they way they look when they are hanging there drying. So we will tag stuff all week, pack on Saturday, and hopefully sell all day Sunday. NONE of this makes my house look better, sadly. And that's why I struggle. I need storage space and there is none downstairs. I am too old to schlep furniture up and down stairs, even small stuff, so most of the crap up there is in "deep" storage (holiday stuff, more boxes of my parent's glassware collection to sell - I have so much of it down here already! furniture from my mother's estate that will replace other items up there when I can get around to it, etc). But obviously I am not ready or willing to just chuck it all or donate it so I need to stop complaining and just get on with it. Sorry for the whine, I'll get to work now...

[Teacher Terry]

I would sell the furniture you don't want and probably donate the glassware, etc. Sadly most of that stuff is not even worth putting on ebay or craigslist. Most collectables are just junk that the younger people don't want. I found this out when my MIL died. We ended up taking good china, etc to the thrift store. Thrift stores will not even take big dining room china cabinets anymore because no one wants them. When we have done a big sale we usually do it 3 days in a row (Fri-Sun). On Sun I would slash the prices on the stuff that we still had. Today a neighbor had an open house so we went because we were curious. It was a 1600 sq ft home just packed with furniture, pics, nik-naks, etc. It was overwhelming. When we downsized from 1800 to 1400 I sold tons of furniture, etc before moving knowing that it would not all fit.

[Chicken lady]

Early morning, I would suggest that you stop and think about the time you are spending at yard sales and the time you are spending reselling things from yard sales and how much income that is generating. Only you can decide it is a good trade.

one of the things I had to do when i got serious about dehoarding my life was stop going to garage sales. It was fun. I missed it. I missed the thrill of the hunt and the discovery and I know I have missed out on some great bargains. But aside from the items I brought home, the time I was spending at yard sales was time I was not spending on clearing out my house.

i stopped going on e-bay completely. I do still visit thrift stores now and then, but I try to go with a very specific shopping list. The "impulse buys" are down to a few items a month, and much more practical - last week I replaced two skirts with one skirt. - all the important features of both and less worn than one and a better fit than the other.

i still love thrifting. I may go back to thing some day - hopefully with more care. But the fact is, the more time I spend at home, the better home looks.

[early morning]

Oh, I understand the "collectibles" market - this stuff is not that. It brings in some serious cash, just takes work to do it. And the furniture we're not keeping was sold off last fall... furniture-wise, it's getting my old stuff out (and most of it will just get sold here in our yard!) and Mom's stuff moved around that's killing me. If I wasn't already gone for almost 10 hours, 5 days a week to a stressful but very fulfilling job, I'd be having a ball! But my share - there are 3 of us-so far after expenses is paying for a week's long vacation for three, plus, so.... yeah. I'm not too worried about actually hoarding - I have no problems letting go of what we have to sell, and I don't stress about not keeping my parent's "things". We originally thought about an auction, but the dealers locally are not big buyers of glass and we're a tad off the beaten path to bring in a lot of heavy hitters for a single sale. We sell glass at a booth in a well established mall on a major interstate, so THAT gets quite a bit of cross country traffic and we pick up a fair bit of cash from that. It won't last forever - I figure another year and the major pieces will be gone, and I can get back to a single booth and purveying the stuff we love to live with, buy, and sell. I just need to stop complaining and get on with it! :|(
Thanks for your thoughts and ideas, CL and TT - I appreciate hearing other's experiences, it really helps me think things through with more balance and perspective!