Declutter Of The Day

Link: And I've moved again!

2011-11-12T23:32:00.000-08:00

OK, so having three blog--one for perfume, one for clutter, and one for everything else--didn't work. Dividing my attention between the three of them meant that at least two, and possibly all three, were going to starve.

So everything, including the clutter posts, will now be at ChickenFreak's Obsessions. I hope that you'll visit me there.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Declutter Of The Day Has Moved!

2011-04-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

Declutter Of The Day has migrated to a WordPress blog. All new posts will be posted over there, and I'll slowly be moving some of the old material (mostly the essay-like posts) over as well. So, please, update your bookmarks to the new site, here!

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Books

2010-10-13T00:09:00.000-07:00

So I might go back to the declutter of the day format on Declutter Of The Day. Or I might not. But I will today.

New rules: Any decluttering progress will do as a post; it's a decluttering diary. And photos are optional.

So, today: Identified three books to give away and a place to put Books To Give Away.

DCOTD: Mostly Books

2010-08-01T23:35:00.000-07:00

Today we got some of the stuff from the last post permanently disposed of, and I dropped twelve paperbacks in the "sell" box.

That is all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTW: More Stuff

2010-07-31T21:21:00.000-07:00

This decluttering was last week. And the stuff isn't actually gone yet. But in the front hall, awaiting FreeCycle listing or a walk to the dumpster, we have:

Three trash cans. (Yes, the cans themselves are going.)
One dead shredder head. (Detached from one of the three trash cans.)
One dead electric kettle.
One half-dead DVD player.
One kitchen stool.
Three boxes of small miscellaneous junk.
One big cooler.
Several rolls of gift wrap.
Two keyboards for computer types that we no longer own.
A big stack of cardboard.

Maybe I'll double that stack tomorrow. And take a walk or two to the dumpster.

Image: Howard Dickins. Wikimedia Commons. What does it have to do with the post? Not a thing; it just looks cool. Well, maybe it ties in to the gift wrap.

DCOTM: Stuff.

2010-07-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

Decluttering Of The Month. Because I've been slacking off.

Searching my memory, in the past few weeks, we've gotten rid of:

A big Playmobile dollhouse, to a friend young enough to actually play with it.
A box of miscellaneous kitchenware.
A big batch of curtain rods and other curtain hardware
A bunch of DVD boxes.
A box of paperbacks. (Well, they're in the car, but we've resolved that they're never coming back in the house.)

Image: By Chordboard. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Bulky Stuff and Miscellaneous

2010-05-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

Last week and over the weekend, we (actually, Himself did the work) got rid of:

Two twin mattresses and box springs.
Two twin bed frames.
One big plastic pallet that stuff was delivered on this winter.

Oh! And:

A Stack O Shirts.

And in the realm of recalcitrant trash:

Recycled a bunch of cardboard, including breaking down boxes that have been lurking for a long time.
Gave a bunch of packing peanuts to UPS.
Threw out a backlog of ripped-up bubble wrap and other unrecyclable packing material.
Dissolved a herd of dissolvable packing peanuts.

Woohoo!

Image: By Infrogmation. Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: Acquisition Speedbumps

2010-05-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

Her: "I could start sculpting again. I'm only truly happy when I'm sculpting."

Him: "That's a very good idea. That'll be... very time-consuming."
Beetlejuice (1988)

So, I have hoarder genes. I know this.

I like things. I like to acquire things. I like to own things. I like to play with and gloat over things. I love the minimalist look but I am not, at heart, a minimalist.

I can't eliminate all acquisition. Or maybe it's just that I won't. But my acquisitive urges need a speedbump, something to slow them down. Something... time-consuming.

So I have a strategy. It involves tapping into my perfectionism, a characteristic that normally aids and abets hoarding, one that I normally try to smother. But for specific kinds of acquisition, I let it out just a bit, by demanding some brand of perfection in the things that I acquire.

For example, there are a number of classic children's books that I'd like to own. I could go out and buy every single one of them that's still in print, plop them on the shelf, and, having filled a few precious cubic feet of storage space and spent far too much money, go on to rapidly fulfill the next acquisition urge.

Instead, I've decided that I want to own them in ex-library editions, with the original illustrations that I loved as a child, and if possible, with the dust jackets. A perfectionist goal, one that involves a lot of online hunting. In several years, I've acquired about ten books.

And it doesn't cost much money. That's where it's necessary to grab the perfectionism and point it in a slightly different direction - rather than longing for pristine first edition copies, I persuade myself that the ex-library status is what I really want.

The whole perfume collecting process is similar, when it follows the rules. According to the rules, the process for acquiring a new perfume is to get a sniff, then a vial, then a decant, then use up the decant, then use up another decant, and only then buy an actual bottle. Unless it's an expensive bottle, in which case I'm supposed to wait a full year for all of the seasons to roll around. Very time-consuming. And the fact that most of the perfumes that interest me aren't even available in convenient local stores makes it all the more so.

So far, planned perfectionism is doing a pretty nice job of roadblocking even non-hobby purchases like clothes. I've been looking for the perfect raincoat for five years. The perfect dead plain black sweater for two years. The perfect knee-high boots for twenty years.

Though ankle boots made their way into the house recently. I had no perfectionist standards for ankle boots. Oops.

But in general, it's working.

Cars photo: By Peng. Wikimedia Commons.
Bug photo: By Hannes Grobe. Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: Priorities, Post 1: Books and Perfume versus Beads and Teacups

2010-05-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

In one way, the beginning of the decluttering process was easy.

Because at the beginning, I had a lot of flat-out junk. I had books that I could be pretty confident I'd never read, clothes that I'd never wear, movies that I'd never watch, papers that I'd never need to refer to again, manuals for household items that I no longer owned, and so on.

In memory, those decisions, such as the decision on whether to keep the breadmaker cookbook after we no longer had a breadmaker, look obvious and easy. Priorities were involved, but they were about the should-be-obvious decision of, do I give a higher priority to the stuff that I use, or the stuff that I don't? Now, it wasn't really obvious - if it had been, the clutter wouldn't have been there. But it looks obvious from a distance, now that some of the decisionmaking habits are formed.

Toward the middle of the decluttering, the decisions are changing, because I'm getting to stuff that I would use, if I had the room. The house is tidy enough to allow entertaining, so if I had a china pantry, I'd own a bunch of sets of goofy vintage dishes, and I'd use them to set a lovely eclectic table. Similarly, if I had a walk-in closet, I'd own and wear a whole lot of clothes.

Except, actually, no, I wouldn't - if I had either a china pantry or a walk-in closet, I'd use it to set up shelves for my perfume collection, and I'd own a whole lot more perfume. And I'd stuff books into the space where the perfume is now.

And with that, the question of priorities comes up in this post a little bit before it was invited. I see a personal priority: I would prioritize an extensive perfume collection, and more books, above an extensive clothing or tableware collection.

And that's what the middle stage of decluttering is all about - setting priorities. I hate that phrase; it sounds so Judgmental Kindergarten Teacher, doesn't it? But it's true all the same.

Because pretty nearly everyone has more interests and hobbies and stuff that they want and could obtain - maybe used, maybe free, but still obtainable - than they have space. So after a lot of effort is put into mastering the skill of "I won't use it, so I'll get rid of it", suddenly there's this brick wall, this new set of decisions. I would use it, I do want it, but do I want it more than all of the other things competing for this space?

Suddenly I'm looking at making decisions about myself, about my potential, about what I'm most likely to do with the life beyond clutter. Am I a person who sets a beautiful eclectic table, or am I a perfume collector? That one isn't too hard for me - however much I love looking at tableware, the perfume collector persona wins out.

So let's move to something harder: Am I a book collector, or am I a perfume collector?

Oh, my.

Now, this doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing decision. So far, the answer is that I'm eighty percent book collector and twenty percent perfume collector. But the difficulty is in accepting that I have only so much space for books-or-perfume and, metaphorically, keeping those numbers down so that they total no more than one hundred percent.

(What about my entertaining self? That's an identity that I share with Himself, so it occupies a different space, both mentally and in terms of house room. My gardening self? That's out in the shed and the garage. Yes, this metaphor is getting complicated. Let's forge on anyway.)

The two things, books and perfume, go in a common set of spaces - the shelves in my itty bitty much-beloved den, and the top of my bureau. And to keep those spaces nice and pretty and therefore keep me happy in my den and when using my bureau, I can't allow myself to become, say, ninety percent book collector and forty percent perfume collector - I can't occupy more than one hundred percent of that space.

And that's hard. And what's even harder is that it means that I am, right now, zero percent seamstress. There is no room, no room whatsoever, in my den for sewing. Or beads. Or any of the other hobbies that I'd like to make room for.

Of course, those decisions about myself aren't permanent. I have the power to decide, at any time, that I'm forty percent book collector, thirty percent perfume collector, and thirty percent seamstress. Any time. Any time, that is, that I'm ready to give or sell away a couple of hundred books.

And, really, this limited space is not bad. Our house has enough space for a reasonable, rational number of hobbies. For a person with cluttery genes, a limited amount of space is a very good thing. Our house is the perfect size. Because the priorities aren't only about space - that's just what enforces them. Time is even more limited than space.

I have dozens of perfume samples that I've never thoroughly tried - it used to be more than a hundred, but I gave a bunch away. I have dozens of books that I've never read. Last time I did make space to sew, I had a dozen projects waiting for completion. I haven't made my vegetable choices for this year's vegetable garden, and it's May.

If I had enough space for all of the hobbies that I wanted to try, I'd never see satisfying accomplishments in any of them, because my time would be sliced into unusable fractions. So when I say that I'd "use" the stuff I don't have room for, it's a pretty narrow definition of the word.

But all the same, it's now, in the middle of the decluttering, that I have to tell myself, "I choose, for the foreseeable future, not to be a collector of vases, a stringer of beads, a maestro of table settings, or a maker of costumes or patchwork quilts."

And that's really, really hard.

Image: By Holly. Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: A good home for the stuff? Or when to let that go.

2010-05-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

Mals of Muse in Wooden Shoes mentioned this blog in a very interesting post about stuff and clutter and dreams. Which reminded me of how little I've been doing in this blog. Which made me decide, all righty then, get moving.

So, a quick ramble on a clutter topic that I've been thinking about: The "good home" trap. And the trap of finding a home at all.

I've always thought that I have a reasonably immunity from the perfectionist extremes of the "good home" idea. The idea that you're going to keep that chair until you find a person that you know, and you know how they'll use the chair, and you know how they'll take care of the chair, and you know that the six people that you'd prefer to give the chair to really really don't want it, and so on. My attitude when presented with that problem has always been, "Just give it to the first person who'll take it!"

And, yes, I am free of that level of "good home"ness, but I'm not altogether free from it. How do I know that? I know that because I have things that I'm perfectly ready to get rid of, never want to see again, but they're not gone yet. They should be gone.

The clothes? Nice warm decent-looking clothes; surely we'll remember to drive the car to the donation shop eventually?
The kitchenware? I fell down on getting back to some Freecycle takers; I'll find their names and offer it to them. Maybe.
The books? They're waiting for me to get around to selling them at the used bookstore.
The driveway Free pile? It's raining today; I'll try to remember to put stuff out when it's dry.
Those cleaners and that cutlery? If we put them in the driveway Free pile, some child or pet might hurt themselves.
Those curtain rods? Did we ask the neighbors if they want them? If they said yes, we can't put them in the driveway Free pile. Did you remember to ask?
Those chairs that are broken but could easily be repaired with a couple of brackets but we'd still have no use for them but nobody took them from Freecycle last time but they're perfectly good? How many times do we retry Freecycle?

And so on, and so on. There's a lot of stuff in this logjam. It needs to break. More extensive use of the Free pile, rather than spending time with Freecycle and giving to charity shops and selling used books, is one part of that. But I think that the second part is more extensive use of trash bags. I already trash dubious stuff, but I think that it's time to start trashing more of the Perfectly Good.

Image: By Hyenda. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Fabric and Magazines and Electronics, Oh, My!

2010-03-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

So the decluttering is finally getting back into gear. In the past couple of weeks we've gotten rid of a box of fabric and patterns, a box of kitchen gear, a half box of cables and electronics misc, and a couple of hundred magazines. And, three boxes of books are waiting to sell to the used bookstore.

Woohoo!

But we need to keep it up.

Photo: By Jonas Sternerson. Wikimedia Commons.

Rant/Ramble: Talking about Blogging

2010-02-21T17:34:00.000-08:00

Just a post to point to a post about blogging on the other blog. Because I'm hoping to catch all of the bloggers that read any of my blogs, with my question.

Photo: By Guyon Moree. Wikimedia Commons.

Clip Show: Perfume and Hoarding and Catch and Release

2010-02-12T12:05:00.000-08:00

Just a pointer to my own hoarding-related post on the perfume blog.

Photo: By Quadell. Wikimedia Commons.

Decluttering: Stuffed Animals

2010-02-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

Stuffed animals are the very hardest thing for me to give away. When I say that I "know how" to declutter, that doesn't include stuffed animals. I have pretty nearly every one I've ever owned. And I just gave away a file-box-full of smallish ones, so I'm posting to congratulate myself.

These weren't "bedrock" clutter - they're stuffed animals that I acquired as an adult, mostly ones that I bought myself, so the sentiment is minimal. (Though I'm really hoping that the little dragon, which I vaguely link to happy college times, goes to some appreciative small child.)

It's a start. When the next box comes to light, maybe it'll be easier to give those away. Or at least possible.

Photo: By Badseed. Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: Post-holiday gift thoughts

2010-02-09T00:13:00.000-08:00

Gifts.

The more I declutter, the more I'm bothered by gifts. That is, by lots of routine gifts given by lots of people to lots of other people. Loot. Piles of boxes. As I try to develop a mindset where I seriously consider whether my stuff earns its space, the giving and receiving of lots of loot seems more and more like a bad thing.

It's not that I dislike the idea of gifts. I love the idea of gifts. I just looked at a few pictures of piles of Christmas gifts, and the little-kid Ooh! reaction kicked in. But the reality, in which I search frantically for an object to give someone, settle for something that will Do, pay too much to have it shipped, try not to think about how soon it may land in a garage sale, and repeat the whole process for a dozen more people before Christmas arrives, often doesn't work well.

It means that I burn a lot of money, spend a lot of anxiety-filled time, and have no assurance that anyone will be pleased. And I suspect that a whole lot of other people have the same problem. We could be doing something else with all that - baking cookies, socializing, buying heifers or ducks across the world, or all three. Yes, I realize that there are no new thoughts here, but, well, I'm outlining my thoughts anyway.

Sure, sometimes a gift is perfect. Sometimes I find the perfect, sparkling, shiny thing for someone, something that they'll admire and enjoy and use, perhaps even thinking of me as they do so. But it's rare that I find anything like that for more than one or two people per holiday.

Why isn't it OK to just give those people the perfect shiny things, and send everybody else a card, in the hope that over the years everybody will come up occasionally in the Shiny Gift lottery?

I suppose it's because gifts really are gestures, in the end. Even when they're not good gifts, they're communication. Expensive, bulky, express-mail-conveyed communication that the gift recipient is important enough to us to be acknowledged on the holiday.

So. The problem of gifts. Every year as Christmas approaches, I wish that I'd declared that we won't be giving gifts this year, or that we'll be giving something modest, like a paperback or some family snapshots. Every year I conclude that I'm too late, because those organized people who buy their gifts in June would end up being punished for their organization, and that's not really fair.

This year, I think that February should be early enough. Anyone organized enough to buy next year's Christmas gifts in January is organized enough to think of someone else to give them to. Or if they don't, they'll be amply warned that it's not going to be an even gift exchange.

So maybe this will be the year.

Photo: By Lainey Powell. Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: Book Retention Policy

2010-02-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

So, in the perfume blog, I wrote a post about curating my perfume collection. What to keep, why to keep it, how to choose between the advantages of competing bottles, and so on.

It occurs to me, why not do that with all my stuff? Specifically, today, my books? I have rules that I've been following for a while, but I don't recall ever writing them down.

The underlying basis for the rules is the question, why do I keep books?

To read now or soon. Just for picking-up-and-reading enjoyment. I may be unusual in that I like to re-read books, sometimes many times. But only the right books. It took me a while to realize that I absolutely do not re-read them all.
To refer to. Planting instructions for potato onions, instructions for making pintucks, recipes, that sort of thing.
To read in the future. There is a limit to how frequently I want to re-read a book, but sometimes I want to be sure that I'll have the book when I want to read it again.

One of the main things for me to keep in mind here is that I'm not keeping my books to be a librarian. Not to have a complete collection, not to preserve them, not to have them to loan to others. I'm keeping them for me. I'm also not interested in being a collector, focusing on editions and value - I don't have the time or the space or the sustained interest for that. It wouldn't pay me back in enough enjoyment. I can have only so many hobbies, and that one didn't make the cut.

All of this means that, for example, if I'm keeping some of the books written by an author, I don't need to keep all of that author's books. I can keep just enough to enjoy reading that author's voice. This is true, for example, of Patricia Wentworth's mysteries. I read these because I enjoy the voice and the mood - I don't read them for the specific plots. So two or three of the best is enough, and I can give away the rest.

It also means that just because I want something new to read, and I went out and bought that something new, I don't need to keep that book when I'm done. I enjoyed it. I "ate" it. I'm done. Unless it's an extra good book that I'll really want to read again, I can sell it to the used bookstore. And I do - I'd say that I "eat" about a two file boxes of books every year, most of them bought from the used bookstore. They get read, put on the "sell back" shelf, and cycle their way out of the house.

(Why, you ask, don't I save that money and check books out of the library? Because I'm hard on books. I like to be able to read them while doing housework or gardening, and the library would not appreciate wet-and-dried rumpling, or dirt in the binding. I do use the library, but I also like to have a "grubby" book in progress, too.)

And if I want to read a particular book in the future, but that book is so popular that it's unlikely to go out of print, I don't need to keep the book. I can give or sell it away and count on being able to buy it again when I want it. This is true of, for example, Agatha Christie. Unlike Patricia Wentworth's books, I read Agatha Christie's books for the voice and for the specific book. So if her stuff were hard to get, I'd keep it. But Agatha Christie is in print and is likely to remain in print for the foreseeable future, so I can (and did) give them all away, and then just buy an occasional used copy of a book that I have a craving for, read it, and sell it right back to the used bookstore. (Or just give it away.)

On the other hand, Rumer Godden's children's books are very unreliably in print, and often with simply dreadful cover illustrations. And I love these books - they're an important part of my childhood mythos, and Rumer Godden's writing voice is an important influence on my own writing. So I'm actively seeking out the ones that I don't own. However, I don't need to seek them out in fine crisp flawless Firsts - an ex-library copy is just dandy.

And if I'm keeping a book for reference, I don't need another book with the same useful reference information. The example for this is the fabulous book on bulbs that I received for Christmas. All of my other bulb books can go off to the used bookstore now.

And then there's the complication of reference books that I keep for reading enjoyment and pleasure books that I keep for reference. For example, almost any of Judith Martin's books would do as a sufficient etiquette reference, but I keep them to read, and I dip into them several times a year, so the question is how much pleasure I'd get out of having more of them to read, not how much more information they contain. In fact, I'll be buying her new book on weddings, even though I couldn't care less about weddings - it will be funny and well-written and fun to read.

Of course, even with all of these factors, I'd like to keep more books than I have room for. On my children's book shelf, I'd like to keep ex-library copies of not only Rumer Godden and Ruth M. Arthur, but everything by Beverly Cleary and Louise Fitzhugh and a dozen (or maybe a dozen dozen) other authors.

So it comes down to space. All of those guidelines above offer guidance for the decisions that have to be made when The Shelves Are Full. I have eliminated double stacking on my personal shelves, and I so enjoy the pleasure of seeing all of the books and being able to grab the one I want, that I refuse to ever allow double stacking again.

The children's books, to return to that example, get half of one five-foot shelf. They could have the whole shelf, or even another shelf, but then something else would have to go. (And maybe it should - I suspect that I get more pleasure from the children's books than from some of the gardening books that live right below them.) So, so far, they get their half shelf. My very favorites get that space, and the six thousand other children's books that I'd love to own, I either close my eyes to, or buy and read and cycle right back out again. The same for every other category.

So I guess the point of all the rules is the value of a book for me. Not for anybody else, not for resale value, not for collectibility, not to be librarian to the world, not in case I ever have kids. Just for me. I still have a lot of books, and I intend to continue to have a lot of books. But looking at it this way does do a lot to clear out the excess.

Photo: Mine.

BOTD: Home Comforts, by Cheryl Mendelson

2010-02-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

So, speaking of housekeeping, have you seen Home Comforts, by Cheryl Mendelson?

On one hand, it's alarmingly thorough. The author doesn't want you to wash your hands in the kitchen sink. And if I recall correctly, she doesn't laugh hysterically at the idea of ironing sheets.

On the other hand, it's very handy to have a sanity check for certain things. If you doubt the assurance of your floor installers that you can keep that floor clean forever without ever, even once, cleaning it with soap? She doesn't believe it either. If you've heard a rumor that people wash their walls and you don't have the faintest idea why, how, or how often one would do such a thing? She will, no doubt, cover that subject. (I can't actually offer you any details, because I'm writing this post with the book not at hand. I'm that way.)

And she backed me up on one housekeeping scheme that I previously considered to be sheer sloppiness, which gives me a happy glow of annoying self-satisfaction. The specific scheme is what I'd call "junk holding areas". I've forgotten what she calls them. The idea is that you're simply not going to put every object away in its permanent home, every time you're done with it. So you have places here and there around that are intended for stashing miscellaneous objects, until you get around to putting them away. This doesn't work if you don't put them away every few days, but it is an acknowledgement that you can have a decent house without being on your guard at every moment.

It's a good book, as long as you pick and choose the useful bits, instead of taking the whole thing seriously.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Meta: Change of Direction

2010-02-01T21:58:00.000-08:00

So, it's been more than another week, and there's been no decluttering posts. And I've wondered, why? What's the deal? Even when I do throw stuff out, I don't post.

I figured out why: I already know how to declutter. At least, I already know how to do the "find something and throw it out" aspect of decluttering.

It's not as if I've perfected the process. It's emphatically not as if I'm done decluttering. But I already know how to declutter. All that stuff that I used to structure my first posts - lessons learned, guilt rejection, the process of figuring out what needs to go - is rarely a strain any more. I no longer need to talk, or blog about it. Sure, there are some rough patches left - for example, there are forty or so stuffed animals to cut down to four, and that won't be fun. But those rough patches are the exception, not the rule.

I wish that I had blogged about it, back when I needed to. I'd like that record. But that was then and this is now, and I don't need to blog about the daily divestment process.

So what do I need to talk about? Housekeeping. Housekeeping beyond the getting rid of stuff. And, yeah, sometimes those rough patches. And maybe an occasional rant about those Freecycle recipients that never show up!! So that's the kind of thing that I'll be talking about from now on.

Of course, that means that the blog's name is quite thoroughly wrong. But, well, I'll worry about that later.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Backlog

2010-01-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

So! What did I declutter since Sunday?

More envelopes.
Empty cellophane tape dispensers. For some reason, I put them back in the drawer when they're empty. Maybe I'm under the delusion that I'll be environmentally conscious and buy refills. Not so much. So they're outta here.
Dead frying oil.
Multiple bags of sunflower seeds, each with a bitty bit left in them.
A whole lot of email.

A quick peer into the trash cans, and I think that's it.

Photo: By Nevena. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Mail

2010-01-17T21:04:00.000-08:00

Today's declutter was the obvious trash from the Recent Mail Stack. A half-trashcan of envelopes and brochures, recycled.

Photo: By Archivaldo. Wikimedia Commons.

Answers: So where the heck did I go?

2010-01-14T20:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not altogether sure why, but I seem to be taking a week's vacation from DCOTD. Maybe it's because I created another blog and my brain needs to work on being split one more way? Maybe it's solar flares?

Anyway, I plan to be back on, um, Sunday. Yeah, Sunday. On Sunday I'll throw stuff out and write about it.

Photo copyright Dysprosia, all rights reserved. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: The mess?

2010-01-10T23:59:00.000-08:00

There was no perceptible decluttering this weekend. However, there was cleaning, sweeping, rearranging, dishwashing, and the washing of many loads of laundry. So I'm declaring success on the spirit of the thing, if not the letter.

Hey! Wait! Dead candy from last Christmas got tossed! And mail got recycled! Ta da!

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: ToDos that I no longer care to do

2010-01-08T22:52:00.000-08:00

I use an application called OmniFocus to keep all of my ToDos and projects and tasks and such. It's been accumulating the usual dusty excess that ToDo lists accumulate, so yesterday and today I did a cleanout and a complete reorganization from scratch, and deleted all the "I really oughta do..." tasks that I'm not really going to do. I feel all spring-cleany.

Photo: By Niklas Bildhauer. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: The Format

2010-01-06T23:23:00.000-08:00

I liked the whole Target/Casualties format when I started. I no longer like it. So away it goes. Foom!

But I still like pictures.

Photo: By Fought70. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Still More Leftovers

2010-01-05T23:59:00.000-08:00

A repeat of yesterday. Leftover eviction, refrigerator cleansing.

Should it worry me that that picture is making me hungry?

Photo: By Marshall Astor. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Leftovers

2010-01-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

With the tree gone, I declared that it was time to clear up the remaining holiday food.

Target: Fridge

Casualties:

Scalloped potatoes of advanced age.
Poultry remains.
Expired cheese.
Limp parsely and other greenery.
Etc.,
Etc.,
and Etc.

Dead Food: Trashed!

Photo: Rick Audet. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD:

2010-01-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

Sunday there was much tidying, including the eviction of a very large population of glass bottles that had been hanging around for weeks.

Target: General tidying

Casualties:

Wine bottles, ginger beer bottles, beer beer bottles, Coke bottles, root beer bottles. Glassfest!

Bottles: Recycled!

Photo: By Paulame. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Tidying away the tree

2010-01-02T22:39:00.000-08:00

The tree went away today, and all the ornaments into their tidy little boxes. It's sad, but there's more space in the living room.

Target: The Christmas decorations.

Casualties:

Old tissue, broken ornaments, bent hangers, saved wrapping paper, etc., etc.

Christmas scraps: Trashed! (And recycled.)

Photo: By SOLOXSALERNO. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Christmas Chaos Again

2010-01-01T23:19:00.000-08:00

Christmas isn't cleaned up yet.

Target: Packaging, all over the house.

Casualties:

A stack of boxes and the packaging material (bubble wrap, those puffy things, etc.) in them. Flattened and recycled, and the plastic stuff trashed.

Packaging: Recycled! (Well, and trashed.)

Photo: By HornM201. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Un-excused absence

2009-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

Slacked off again. Bad kitty. No sardine.

Photo: By Clavecin. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Aack!

2009-12-30T23:40:00.000-08:00

11:30? When did that happen? OK, gotta find junk, gotta find junk... OK, there we go.

Target: Bathroom

Casualties:

A tube of face cleanser that smells nice but made red irritated spots on my face.
A concealer wand. I'm never going to use it.
And, hey! I just remembered, I gave away the remains of a tiny decant of Fendi Theorema, because I bought myself a bottle.

Girly Potions: Gone!

Photo of cosmetics spoon by Rama. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Phoning It In

2009-12-29T22:28:00.000-08:00

Well, it is one thing.

Target: Hunter-gatherer.

Casualties:

Another gift bag.

Gift Bag: Trashed!

Photo: ETC Corp. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Post-Christmas Miscellaneous

2009-12-28T21:07:00.000-08:00

Not much excitement, but it's stuff gone:

Target: Post-Christmas chaos.

Casualties:

Christmas package boxes.
A gift bag. We tend to keep these until summer and then declutter them; this time, I decided to eliminate the delay.
Yams and duck and brussels sprouts eaten. Seriously. We have a bad habit of keeping leftovers until they turn furry. So I'm giving myself credit for eating these before the fur arrived.

Pending:

Three self-help type books.

Lessons Learned:

If you know from experience that it's going to go, dump it before it gets dusty or furry or buried deep in a box. It's much easier that way.

Guilt Rejection:

I've never yet found gift bags when it was time to use them. So, feh. Toss 'em.

Boxes: Recycled!
Gift Bags: Trashed!
Food: Eaten!

Photo: Kelvin Kay. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Excused Absence

2009-12-27T23:59:00.000-08:00

We threw another party! Woohoo!

I still consider the fact that we entertain at all to be a major accomplishment, and perhaps also evidence that we've been taken over by aliens. So I'm pleased, and disconcerted, at the same time.

Photo by Tama Leaver. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Back on track!

2009-12-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

I didn't declutter on Christmas either. Bad me.

So it's time to get back to basics. That means, get rid of at least one extra thing ("extra" meaning that ordinary everyday trash doesn't count) every day. Not a boxful, not a bagful, not a roomful, just a minimum of one.

Target: Hunter/gatherer run.

Casualties:

One pair of socks.

Pending:

Three murder mysteries, added to the sell/donate pile.

Socks: Trashed!

Photo: By Lienhard Shulz. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Un-excused Absence

2009-12-24T23:59:00.000-08:00

Thursday, there was no decluttering, and no entertaining to excuse this failure. And I didn't even post! (I'm backdating this to place it in the correct position in the log.)

This slacking must stop!

(And, no, the picture has nothing whatsoever to do with this post. But isn't it great?)

Picture: Wikimedia Commons

DCOTD: Excused Absence

2009-12-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

There was no decluttering today. But we had a Christmas party!

I find myself excusing the lack of decluttering. We declutter to make our home more usable by ourselves and by our friends. And a party is a major incident of, well, using it. Decluttering is prep, party is implementation. So no decluttering is required on party day.

So I'm off. There are cookies.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Dead Food

2009-12-22T22:05:00.000-08:00

Target: The refrigerator

Casualties:

Jars of jam and jelly of unknown age.
Chinese takeout of known but excessively advanced age.
Tandoori sauce of...you get the idea.
Barbecue sauce.
Cookie dough.
Furry leftovers.
An inch of olive oil.
Half an inch of honey.

Dead Food: Trashed!

Photograph: By Liftarn. Wikimedia Commons.

Links: Clutter and Hoarding and Housekeeping, Oh, My!

2009-12-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

I'm on vacation (woohoo!) and therefore have some time to flesh out the blog a bit. So, some handy links, soon to be in a link list:

One of the best decluttering, as opposed to hoarding, forums is the Decluttering, Organizing & Simplifying forum at Mothering.com.
On the other hand, Squalor Survivors is one of the best sites for dehoarding. At least, it always used to be, back when I was closer to the hoarding side of this pond, and I don't see why it shouldn't still be.
I'm only a few posts in, but Confessions of a Hoarder looks very good.
Although it never quite worked for me, many people swear by Flylady for advice that drives them to get their home under control.
Other folks swear by Sandra Felton and her Messies concept.
I always liked Don Aslett's books, though they look like the kind of book I'd hate. He doesn't seem to have a clutter-related site (his website is about his cleaning company), but there's a post here that points to some information and an interview.

Photo: By 4028mdk09. Wikimedia Commons.

Answers: Rambling about Definitions

2009-12-21T21:54:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me to clarify my definitions of cluttering and hoarding - or, really, decluttering and dehoarding. I'm not claiming that these are the right definitions, only that these are the ones that I'm using in my rambling in this blog.

For me, decluttering is an only moderately emotional process of evaluating what you use and what you can get rid of, forming storage strategies, choosing priorities, arranging disposal of stuff that didn't make the priority cut, and so on.

Decluttering can be emotional, occasionally very emotional - nobody enjoys informing themselves that they haven't used the much-loved cookie cutter collection in ten years, and perhaps it's time to consider passing it on so that it's possible to keep the food processor in the kitchen instead of on top of the dryer - but the emotion is not overwhelming or paralyzing.

Hoarding, or perhaps I should say dehoarding, is the much more emotional process of learning to tear away an overstrong connection to stuff - some stuff, or all your stuff. It's the process of learning that you're not going to die, or be an evil person, if you get rid of that stuff.

At least, that's how I see it.

For now, this blog is more focused on decluttering. I have hoardish thoughts about some of my stuff, but there's a lot of other stuff to get rid of before I get down to that bedrock.

DCOTD: Kitchen Cleanout

2009-12-21T21:47:00.000-08:00

Cleaning continues. Insufficient decluttering continues. Ah, well.

Target: Kitchen

Casualties:

Rock-hard brown sugar.
All those Chinese takeout soy and mustard packets.

Useless Food: Trashed!

Photo: By Lienyearcck. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Christmas cleaning continues

2009-12-20T18:56:00.000-08:00

Target: That last messy room.

I should note that when I say "last", I don't mean that the decluttering effort is done just as I start the blog. Far from it. We've done a lot of decluttering, but there's still tons of stuff in the garage and "attic" just waiting to expand into the house.

And the storage areas of the house are all full to the gills. My goal is to thin them to at least thirty percent empty at least once a year. That way, they can slowly fatten up between thinnings, without spilling over into other areas.

Casualties:

Bunches of Christmas light boxes. I never fold the lights up all nice into the box at the end of the season anyway, so I'll just stuff the lights into Ziplocs at the end of the season.
Boxes from flats of bottled drinks that we've been keeping junk in. Apparently I thinned the junk sometime in the past few months, because I was able to compress a bunch of half-empty boxes into full boxes and break down and recycle the resulting empties.

That's about all. None of this feels like "real" decluttering, because it's packaging, but, well, it had volume, it wasn't everyday trash, and it's gone.

Packaging: Trashed and recycled.

Photo: Copyright BrokenSphere. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Miscellaneous again

2009-12-19T23:43:00.000-08:00

I spent much of today cleaning and tidying, without a lot of focus on decluttering. The master bedroom and the back room are tidy and dusted and draped with little white lights. The kitchen is decent, though more work is needed tomorrow. The tidiness of my den and the living room have been maintained. I'm one room and one bathroom away from Christmas tidiness.

But, again, not a lot of decluttering focus. I had to study the overflowing trashcans to see if I dumped anything that qualifies.

Target: Everywhere

Casualties:

Bubble wrap, brown paper, and cardboard that's been packaging something that's been waiting to be unpackaged and used. Unpackaged and used happened. So does it count? I decree that it does.
Um... well... that's about it. Oh, there was other packaging, and recycled soda bottles, and cardboard, but that's all normal everyday disposal. So I'm not counting it.

Packaging: Trashed and Recycled.

Photo: Smial. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: The Den

2009-12-18T23:05:00.001-08:00

We're on vacaaaaaaaaation! Woohoo!

For some reason, vacation generally means Deep Tidying. Deep Tidying means that I actually go through entire shelves and drawers and baskets and boxes, and even dust them. Oh, my.

Target: My den. My den is a little room about the size of a medium-sized bathroom. In this room, I store a large percentage of my books. And some fabric and patterns. And my jewelry and scarves. And perfume and decant bottle and funnels and baggies and atomizers. And the boxes for every perfume bottle I own. And some vases.

It's pretty orderly after this evening's tidying, and actually has some (very small) empty spaces on the shelves. I will shortly put up Christmas lights. Yay!

Casualties:

A half-trashcan of miscellaneous papers, receipts, wrappings, cardboard boxes. Normally I wouldn't count these, but since they've been lurking in the depths of the den for months, I'm decreeing that they count.

Pending:

One paperback
One children's book

Both in the pile of books to sell or give away.

Trash: Trashed!

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Nothing

2009-12-17T23:59:00.000-08:00

Ack! Missed a day!

Not only did I fail to post, I forgot to get rid of anything*. I'm backdating this post so that it'll be linked to the correct day. But it's half past midnight right now, and nothing got decluttered.

Ah, well. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Actually, today is tomorrow.

(*Anything extra. Normal everyday trashcan stuff doesn't count as DCOTD, by my rules, because I get rid of that as part of my daily routine anyway.)

Photo: Fsphil. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Cardboard

2009-12-16T16:49:00.000-08:00

So what are the rules of this game? Does getting rid of recently arrived packaging count? Does getting rid of stuff count if I didn't do it all myself or it wasn't all mine?

I decree that anything counts if I know, from past experience, that that thing might sit around the house for a while. And if I helped at all in getting it out of the house. So, yes. I may raise my standards later. Or I may not.

Target: Garage

Casualties:

A whole bunch of recently arrived cardboard boxes. Yes, Himself pushed to get them into the car trunk for recycling. I'm taking a share of the credit anyway. So there.

Boxes: Recycled!

Photo of papier mache masks by Doron. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Misc

2009-12-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

Panic! Panic! Eighteen minutes! Panic! Something's gotta goooooo!

Target: Hunter gatherer again.

Casualties:

A nylon compressible backpack thingie with a shredded seam.
Expired echinacea and Claritin.
Free Gift With Purchase toothpaste of unknown age.
A Pack O Bobby Pins.
Empty pill bottle.

Lessons Learned:

Start decluttering earlier in the day?

Guilt Rejection:

"You could use those..." Oh, never mind. I can't dredge up guilt about bobby pins or unrepairable nylon. I just can't.

Misc Misc: Trashed!

Photo: By Shakko. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Bookshelves

2009-12-14T21:23:00.000-08:00

A pretty sad haul today.

Target: The house. A hunter-gatherer run around the shelves.

Casualties:

A package of non-waterproof earplugs that I bought when I wanted waterproof earplugs.
Sample packs of Tea of Unknown Age.

Pending:

Ten used paperback murder mysteries, added to the Books To Sell shelf. They don't count as gone until they permanently leave the house.

Lessons Learned:

None, really. Erroneous small junk is going to appear now and then. And the murder mysteries are standard practice - I buy them used, I read them, I sell them right back again.

Guilt Rejection:

"That stuff is Perfectly Good!" Yeah. Don't care. Neither item is going to have any impact on anyone's life. (OK, maybe there are some people who have to work in noisy environments and can't afford earplugs. I'm unlikely to find those people.)

Misc Misc: Trashed!

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Bathroom Potions

2009-12-13T23:43:00.000-08:00

So, let's get right to the decluttering, shall we? Only seventeen minutes to get the DCOTD done!

Target: Bathroom

Casualties:

Five empty Bath Potion bottles.
A deodorant stick with an intolerably perky fragrance.
A lovely and expensive jar of hand cream in one of my favorite scents that has gone bad.
More stale hand cream, and still more stale hand cream, and a stale Bee Bar. (What's a Bee Bar? Solid hand cream.)
Three Free Gifts With Purchase of... hand cream. OK, hand cream, face cream, and body cream. What's the difference? I suspect that I'm supposed to know.
Free Gifts With Purchase of makeup, powder, lipgloss, blush, and "fine liquid hand wash". Oh, and exfoliator. And lip plumper. I'm keeping one concealer stick. That's as close as I ever get to actually using makeup.

Lessons Learned:

I don't use hand cream until the skin on my hands is threatening to peel off, usually only when it's the depths of winter and I'm cooking a lot. So I need to stop buying the expensive stuff, and if I unwarily accept a Free Gift With Purchase, give it away fast if I'm ever going to.
I don't use makeup at all. Same as above. (So how, you may ask, do I get all those Free Gifts With Purchase if I don't Purchase makeup? It's the perfume.)

Guilt Rejection:

"You paid good money for that hand cream!" Yeah, and it's stale. The end.
"You could have donated those to a woman's shelter." There was a Cathy cartoon about diapers that ended with the phrase 'Buy disposable and send a contribution to Greenpeace.' If I feel guilty about not supporting a women's shelter, I will write a check.

Cosmetic jumble: Trashed!

Picture: Wikimedia Commons.

Meta: Welcome To The Clutter Log

2009-12-13T22:00:00.000-08:00

I have another blog, ChickenFreak's Obsessions. That's my main blog. It's where the fried chicken and perfume are.

I post about a lot of thoughts over there, including thoughts about decluttering and hoarding. But when I considered posting about the really nitty-gritty aspects of decluttering ("finally gave away all those extra gloves"), it just didn't seem to fit. I think that asking people who are mainly interested in perfume or gardening to read what will eventually be a daily chronicle of decluttering would be excessive.

So here we are. Blog number two. Ta da!

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.