» Posted on November 10th, 2002
» Filed under Decluttering
» 17 comments

Decluttering is probably my least favorite part of Messie Recovery. Needless to say, it’s also the part of Messie Recovery that I need the most. I’ve gotten pretty good at cleaning. I can do it efficiently and well when I bother to do it! But decluttering leaves me cold. This is why it’s so hard for me to get around to cleaning, because we have just a suffocating amount of stuff in our house.

I was hoping to have some good advice for you on this page, but since I am struggling here, all I can tell you is what I am going to try next and whether or not it works.

There are a lot of ways to tackle clutter. I think the important thing is to pick away at it a little at a time. Figure out how much you can get rid of at one time without feeling major stress. You may have to start with throwing away one magazine a week or giving away one piece of clothing a week. Figure out your comfort level, and don’t try to exceed it by too much, or you will burn out. Make declutter dates with yourself. Write it down on your calendar. Set your goal, whether you want to spend a certain amount of time decluttering (say, 15 or 30 minutes) or whether you want to get rid of a certain number of items (say 25 items per session.) If you keep at it, you will eventually take control of that clutter!

My clutter problem can be divided into four categories:

  • Paper: I have a hard time throwing away paper. That includes letters, junk mail, old newspapers, and my worst vice: magazines. I’m getting better at dealing with the magazines now. Before we moved from Germany to Texas, I threw away a bunch of them.

  • I’m gradually tightening my rules on which magazines I am allowed to keep. I allow myself to keep:

    • any magazine with Madonna in it

    • any magazine with a picture of my dog’s breed–she’s a rare breed, so that’s one magazine so far,

    • and magazines with home decorating pictures I want to cut out and glue into my idea book. If I don’t cut out the pictures, then I have to throw away the magazines after a year or so.

  • I’m trying to find the best way to deal with personal letters. I just can’t throw them away, and I won’t. We’re allowed to determine something like that, as long as the benefits of keeping the letters outweigh the costs of the storage space and clutter. Right now, I keep my letters in shoeboxes of various sizes, sorted by who they’re from. I’d like to buy some 3-ring binders and sheet protectors and put the letters in those, arranged by sender and date.

  • With junk mail and newspapers, my main problem is I just forget to deal with them and they pile up. For that, I hope to set a weekly date to pitch all that stuff.

    Clothes:

  • Oh, I have a terrible problem with clothes. I keep far too many clothes: clothes that don’t fit, clothes that need mending, clothes that are terribly out of style. I’m still wondering how to deal with this. I’m putting off dealing with clothes I love that don’t fit until my 30th birthday next fall. That is my weight-loss goal date and whatever doesn’t fit on that day GOES. Bye Bye! With the clothes I don’t like so much, it’s a matter of just getting around to getting them out of the house. I’m going to store them in the basement until the yard sale, and whatever doesn’t sell goes straight to the Salvation Army. I try to keep in mind that my clothes aren’t doing anyone any good if they’re sitting, unworn, in my closet.

    Toys:

  • We are blessed with an abundance of toys. We also have two young sons, so those toys do get good use. But those two boys have more toys than they can play with. We are going to deal with this by having each boy fill a large box with toys he doesn’t want any more. Each boy will be responsible for selling his own toys and will get to keep all the proceeds. If we found a good charity that gave used toys to needy kids, we would donate to that, but they always seem to want new, understandably enough.

    Miscellaneous:

  • Oh, I hate that word. Miscellaneous. These are the things that just don’t fit ANY category. These are the things that won’t fit neatly in a drawer or binder. These are the things that have no logical place in my home, yet I can’t bring myself to throw them away. These are knick-knacks I don’t want any more but can’t find a good home for. I’m still struggling with Miscellaneous. We’ll set up a table for that at our yard sale—whatever’s left, again, goes to Salvation Army.

I am setting some decluttering goals. We are going to have a yard sale or rent a table at a flea market, either this fall, or next spring. The last time we did one, right before leaving Germany, I was happy to find good homes for a lot of stuff, and I also made 40 dollars. I don’t miss anything we sold, either!