In So Many Words

This past week has turned out to be pretty good for me on the decluttering front. I’m only committed to getting rid of one thing each day, so anything more than that is a bonus – and there have been a lot of bonuses this week!

Michael and I went through and organized his toys, getting rid of some that he no longer plays with or that were broken. I also tackled the bathroom cabinet and linen closet, removing all the empty and expired stuff that was just taking up space.

Some other casualties were a unneeded piece that had broken off a small clock in the living room but has just been sitting on the shelf for several weeks and a bunch of empty juice boxes and food wrappers from the backseat of my car.

The biggest project of all was the file box with every piece of paper that has come home from school since the beginning of the year – I went through and found all the items that were important or sentimental and got rid of the rest. The rest of the household papers that I am keeping went downstairs to be filed in the cabinet – hopefully I will get to that next week. At least it’s out of the dining area now.

I recently came across an article on Small Notebook about what motivates or inspires us to declutter. The author shares her top 5 reasons for decluttering, starting with a sense of calm.

I can certainly relate to that as I love the feeling of sitting down in a room that is peaceful and organized. I also love the feeling of being able to find what you need and do the things you want to do without having to clear off a space first!

What motivates you to declutter?

I have been feeling stretched in many directions lately, on just about every front. Even at work, I am dealing with a variety of tasks coming in from several sources and getting to know a new boss who works out of a different office than I do.

Since I am focusing on decluttering this year, I thought I would extend that concept to my to do list. I have never felt like I really got into a good daily routine since last summer, so I have decided it’s time to pare the list down to the basics.

Daily Priorities

• Follow morning routine each day.
• Declutter something every day.
• Stay on top of my afternoon/evening routines so dinner is done and cleaned up in time to get Michael in bed by 8:30.
• Spend some time decompressing (i.e. blogging or reading) once Michael is asleep.
• Go to bed at a decent hour myself. For now, I’m going to shoot for 11:00.

I have done pretty well with this the last two days, and the whole family has been less stressed out. Honestly, I know my stress has more to do with my own mental state than anything else. There are times when things are totally unorganized and I am still relaxed, and there other other times that no amount of structure helps me feel okay.

On the topic of getting enough sleep, I read a fascinating blog post over at Small Notebook called Conversion Experience: How a Night Owl Became an Early Bird and Liked It and was glad to hear that I’m not the only one who struggles with going to bed at a decent hour. I have been staying up later and later over the last couple of years but am not sure that’s the best thing for me, even if I can sleep in a little later than most people.

So what are your daily priorities? And are you a night owl or an early bird?

To-Do Tuesday was started by Lisa @ Crazy Adventures in Parenting for the purpose of attacking our to-do lists each week, blogging about our lists and what we’ve got going on, and sharing it with each other to help keep each other accountable.

Well, it has been one week since the 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge started, and I’m loving it! If you missed my earlier post and have no idea what I am talking about, the basic idea of the challenge is “to donate, sell or toss one unused item from your home every day for a year.” For more details, you can check out the intro post and the first day post.

Focus Challenge Update

Each month, there will be a focus challenge to help us stay motivated – or to restart us if we lose momentum. For the first month, the challenge was to identify specify areas in our homes that bother us and then to focus our decluttering efforts on those areas for the first week of the month.

I have so many trouble spots that it’s hard to narrow them down. The various flat surfaces like the side table and hutch seem to attract the most papers and other items that don’t belong on them, however, and since they are what people see first when they come into my house, that’s mainly where I looked this week for items that could go.

Here are a few of the items I’ve decluttered:

• Old books from Michael’s bookshelf
• The envelopes from the Christmas cards we received – after I updated any new address info in my files.
• Magazines from November and December (the two subscriptions we have should be ending soon, thus ending that clutter permanently)
• A package of emery boards that was in my Christmas stocking (anyone who has seen the state of my fingernails knows I will never use them!)
• The remnants of my last two stamping projects (I also organized this area and was actually able to sit down and make some cards again!)
• Two sweatshirts that were way past the point of being comfortable

So, How Are You Doing?

If you left a comment before joining in, have you been able to part with some things over the last week? Do you feel good about getting rid of something every day, or does it still seem like too little?

For anyone who hasn’t been doing this and wants to, you can start at any time. There’s nothing more special about any one day, so just jump in whenever you want!

I’d love to be able to celebrate with and encourage each other in this. If you’re participating and have posted about the challenge (or post about it sometime in the next week), please link your post to the inlinkz list below. Whether you’ve posted or not, leave a comment and let me know how it’s going!

This challenge was inspired by Suzanne Sergis at 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge and Taking Care of You. The concept and the monthly focus challenges are being used with her permission. If you use the badge, please link it to her intro post.

This is me doing a happy dance because I actually finished everything on my to do list last week. Way to go, me!

The list is pretty short this week. I’m trying to allow myself some breathing room so I can keep up with the daily housework and get back into our evening routine now that school is back in session.

I was probably too lax this week during the break and am really hoping the transition back to school isn’t too difficult for Michael. He had a good day on Monday, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that all will go well.

My To Do List

What’s on your to do list?

To-Do Tuesday was started by Lisa @ Crazy Adventures in Parenting for the purpose of attacking our to-do lists each week, blogging about our lists and what we’ve got going on, and sharing it with each other to help keep each other accountable.

What a great response to my decluttering challenge! I’m so excited to see where this will take me, and all who are joining in, over the next year. While I’m sure there will be times I get motivated and really clear stuff out, the best part is that I am only “required” to get rid of one thing every day. How’s that for a goal that is measurable and achievable?

Yesterday, Michael and I actually went through all of his existing books and decided which ones to pass on to his younger cousins. We were blessed with three bags of books from his older cousins last week, and we needed to make room on his bookshelf. I was so impressed with how easy it was for him to go through the pile and determine “keep” or “give” for each one.

There were only a couple that he wasn’t sure about, so I suggested we keep them for now. We have two big bags to pass on, and everything we kept fits in the space we have. Plus, there are new stories to read at bedtime (Mama was getting really tired of the old ones!)

Today, I opened the rest of the Christmas cards that had come and been piling up. We usually hang onto them because we love having the update letters and photos, but I did check all the addresses against my files and then throw away the envelopes.

It is easy to look around and get overwhelmed with all there is to do to keep this house running and organized, but I am choosing instead to be thankful for the things that I have and more importantly for the family I have to share them with!

How is your year starting off?

I’m so ready to get started on this decluttering challenge and make it a routine in my daily life. And I’m even more excited about those of you who have decided to join me. Together we can do it!

The Basic Outline

Simply put, the 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge is a commitment to “donate, sell or toss one unused item from your home every day for a year.”

I’m sure logistical questions will come up as the year progresses, but my plan as of now is to designate a spot in my house to collect the items to be donated and then drop them off to charity or post them on Freecycle once I have a box full. If I find items worth selling, I will post them on Craigslist and donate them later if they don’t sell. Obviously, things that are being tossed will go into the trash immediately.

Focus Challenges

This part isn’t required to participate in the challenge, but Suzanne had created a series of mini challenges to serve as a reminder to the participants that they weren’t doing it alone. Each one focuses on a specific area or type of clutter. I asked her for permission to use them during my own challenge, and she graciously agreed.

Focus Challenge, Month 1 (click the link to read the full, original challenge)

Think of 7 areas or such that bother you (for example: a drawer/closet; a flat surface that always has stuff put on it, your desk at home or work, etc.) For the next week, the focus challenge is to look in one area each day for your declutter item of the day.

If this seems too difficult, or you don’t have that many areas which bother you, you could just focus on one area and remove one piece of clutter from that area each day for a week. The main point is that we are getting rid of the extra stuff!

Time to Get Started

Now go find one thing in your house to throw away, give away or sell. And then do the same thing tomorrow and the next day!

I will be putting up a MckLinky in a week (on January 8th) so we can all report on how the decluttering is going and encourage each other to stay motivated. I can’t wait to hear how it goes!

It was so helpful this last month to break all the Christmas to do items down by week, so I decided to keep going with that system for the coming year. I am an obsessive list maker and would constantly be going through my huge to do list to figure out what to do next (or try to avoid the stuff I didn’t want to do!). And then I would have to rewrite it when it got too messy or confusing.

Putting things in a weekly time frame helps me focus on what is most important and also not worry about the things that aren’t critical yet. I found this cute weekly planner and ordered one for both me and my friend who came up with the idea. It’s called the Buttoned Up Weekly Agenda:

And here’s what it looks like opened up:

It has a bunch of pages in the back for notes and also some shopping/errand lists that you can tear out. The best part is the advice section in the middle–I think the authors read my mind when they wrote this:

The secret to getting Buttoned Up isn’t obsessing about what you need to do, but rather getting clear on what you don’t need to do.

1. You don’t need to be perfect.
2. You don’t need to do everything on your list.
3. And you don’t need to do everything yourself.

My To Do List

I think this method will help me focus on what’s most important and get those things done at the right time. At least, that’s the plan!

To-Do Tuesday was started by Lisa @ Crazy Adventures in Parenting for the purpose of attacking our to-do lists each week, blogging about our lists and what we’ve got going on, and sharing it with each other to help keep each other accountable.

I have made some significant progress in decluttering my home this year – after years of moaning and groaning about it without taking any action. It has been a wonderful thing, but as I look around, I realize there is a lot more to be done, and I’m also finding that it can be difficult to keep the decluttered areas from becoming messy again.

So when I discovered the 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge, I was very intrigued. The basic idea of the challenge is “to donate, sell or toss one unused item from your home every day for a year.”

My first thought was – one thing? That’s not very much, how will that help? But then I thought about how much of a difference 365 things would make by the time a year is up. Of course, there will be days where I get motivated and do more than that, but I love the idea that I can make a difference by removing just one unused, unneeded or unloved thing from my life each day. And that by doing it every day, I am creating a routine that will become an automatic mindset.

Suzanne Sergis, who started the challenge and also blogs at Taking Care of You, even created monthly focus challenges to help inspire and motivate people as they go through the year. For her original year of decluttering, she had declared one day of the month as an anniversary and posted a focus challenge on that day.

My Plan

I have decided to take this challenge for myself and start on January 1st (And why not? It’s the classic day to start something new, after all.) Anyone want to join me?

My plan is to post the focus challenge on the 1st of each month and then put up a MckLinky a week later so we can report on how we did and encourage each other to stay motivated. I may post at other times throughout the month about how it’s going or what I’m learning through the process as well.

So, who’s with me? Leave me a comment and let me know if you’d like to join me so we can encourage each other over the coming year.

Links to the Monthly Focus Challenges:

January 1 – Month 1 Focus Challenge

For anyone who may not have seen this meme before, To-Do Tuesday was started by Lisa @ Crazy Adventures in Parenting for the purpose of attacking our to-do lists each week, blogging about our lists and what we’ve got going on, and sharing it with each other to help keep each other accountable.

I totally rocked my list last week! Good thing too, because we ended up leaving for Virginia Friday night instead of Saturday morning in order to beat the snow (yeah, that didn’t happen – it took us 4 1/2 hours to make a 2 hour trip). But we got there safely and had a wonderful time with Bob’s parents and his sister’s family.

Now we are looking forward to a relaxing couple of weeks with no traveling. Michael only has two more days of school, and Bob took off work to stay home with him during the break. Although I will still be working, my office is closed both Thursday and Friday the next two weeks, so it’s not too bad.

And here’s the last week of my four-week Christmas Countdown To Do List:

December 20-26

What do you have left to do to get ready for Christmas?

For more To-Do Tuesday, visit Crazy Adventures in Parenting.

For anyone who may not have seen this meme before, To-Do Tuesday was started by Lisa @ Crazy Adventures in Parenting for the purpose of attacking our to-do lists each week, blogging about our lists and what we’ve got going on, and sharing it with each other to help keep each other accountable.

We had a wonderful time at the Autism Society Christmas Party on Sunday. The only difficult part was the raffles; Michael was so upset not to win anything. I need to remember to talk with him ahead of time about these. Later that day my husband surprised me with a early 40th birthday party when I thought we were going to a friend’s house for dinner. It was very nice – I had a great time and was so touched that he did that for me.

I’m sure he got some great pictures of everything, but I just haven’t had the time to post as much as I would like to lately. I’m still hyper-focused on getting everything done for Christmas. Once we get all the family gifts mailed and delivered, it will be smooth sailing for the rest of the holiday season.

December 13-19

December 20-26

What are you doing to celebrate the holidays this year?

For more To-Do Tuesday, visit Crazy Adventures in Parenting.