Out, damned stuff

I am a pack rat.

That isn't a secret I keep from anyone in real life or on this blog.

I keep stuff.

I keep too much stuff.

I know it. I'm trying to get better about getting rid of stuff, but it's a work in progress. That's why I decided to do the 52 Weeks of Organizing Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie is hosting and you'll also notice some organizing and purging items in my 101 in 1001 list.

I'm getting better at getting rid of stuff. I'm slowly teaching myself not to feel guilty about getting rid of things we never use or don't like. Because we're never going to use them. Really.

This weekend we discovered that we will be getting rid of a bunch of our stuff, whether we like it or not (it's a long, on-going story...everything is fine, nothing bad happened) and you know what, I've discovered I'm actually okay with that.

I did a quick mental survey of our house earlier and the only things I'd be sad to lose, that I felt were irreplaceable are some photos, my Pax Lodge books, and our Christmas decorations, but really, if something happened to our stuff and all I could take away was Alex and J, well, that would be fine too.

Somewhere in the past ten months something inside me has shifted. I'm not attached to stuff anymore. I've figured out that it's just stuff. Sure, I have a lovely blue-glass, mouth-blown vase that I got in Camden market and a handmade pottery water jug we received as a wedding gift and a Swarovski crystal butterfly Alex gave me years ago, but we can replace that stuff if we need to. Maybe not with identical things, but with something.

We've tossed a lot in the last few weeks (it will soon be showing up on the tossed out stuff website) and there is more to come. And I'm good with it.

I've noticed it's extending to other areas of my life too. I was horrible for archiving 90% of what came into my gmail and filing 95% of my work emails I received. I know what I need to keep for future reference and what I don't. Just because I have tons of space doesn't mean I need to keep every single email I get. I can delete the ones that say "thanks" or have the directions to a meeting that happened a month ago.

It's totally liberating. And I love it. I feel lighter. Hopefully there will be a marked improvement in our apartment soon too!

And so far, I haven't regretted a single things I've tossed or deleted. I haven't even missed them!

Getting Rid of STUFF

We have lots of stuff. Too much stuff. I've been slowly but surely working my way through our apartment...I haven't posted recently because, well, the changes are small. Little. And I haven't been able to do as many as I'd hoped what with the mysterious illness and all... but I'll be posting some updates soon...mostly because most of my projects are huge will little goals that don't look like much, but end up being massive when they're added together.





Like my current project. J is away with her grandparents for a few days and so I decided to tackle her bedroom and her closet.

That's too big.

So I split her room into four zones and tackled each one of those. Then I decided to go box by box out of the closet. It's working well enough. Although when I left this morning, it looked pretty dismal in her room. The plan for tonight is to get the recycling and garage out to their bins. And then continue sorting. Because I have two partial evenings and one morning to get it done before she gets back. Which is why I did it box by box. So that I should be able to just close the closet if I don't get it finished...I'll be posting something about that when it's done...or as close to done as it's going to get this time.

But.

Three weeks ago Alex took all the stuff we wanted to give to the thrift shot (that I'd been storing in our bedroom) to the thrift shop. OHMYGOODNESS.

I didn't get a picture of the final load, but I think there were two more boxes, one more large bag and a pile of board games.

J and I were out when Alex did this and, disappointingly, when we got home, the masses of stuff in our place didn't look any smaller...but, I was bitten by the giveaway bug and there is plenty more slated for donation or giveaway very very soon!

I linked up to I'm an Organizing Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing Challenge.

The dreaded computer bag...

For Christmas my parents gave me a wheeled computer bag. I'd been working from home often enough before Christmas that it was a pain getting all my stuff to and from the car. Not only did I have to lug my lunch, my purse, my computer bag, and a bag will my notes, notebook, and assorted files, I had to drag J's daycare bag, lunch, and assorted pieces of outside clothing too. My mom figured this bag was perfect.

And it is...It has lots of room and my yoga stuff AND my runners fit in it. And because everything except my lunch fits in the bag, my hands are free for J's stuff. And because she LOVES pulling it behind her, I don't actually have to carry my stuff, just hers.


But. Because it has lots of room, it collects lots of stuff. Extra stuff that I don't need. Stuff that I mean to take home (or to work) that I never remember to take out when I get there.


So, my bag has three compartments: a front one with pouches and pockets and slots for things like pens, cell phones, small stuff; a middle one for the computer; a big one at the back for overnight stuff (that's were my runners and yoga stuff go).

When I cleaned it out the pouches this is what I discovered.

Front compartment:
Empty case that came with the case
A stack of receipts
Two cheque books
Some (paid) bills
A spoon
A handful of pens
A toque
An MP3 player
Blackberry
Blackberry computer cable
A cell phone
A camera
A thermometer that needs a new battery
A bottle of special mouthwash for my dental surgery
A Vicks nasal thing
An address book
Two CDs
Napkins
Plastic bags
Cloth bag
USB adapter for the SD card for my phone
One lone mitten belonging to a small child who lives at my house
One wet wipe
Wallet

Middle compartment:
Computer
Computer power cord
Strap for bag
Random stack of paper

Back compartment:
More receipts
Day planner
Journal
Note pad
Notebook
Book to read
Pictures for grandparents
A tin with stationery and birthday cards
Labels

I reduced it down to this:

I got rid of tons of receipts...as in I spent half an hour shredding them there were so many of them. I put the power cable in the case that came with the bag. I didn't really move much around, just got rid of a bunch of stuff that needed a real home. Like the mouthwash moved to the bathroom and the spoon went in the dishwasher...

And all those pens...there are slots for three, so that's all I get to keep in there...The handful of extra pens is now in my desk at work. I kept running out of pens and couldn't figure out where they were going since there are only two of us in our department, we don't share an office, and we have different, very particular, pen preferences. Mystery solved. I think when I head home at the end of the day I must toss my pen in my bag before I leave...

Now I just need to remember to go through it once a week and put stuff away...I'm thinking Friday at home and Monday at work....we'll see how that goes.

Follow Up Friday - the wallet...

Sarah over at The Home Organisation Project has started Follow Up Fridays. Basically the idea is that you look back at the project you completed four weeks and figure out what worked, what didn't work, how you can change it...you know, evaluate your work!



Four weeks ago I was just starting with Org Junkie's 52 week organizing challenge. I started with my wallet. Something small, something simple, but something that needed some real work!



It was full to the point of overload! I had even resorted to referring to it as a Constanza wallet...



I managed to get rid of tons of stuff and get it to close! Yay...achievement...but could I keep it that way!?!?!

I knew what my biggest problems were:

Too many cards (I haven't added any!)
Too many receipts
Too many reminder cards

Friday evening is my day for maintaining my wallet. I stand at the kitchen counter once J is tucked into her bed and empty my wallet - that's where the calendar is for those reminder cards and where the binder is for the receipts.



So here were are four weeks later - there are a couple of receipts in there and a post-it note with an appointment reminder.


And it still closes!

So my weekly clean out seems to be working....

Kitchen Counter Clutter

Our kitchen has a spot that like to collect all kinds of crap. It's right inside the door. Mail. Receipts. Random pieces of stuff. Random pieces of garbage. Random pieces of recycling.

It drives me nuts. But it's one of those places that needs to stay where it is. For now anyway. One day, I might move the phone with the answering machine into the bedroom and move a portable phone to the kitchen, but right now there's no space in the bedroom for the bigger phone. That's another problem that I'll deal with eventually!

It used to look like this:


I love that there's a tennis ball on my kitchen counter. Yeah. Not really. This picture is from last summer before I did some work on this area.

This is what it looked like before I started it this time...Equally as cluttered and ugly to look at. You can see the basket I added in the summer to try to control some of the stuff, but it just got piled up really fast.


Notice the salt and pepper shakers from the 1970s set of Corelle dishes. I inherited a full (and still almost complete) set of dishes from my grandpa in the late 90s. My sister then used them and then they came back to me. Alex and I finally got rid of the set after we got married. They left our house over three years ago. Why we still have the salt and pepper shakers is beyond me. Especially since we moved TWICE between getting rid of the dishes and now. They're in the donations box unless someone really wants them!

I sorted through the crap. I got rid of some of it - the shredder and recycling box were both happy (see the toilet paper tube there?). Some of the stuff just need to be returned to its appropriate house (see the package of napkins? Maybe not, it's hard to see if you don't know what you're looking for. Napkins have their own drawer in our house)


I'm happy with how it turned out. In the basket is tape - masking for marking things for the freezer and for daycare plus two kinds of regular tape - the expensive kind for grown ups (for presents and stuff) and cheap stuff left over from the previous owners for two and half year olds who like to tape things together (it's art!), the letter opener (it's shaped like a book...I love it!), two kid cups from some restaurant for phone chargers and kid craft stuff (scissors, special writing implements, glue stick), the stapler, and the camera charger. My cell phones and the camera hang out in the basket when I'm at home. They fit and I don't tend to lose them if I put them in one place. Yes, I said them. I have a personal phone and a work phone. I am over-connected.

I've had the porcupine pen holder since I was 8. I would like to get something more grown up, but it works and I don't feel like actually looking and then spending money on the perfect thing, but if I see the perfect something I'll probably bring it home and get rid of the porcupine. Except I really like the tray underneath it that holds staples and paper clips and other little stuff.

There are two binders there. One is the kitchen book. The other is the recipes binder. I have a cupboard full of cookbooks too (that will soon move to a more accessible shelf, but first I need to go buy it and install it) but I find that recipes tucked into page protectors work really well. Especially for menu planning. More on that some other day .

So there it is. All put back together. It's pretty much like that now too. I've been trying to go through everything and put it where it belongs before I go to bed. It doesn't really take too long. Bills and receipts all have a home in the kitchen book. I try to scan the flyers quickly and note anything that we regularly buy that is on sale and then add them to the recycling pile. The biggest challenge for me has been remembering to wrap the charger cable back up and put them back in the little cups.

When I went to a decluttering seminar

Back in November I attended a decluttering seminar...okay, that might not be what it was called, but it was led by a professional organizer and I took a lot away with me.

Clutter is a perpetual issue at our house. I'm a clutter collector. But I'm working on it...

Apparently I'm not doing a very good job though. I've lost my note book. The one I write EVERYTHING in. It's gone. J even knows it's gone and whenever she finds me looking for something, she asks if I'm looking for my green book.

Anyway, I had some little notes jotted down in that book, but it's done, so I'm going to have to do this from memory...I can't even remember the name of the lady who ran the seminar or the name of her company. Sigh...I'm fired.

One of the things she talked about was how overwhelmed clutter makes us feel...we walk into our homes and see piles of mail, laundry to be sorted and folded, dishes to be done, laundry to be washed...all of those things make us feel so overwhelmed that most of us end up on the couch hoping it will all go away. I think every person in the room nodded when she asked if have all experienced this at least once in our lives.

I got some good tips out of her...like how to deal with books. She basically suggested using the library whenever possible (which I do now) and she gave some strategies for paring down books - are you going to read it again being the big question. We've applied that strategy to our books (okay, fine, Alex's books) and he got rid of 68 books two weeks ago. That's a lot of books.

She also talked about the 20/80 rule and how it applies to clothes...that we all basically wear 20% of our cloths most of the time. I have two large bags of Alex's clothes in the trunk of the car waiting for drop off at one of the charity boxes.

Why is it so much easier to get rid of someone else's things than it is to get rid of your own?!?!?!

The other key things (for me) that she talked about were guilt and sentimentality. If it makes you feel guilty, get rid of it. If you're attached to it for sentimental reasons, keep it. But minimize how many sentimental things you keep. She gave an example of inheriting someone's collection of something. Something that you're not interested in or stuff to do a hobby that you'll never do. She suggested keeping one part of it and giving the rest away to someone who will use it or be interested in it. She gave a few examples - one of her clients received all of their mother's cooking utensils. They already had a functioning kitchen, so they chose three pieces that had memories for them and framed them and hung them in their kitchen. Another client inherited all of his dad's fly fishing gear. He had no desire to take up fly fishing, but chose some of the more beautiful lures and had them framed and displays them in his office. The rest of the gear was given away to a fly fisherman.

The last little (new) trick up my sleeve is the fire trick. If I can't decide what to do with something, I need to decide if it's something I would replace if there was a fire or that I would miss if I couldn't replace it after a fire.

I can do it. I can declutter our house.

Really.

Eeeep....