Got back to the Old Place today. Was delayed because I was sick for a week+ and had to concentrate on getting to work (of course that was the stretch when I was scheduled to work eight days in a row!) and getting rest when I wasn’t working. Got through some more stuff.
I’m off Monday and Tuesday. We’ll see about my resolve to put in some time those days.
Bumping to mention that I just discovered a great way to get rid of things that you don’t want or need anymore, but don’t necessarily want to sell for whatever reason - Buy Nothing.
There are a bunch of groups on Facebook and elsewhere - I found an unofficial one for my area (there isn’t an official one, and when I tried to join the nearest one, which is for a neighborhood only a couple of miles from us, I got a reply that it was meant only for the immediate neighborhood and instructions on starting a new group. Well, I wasn’t willing to take that on, so I joined the unofficial one).
Just gave away a bunch of clothes that don’t fit anymore, plus some bed linens in a size we no longer have a use for, and a toaster oven that works but makes a grinding noise, plus the perfectly functional blinds that just aren’t our style that were used to stage the house we bought a couple of years ago. All were claimed within minutes of my posting them. You might be surprised what people want - I mentioned that the toaster oven works, but makes a grinding noise while heating, and it was claimed before I even had a chance to go back and add info to the post.
Now that the retail [del]hell[/del] holiday season is over I can get back to this.
First step is getting my current living situation under control. My Best Friend is here this week and as usual helping me with it. So far we have cleaned up, tossed two bags of garbage, and numerous empty boxes, gotten through some of the backlogged filing, at least somewhat organize things like photos and art supplies, consolidate stuff, and have sketched out a rough plan for taking care of what’s left to go through. We know we won’t get everything done, but by setting priorities and applying ourselves we should make quite a bit of progress.
Wow.
Condensed 10 bins (those big rubbermaid tubs) of stuff into just five and re-organized my basement storage space. Also put away the holiday decorations. When BFF’s husband shows up on Saturday with a drill we’ll put a hook up so I can hang my bike, thereby making the storage locker even more efficient. Once that’s done I can easily add another 4-6 storage bins. I don’t have to to do that, but I will be able to do that. In other words, I have more storage space than I am currently using. I view that as a substantial victory. This has ALSO freed up additional space in my bedroom, which had been holding three of the bins.
Because there are still an additional 5 days of staycation for me we are sort of taking today off. My BFF is going to her physical therapy session this morning, during which I will run a few errands. We will then have an afternoon of entertainment, followed by another friend over for dinner this evening. This will be interesting, as my current apartment has minimal seating (it really is set up for just one person) but we’ll manage.
Tomorrow it’s off to the Old Place for cleaning and sorting of lightweight stuff and staging for Next Steps. Sunday will be heavy-hauling as well as we will have at least one and perhaps two additional people with strong, healthy backs. Monday, aside from my dental appointment at 9am, we will be filling up the pickup with stuff for the recyclers (by which I do mean fill up the truck, I have amassed that much) plus maybe additional work at the Old Place.
Tuesday will be Last Day of Vacation, which I’ll probably take “off” and see my friends off on their journey back home. Then it’s back to reality.
We’ll see how this goes.
You can do this, Broomstick! I am so impressed by the tenacity you are showing as you eat this elephant, one bite at a time.
I went to drop off the empty boxes and storage bins at the Old Place (to store them until I figure just how many I need/what to do with extras) and wound up bring back a work table. Which fits nicely into the space previously occupied by the largest of the bins that are no longer there. Said bench also has a storage rack underneath it. I now have a place to do art projects!
And that’s all of that I’m doing today. Have company coming for dinner in a few hours. Tomorrow we’ll get back to The Pile.
Had a really productive day yesterday. Cleaned out a lot of the middle room on the first floor, which was my spouse’s original business location before he moved the business to the unit on the floor above, but it still had a LOT of stuff in it. Packed up another dumpster’s worth of garbage, but since garbage pickup isn’t until tomorrow the trash bags are stacked in the back of the unit. As I was interested in making space (and also getting my stuff out of the way of building leaks) the stuff I wanted to keep/go through later was set aside in the empty totes I have and we concentrated on pulling the trash out of the mess.
Managed to get through the day without allergy outbreak. The long sleeves, rubber gloves, and dust mask probably helped with all that.
Problem is, I woke up in the middle of the night with anxiety dreams - did this item get thrown out or saved? What happened to this other thing? Mind racing and even though I didn’t care deeply about some of this stuff the sense of loss kept me awake. So running short on sleep today, AND have a full day planned starting with a dental appointment at 9 am. Grrr… but that is part of the problem here, my mind does this crap to me sometimes when I clean up. It is really, really aggravating and yes, there is that little nagging voice at the back of my skull saying go find whatever it is my brain won’t let go of (which is why some people go out to the trash and start digging through it) but the trash in this case is miles away so no, absolutely no way I’m getting up in the middle of the night to look for stuff, and I’m not doing it when I get back there.
So - bunch of stuff. Dentist, then a brunch with friends, then loading the pick up with stuff to take to the recycling place, one of my friends is off to physical therapy after that but her husband is going to help me sort/organize/pack up what we went through yesterday - it will be several days before I get back to this place so I want things to be secured.
I’m hoping this jumps starts my working on the rest of this mess. I want OUT of this place by year’s end, sooner if possible.
Since I posted to this thread, it pops up when I click on User CP. I just reread my posts here, and my extra room is STILL full of unpacked boxes.
However, several months ago I cleaned out my pantry and put some expired food cans (from hurricane preparedness) in the “junk” room. I had intended to donate them to the food pantry, who will take some cans that are past their best by date.
I just checked and they are three years out of date. And they are now in the trash.
Yay! Although I wish I hadn’t wasted them.
Turns out we hauled 100 pounds and more to the recycler today. Of course, most of that was iron which is pretty dense and heavy.
25 or so boxes of books to Half Price today. Poor people at the store, I think I nearly overwhelmed them.
I need to move things around next, and get rid of the cat damaged sofa, so I can replace the flooring in the living room
Took a couple days break because of going back to work.
Did visit again today. Could not stay long due to my schedule but did bring back two items I wanted to save to my new place so made teeny-tiny progress.
Probably won’t be able to get back to work on this until Tuesday or Wednesday, and progress will be slower as I will be on my own and back to working full time.
I was mini-inspired by all the recent posts. One of my real failings when it comes to being organized is that filing/storing stuff is pretty much a one way street. I put things away where they belong, and reasonably promptly… but then it’s out of sight, out of mind FOREVER.
But the two drawer filing cabinet I use for household info/bills/all financial matters has gotten so crammed full that for quite a while adding even a single page means slithering it down into a folder, risking papercuts and hangnails. So today I actually started pulling folders out and looking at their contents, and man! What useless stuff I found.
Like the monthly electric bills going all the way back to 2008. Vet bills back to 2003. (The cat in question has been dead since 2013, did I seriously think I’d ever have to prove she’d had her rabies vaccinations regularly?) Bank statements from accounts that were closed well over a decade ago!
Best of all was the purchase paperwork, warranties, and manuals for various appliances and such. Yes, they’re useful to have…WHILE you still own the whatever. But not only did I have those for the current lawn mower but for the one it replaced, and the one that one replaced, AND the one that that one was a replacement for! (At least we had disposed of the dead lawn mowers themselves.)
I culled a pile of paper over 18 inches high, and I’ve only gotten through about 2/3 of the first drawer so far.
That there is now space inside a filing cabinet doesn’t exactly make a visible impact, though. 
And unfortunately I’m going to have to let those paper sit in a box in the garage for maybe six months, until the town has its next ‘shredding’ day.
You may not want to spend the money, but my experience is that you can usually get paper shredded relatively cheaply at Staples or the UPS store.
Huh, didn’t know they did that. I’ll have to check into it, once I get both drawers finished, thanks!
If you live in an even modestly urban area, do a search on Yelp or some place, and I bet you’ll find a bunch of places where you can get paper shredded. You don’t have to wait for your town shredding event if you don’t want to. It feels good to have it really truly gone from your space.
I bring small piles to work to shred occasionally. We have locked cans with slits all around the office, and use a reputable shredding company. I work for a huge corporation though.
I really also should have split the discarded paper into two categories as I went. I just stacked everything I decided could go into one carton, but really there’s nothing at all confidential about, say, my dead cat’s medical history or manuals from defunct gear. Probably about half the stuff could just go into the regular trash/paper cycling bins.
I’m admittedly not the best when it comes to cleaning / decluttering… I don’t have food or anything strewn around, but clothes get left out, dishes sit unwashed in the sink, papers lay out on my coffee table, etc. It’s not a complete pigsty, but it’s certainly not tidy.
What does help with the cleaning though is Pandora or YouTube. I’ll blast some tunes or throw on a true crime documentary and get to work. It’s still not FUN, but I can burn through the dishes or clothes in what feels like no time at all.
What I need to buckle down and do is clean the fridge… There are crumbs and the odd sticky spot from whatever happened to leak that month, and while it doesn’t reek, it really could benefit from a good scrubbing.
I guess I haven’t been in here to update my progress in awhile, but I’ve been following along and applauding everyone who’s stuck to their plan to de-clutter.
I’ve been dealing with several personal crises, among them, my 10 year old son has cerebral palsy and needs surgery, and won’t be able to go upstairs for some time. So I’ve had to get serious about organizing him a new area downstairs.
I’ve gotten rid of old furniture and rearranged what’s left in a way that makes more sense, and really made a big dent in the clutter, generally.
My daughter was able to have a New Year’s Eve party, which was big, for us.
Guests from out of town have opted to stay at my house, even when other, equally free options are available!
The downstairs of my house looks better than it has in many years. Of course, there’s still plenty of clutter upstairs and in the garage, but hey, progress is progress.
I think we often underestimate how long these projects can take - this thread is what, 10 years old? My de-cluttering has often been interrupted by one crisis or another. I think it’s like losing weight - what’s important is not how fast it happens, but that that you make real and permanent changes so long term you get where you need to go. It’s not how fast, it’s how effective.