Today I took a big bag and I went through the kids’ drawers, using the “You can keep as many X as you have room for” motto. I find so many good deals, and I do so much buying-ahead, it’s not uncommon for me to end up with, say, twice as many t-shirts as a child needs. They were only $1.74 each! —Well, but we don’t have room for them all, so there’s a full drawer plus a stack of alternates waiting in the closet.
It was hard at first, because I LIKE all the shirts. It was easier when I divided into colors: Yes, I like brown shirts on Rob, but does he need FIVE brown shirts? No. Let’s keep this one because it’s a polo (the other four are t-shirts), and this one because it’s the best of the plain brown, and this one because it’s striped brown, and these two other brown ones go into the bag. Then: blue shirts.
My efforts were “first sweep” level: I’m not ready to pare down to the essentials of life, and I LIKE a little bit of excess, but I kept reminding myself that even if I got rid of only ONE SINGLE T-SHIRT that was SOME progress. We needn’t go from king to monk overnight, but LET’S MAKE SOME PROGRESS.
I took another bag and tried to fill the whole thing with stuff to throw away, not including anything already in a trash can. My house isn’t littered with pizza boxes and beer cans, but it IS littered with kid-meal toys, little paper art projects someone stepped on, popped balloons, pine cones someone collected on a walk and then lost interest in, empty bottles of lotion no one threw out, broken paddleballs, catalogs someone partially cut up for an art project and then forgot about, etc. I didn’t manage to fill the WHOLE bag (in part because a lot of stuff I got rid of could be recycled), but it made a single-layer-gone kind of difference in the house: I couldn’t put a finger on what was different, but everything looked a little better.
Mottos:
“You can’t clean clutter.”
“You can keep as many X as you have space for, and no more.”
“Small efforts are still worth it.”
Great mottos, and great job! I find that when I declutter, it often takes three or four or five sweeps and often a few weeks (or more) to get a room rid of all the clutter I think needs to go. And then I can revisit that room a year later and go through the process again. It’s gradual. And, yes, even small progress is progress.
I love reading these. I can so relate to the clothes buying. I actually need to pare down myself because in addition to the buying I’ve got hand me downs and then some of the hand me downs from D to J, I just don’t like on J so why keep them?? And some of the big hand me downs I get for D aren’t even that NICE why am I wasting a hanger!?
It just feels good to have less stuff. Like a load off the shoulders and clears out some mental space too imo.
I’m just loving your cleaning binge recaps. Please keep it up. We’ve made reall progress over here as a result.
I’m loving that you keep blogging about this. Even if it is throwing out some nail polish or getting rid of some t-shirts, it’s still keeping me motivated!
I’ve been switching offices so have used some of the tactics you’ve mentioned like getting rid of duplicates and that stuff that is just.. trash, but not pizza box trash.. it just piles up and needs to be sorted through.
I like packing up stuff for charity b/c it feels like I’m killing 2 birds w/ 1 stone. I’m getting my house in order and also donating stuff that might benefit somebody else.
We live by the “awesome” rule. If it’s not absolutely awesome we don’t have room for it in our lives. We live in 950/1000 sq ft (2 big people, 1 baby) with VERY little storage. And every year or so we purge.
We stretch it to things that are seasonally awesome like our tiny christmas tree and things like that. It’s worked really well for us, we have very little excess. I think it helps that neither of us are really attached to Stuff.
Too bad you don’t live closer to me–I could use the hand-me-downs! :)
It’s true–small progress is still progress and it can lead to even more as you get encouraged by the difference even small changes make. You’re progress is inspiring me to go through the kids’ books and thin those out. I’m sure the library could use a donation of books that we just don’t love any more.
Lots of little efforts add up to one big effort AND they’re less exhausting. WIN!
alright woman, now you’ve done it. Now I’m gonna have to do something next week. Cliff has SO many clothes its ridiculous. When i actually have the laundry all done (which is RARE) there is not room in his considerably sized dresser for all his clothes. and he has a school uniform now and on the weekends picks the same 1 size too short shirts to wear. If he sees me cleaning it out he gets all nutted up about the spider man shirt #16 with the holes in it and its “really special to him!!” so I have to sneak and do it. the shirts are the real problem. So now I’m gonna tackle it this week!! and I may just weed out some too small chonies too!!
good job swistle.
you do know your MIL is never going to appreciate any of this, right? so you’re doing this for…YOU…right?
This is so true. I often put off cleaning out the kids’ rooms till I can do a deep clean. But every little bit helps–truly.
I love these posts!
I wish I could make my husband obey the rule for ‘you can keep as many tshirts as you have room for’. Or baseball jerseys. Or pairs of shorts. We have THREE dressers in our room. THREE!
I LOVE These posts! You are seriously inspiring me to do the same. Kidney Foundation truck arrives on Wed. and I am looking to CLEAN OUT! Keep up the good work!
Yay, Swistle! You are inspiring me!
Especially in the half-used bottles of lotion and shampoo that I don’t really like department.
I also took a box to a family garage sale even though I didn’t have time to do a deep sweep- it wasn’t much and I only made $8 but it’s one fewer box of stuff!
BLESS you for these posts! I love the idea of keeping only enough X that we have room for. Seems simple but TOTALLY NEEDED AROUND HERE.
I am about to go about organizing all our books in the various bookshelves (on the various floors) of our new house and I KNOW I need to pare them down at the same time. I would actually like to leave a little room in each bookshelf for future books or even – GASP – open space.
You could really be the FlyLady for the rest of us. SRSLY. I can DO this level of cleaning. I am INSPIRED by this.
I’m going to go get rid of our smashed art projects and pine cones and stupid little toys that I keep because someone might like them SOMEDAY. But, you know what? If they don’t like them NOW? I’m going to ditch them!
Thanks, Swistle!
Good job!!Woot!
APPLAUSE.
I am working on throwing out old mail everyday, and then one or two other things…maybe by June when I have to pack my house into a moving truck it will all fit!
Thanks for the inspiration!!
I really need to work on the make SOME progress. If I can’t finish it seems useless to start. Like now, I should be grading quizzes! Or throwing away old lotion.
I think I may cross-stitch those mottos and hang them up in key places throughout the house.
It took me a long time to get over (if in fact I am over it) to not keep every hand-me-down whether it be furniture, kitchen gadget, clothes or whatever that I got into the habit of doing when the man was in school and we were dirt poor. It was then I started my hoarding tendancies and that’s a hard habit to break.
These posts of yours have inspired me and I’ve been on a de-cluttering mission for a few weeks too so thank you!
You have seriously inspired me!
It’s strange. I’ve been doing a drawer here, a cabinet there. Nothing too stressful at all. Yesterday, I looked around and was all, “Oh my gosh! I went through an entire day of opening cabinets and nothing landed on my head a single time! Go me!” I tell our thrift store lady that I’m bringing her “inventory”. She was quite impressed with the toilet paper. lol.
Love the mottoes. Keep on.
I’m using that. No, I’m stealing it: “You cannot clean clutter.”
So perfect.