Personal clutter demons (long)

[SlowButSteady]

My home (and office) are suffering. And it's driving me nuts...has been for years.

Everything is so cluttered. I have difficulty throwing things away and organizing my living space. We do have "open floor space" so we can walk through out house without having to hack a trail with a machete, but all horizontal surfaces are a mess. The dining room, well, we can't walk in there.

I have gone as far as to organize old clothes into bags--three each for men, ladies and boys clothing. Into one I put tops, another bottoms and another misc. Some of these things are new w/ tags and never worn. Some are designer names.

I have cd's, dvd's, all kinds of papers. Old electronics and small appliances. And books. Way too many books, and this with me bagging up a huge sackful of paperbacks about twice a year and donating them to Friends of the Library.

I have bought 3 books on conquering clutter and usually can't find them...because of all the clutter. My husband never throws anything away either and gets mad when I suggest we do something about this problem. He and my son are both slobs. I'm so stressed about it that I hardly ever go into their man cave any more. If we pared down our home/barn/possessions, we would possibly remove tons of stuff.

In the past I've donated items to the local Goodwill or Hospice stores. Get a receipt for my taxes (and promptly misplace it in the clutter). We don't have a local consignment store. Nearest city w/ upscale resale type stores is close to an hour away (in other words, too time-consuming to be worth it).

Has anyone here had experience w/ selling things on ebay or other on line resources such as craigslist? Is that more time-consuming than I need to fool with? Would it be possible to find an ebay seller who would be willing to do all the work and give me a cut? How?

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do? I think my SIL is going to come in 2 weeks to help with a purge

[Cataboo]

Periodically I do a clearance and set things aside to sell on ebay or craigslist... It really isn't that bad for the money you get. Just take a picture of everything and ebay has software called turbo lister that lets you create listings offline, and you can just duplicate listings, etc.

That being said, I've got a box full of stuff I've been procrastinating on.

As for clutter... I have a tendancy to clutter. It makes me feel better making sure that i have a certain number of rooms clutter free - so my upstairs I try to keep clutter free, and I can make all the mess I want downstairs...

I did recently buy a huge filing cabinet off craigslist... all my papers are currently in there, but I cannot claim that they are in any sort of order. that is for another time.

[sfa]

Keeping organized is a work in progress for me. Five or six years ago I realized that the methods in organizing books simply would not work for me--they are designed by people who are sensors, not intuiters (for anyone who goes by Myers-Briggs). In other words--those organizing systems work great for people who are organized. So I came up with my own "good enough" method of keeping the house relatively under control, while also realizing that I'll never have a home that looks like something in a magazine (and honestly, I wouldn't want it that way--anyone with lots of hobbies and interests is going to have clutter).

Number one rule for me: if it's too complicated to follow, I won't follow it. So I made simple rules--I open my mail above the recycling and dump all of the junk and catalogs into there immediately, then throw bills in a box next to the computer, and anything else goes in front of my place at the dining room table. I "file" bills and important papers by year, and that's it--I pile everything up for a year then stuff it all in a box, put the year on it and stow it in the attic. If I should ever really NEED something, I'd be able to find it. After seven years, I can toss the whole box. I tried to organize papers by type, but that only lasted about a month before I gave up. I'm a piler, not a filer, so this works for me. Same thing with papers coming home from school--each child gets a pile in the dining room and at the end of the year I keep the best stuff, box it up, and throw out everything else.

Other clutter: whenever anyone calls asking for donations of household goods or old clothes, I always say yes. Then I go around the house the night before they are due to pick stuff up and I put together a couple of boxes of things to give away. There are three places that call for donations regularly, and they each call about four times a year. This got rid of all of the old clothes, toys, household appliances, etc. over the course of a few years (oh, and the receipt goes in the box with the bills next to the computer, which is my dumping ground for anything I might need like that) You could probably get the same effect by eBaying it all on some kind of schedule. Don't think about it too much--just do it.

Books are my biggest problem, and so far I'm just not doing anything about it. I tried once to go through my shelves and get rid of books, but I only managed to eliminate about a dozen. DH went through his a couple of months ago and decided he was just going to get rid of 25% of his books, and he did! So now there's more space on the shelves for my stuff. :p

My house is still pretty messy, but not so messy that we can't spend a day going nuts cleaning it to the point where we're happy to have company over. There will always be piles of things in corners, and piles on the dresser, and piles on the desk by the front door, but they are at least relatively recent piles and a sign that real people live in this house, not magazine people with no hobbies!

Sarah

[Irulan]

One word: FLYLADY

www.flylady.com

You can take what you want and leave the rest ---but their system for eliminating clutter, and LEARNING HOW TO NOT CREATE MORE CLUTTER is totally awesome.

If you can get past the cutesy-ness of the program, it is really worthwhile to get the email reminders for a minimum of one month, and learn some of the new ideas.

They really target those of us who are overwhelmed by our clutter; or don't even know where to be begin when trying to get rid of things; they acknowledge the emotional aspects of clutter and give tips for that...

29 item flings rule.

I found this system very very helpful. It gives you really small chunks of things to do so it's not overwhelming at all. I really like this, as compared to the weekend long purge that leaves us exhausted emotionally and physically.

I give a thumbs down to craig's list or Ebay. Why? Getting things ready to go on sale or waiting to get the right price is just another excuse to keep it hanging around. One of the things I learned from Flylady it to either Goodwill it, or throw it away. And don't keep those Goodwill bags hanging around either.

[HappyTexasMom]

One word: FLYLADY

www.flylady.com



+1

We've loosely followed Flylady on and off for years now. Our house is not where I would want it to be, but it's better than it was, and without Flylady it would have been worse instead of better.

For me a huge thing is dealing with things as they come in, as I'm bad about putting stuff to the side "for later". I'm far from perfect at it, but a lot of crap that comes through the door gets circumvented (junk mail, and wrappings from things we buy comes to mind).

[Grits]

There are shipping places here (Ship On Site) that will list things on e-bay for you. They will take the picture, post it, help you price it, and handle the sale and shipping for you. There is probably something similar where you are.

Something I have found helpful is to try not to tackle it all at once. Make a goal to do one thing a day. Tomorrow you could take the bags of clothes to Goodwill or some other charity. Or take the designer clothes to a consignment shop. Sometimes I end up giving stuff away just because of the hassle factor of selling it, and I need to get it out of the house!

[sarahspins]

Craigslist can be easy, or it can be exceptionally frustrating.. for me it's hit or miss. I've had some things sell within minutes that I thought would be a chore to get rid of, and other stuff that just won't budge no matter what.

Of course the people who contact you are a mixed lot.. that's for sure. Some are total flakes

It's free and very easy to add things for sale though... which is a HUGE benefit over places like ebay.

[tulip]

++1 on Flylady. It's helped me alot, and I only do the very basics. Granted, I got divorced and moved, and moved very little stuff with me. It's LIBERATING to not have so much stuff--something to keep in mind when you are tempted to buy things.

My first rule is to be VERY careful about bringing stuff in the house in the first place. I hate shopping, so that helps already. But really think before you add stuff.

My issue is with mail. I bring it in and let it pile up, sometimes for a week. My solution is to log it in a notebook. That way, I have to acknowledge what I receive, who it's from, and what I did with it (file, respond, bill). It's helped me deal with it right away.

Ebay could work, but it sounds like an awful lot of hassle to me! And then you have to find the item when it sells...which might not be so easy unless you are organized...which if you were, you wouldn't need to be selling things on ebay to start with!

Check out Flylady, and remember that you don't have to do everything at once. And you don't have to be perfect.

[channlluv]

+1 on Flylady

I did it for a while until I couldn't handle the volume of email anymore. My house is still pretty cluttered - it was hard to fit in all that daily maintenance cleaning in with the three part-time jobs and child's after school activity schedule.

The one thing I picked up from Flylady, though: If it's not blessing you, let it bless someone else.

That one statement awoke my inner Altruist and made it so much easier to let go of clothes, furnishings, baby gear, dishes, kitchen gadgets, and over a decade of accumulated stuff. I took eleven pick-up truck loads of stuff to the local battered women's shelter. They help women start lives anew, and I had some pretty good stuff that could make it easier.

My mother cringes when she thinks of me giving away what was probably tens of thousands of dollars' worth of stuff - she's a total packrat collector - but man, it was so freeing.

I realized how anchored we are by material things. Or how much I was anyway.

If it's not blessing you or your family, let it bless someone else, and then don't think about it again.

Regarding the paper, yeah, I open my mail over the recycling bin, too. I've also moved most of my bill paying online. I don't get a whole lot of paper mail anymore that really requires my attention.

Roxy

[Trek420]

I'm awful at house cleaning but pretty good with clutter. ;)

All rooms have an "out box" which gradually moves downstairs and into the box by the door. Anytime I'll be going by Goodwill, Magic Johnson Thrift store, American Cancer Society Thrift Store, Habitat for Humanity ..... the trunk gets filled.

I keep a list of what I donated.

Turbotax has a system that will calculate the value of items donated. Clearing the home ahead of the remodel and getting ready to move I donate a lot. It helps around tax time and if the items help someone else and a charity it's good.

[Zen]

I'm selling my house. I've got a boatload of stuff to go to the thrift shop. my realtor wants me to have a moving sale but I can't be bothered and would just as soon give things away.
I will probably get rid of more stuff out of the "keep" pile before I move.

My ex was a huge pack rat and it was disgusting. It's nice to be able to know where things are.

Will check out the flylady.

[Irulan]

dealing with clutter starts with why you hold on to stuff. You can Craig's list and Ebay all you want, but if you don't deal with how it got there in the first place, you won't get any traction at all. However you got it ( garage sales, hoarding, just-in-case, I'll need it someday etc) is what you have to deal with, or you'll be back here next year with a whole new pile of stuff that you'll be wondering how to get rid of.

[ShubieGA]

The clutter gets overwhelming for me too. It kept me from having people over, etc. Once I had to pack everything for a move, I either tossed, donated or gave away alot via freecycle (www.freecycle.org). Since moving, I have really been trying to keep up the cleaner look. I have friends over more often to re-enforce it. I have a a stack of boxes that I have not unpacked yet (occupying a section of the garage), and am finding I need less of what I brought along. With freecycle, you belong to an e-mail group in your area (hopefully possible in your location), and you post items to get rid of. Those interested, reply back, and arrange a time to pick up. I got my moving boxes free this way, and was able to provide others household items that were usable and needed by them, furniture included. And I too do not pass up the calls for charity pickups. It has helped! Good luck!:)

[shootingstar]

I took eleven pick-up truck loads of stuff to the local battered women's shelter. They help women start lives anew, and I had some pretty good stuff that could make it easier.

My mother cringes when she thinks of me giving away what was probably tens of thousands of dollars' worth of stuff - she's a total packrat collector - but man, it was so freeing.

I realized how anchored we are by material things. Or how much I was anyway.

If it's not blessing you or your family, let it bless someone else, and then don't think about it again. Roxy

11 truckloads of donated stuff --wow. :eek: And you weren't moving households?

I'm probably due for some material purging. When I moved from Toronto to Vancouver, I did sell off 40 books to other employees for $1 each. Gave away another 50 to a fundraising book sale for one of the church colleges.

Donated several bags of brand new fabric ends to a women's shelter/support service. I did used to sew and accumulated an extra box of brand new uncut fabric.

We no longer buy any knicknacks for home. Admittedly I vaguely cringe when we get one for a gift from others. We have more artwork than you can imagine, stuff he and I have bought from artists, paintings I've done and what his daughter had done in past few years and given to him as gifts. He won't throw it out..for obvious sentimental reasons, even though some of it I know she would write off by now, as purely experimental. I have discarded some of my own artwork..which confounds some family members.

And I have a ton of art supplies. I know for certain to whom I could give some of the stuff as well-appreciated gifts that would be used properly. But I'm hoarding the stuff since I know Muse attacks me at unexpected times in life. :)

In Canada, our tax laws don't allow claiming this type of hand-me down goods to charities for our personal tax saving purposes. So latter is not a motivator when we donate used personal goods.

He is neat but now it's problematic since he started up his own business. That requires some paperwork that must be kept even though he's highly disciplined going electronic as far as he can....which means more computer peripherals crowding about.

[Grog]

I was having similar thoughts yesterday. I find our clutter oppressive.

By the sound of it, our apartment is not nearly as cluttered as what you describe, but the closets hide a lot of stuff (in a not-so-organized way) and tackling it will take time. (And I won't even get started about my closet-full of stuff at my parents' house, 5000 km from here, which raises a whole other set of emotions and issues.)

I don't want to move into a bigger place/condo/house in the future and carry that stuff. Yet there are certain things we do "need" or could need, and do not want to buy again ($$).

I also don't bother selling things too much. It just makes me procrastinate. I have freecycled things, which was quick and painless: ski boots, a teapot, etc. Thanks to Emily_in_NC I now know about Bookmooch, and have "mooched" away a (small) number of books that I was positive I will never want to read again. I actually PAY money (for shipping) to get rid of things, and it makes me feel GOOD! This is the concept that 1-800-Got-Junk is based on: http://www.1800gotjunk.com/us_en/what_we_do/how_we_price.aspx

I agree with others that the key rule is to check VERY closely what comes into the house. The corresponding rule is to get one thing OUT for each thing that comes IN. I do not 100% live by this yet, but I've made some progress, in particular with clothing.

I'll look at Flylady as a preventive measure. I know I'm going to have to buy lots of clothes soon (finishing grad school) and I want to control the process more closely I'm afraid.

[emily_in_nc]

I probably wouldn't bother with ebay if you have a lot of stuff that needs to go quickly. I've been selling on ebay for several years now, and I can't manage more than about five auctions a week, and those are only the weeks where I won't be traveling and have time to deal with it, so it takes quite awhile to get rid of quantities of stuff. A few things that are of value are worth it, but not a household full of clutter.

Craigslist is relatively easy and free, quicker than ebay, but you still have to figure out times to meet buyers and correspond with them via email or phone, which takes time. And I've found quite a few who initially express interest just flake out and never call or email back a second time. That said, we sold some too-large-to-ship items like kayaks with great success on CL.

We're in decluttering mode too and are taking a full long-bed pickup truck load (with cap, filled to the roof!) to my in-laws to have a garage sale with them this weekend. They have a much better location for one than we do, and they need help hauling their clutter out of their basement, so it works out well. A lot of the stuff we'll be selling would not be accepted at the places we usually donate (tools, yard and garage stuff, construction supplies, etc), so a yard sale seemed like a good way to deal with a lot of stuff at once.

We donate clothes and household items to a local mission.

We're finding it extremely empowering to get rid of stuff we no longer need or use. It's so much easier to find the stuff we do have, the house stays neater, and since we're probably going to be putting our house on the market next year, the staging effort will be much less.

Good for you for taking the first step -- realizing something has to be done. Do be patient and don't give up; a change like this doesn't happen overnight. We've been working on seriously decluttering for about six months, and still have a long way to go, but we are seeing huge improvements. You will too!

[VeloVT]

I highly recommend David Allen's book "Getting Things Done." It's about productivity, not decluttering/organization, but I think many of the strategies he advocates are useful for reducing clutter as well. For instance, if you have a partner, make sure each of you has a work station, and mail/other items get put into the correct inbox, so you are responsible for your stuff and he is responsible for his stuff, and there's no random unassigned floating "stuff."

I also go through my closet/dresser every six months or so and come up with a bag to go to Goodwill or consignment (stuff that I don't wear but is in pretty good shape), and if applicable a bag to be trashed or made into rags.

I have sold a number of things on Ebay, but mostly it's been bike parts with very little wear. I usually set a fixed price a bit lower than I actually think the item is worth. All of the bike parts I've listed on Ebay have sold. Other items have been more hit or miss... I went through a ballet flat buying spree last summer and bought a few pairs of shoes that I realized after only 1 or 2 wearings weren't right -- I sold one on Ebay to a happy customer but the other wouldn't budge. If you're pretty sure what you have is marketable, it's worth the effort -- if you're not so sure, it can feel like a waste of time and listing fees.

When I "clutter", it's usually a sign of some emotional issue I'm avoiding. But that's just me :eek:.

[Cataboo]

Ebay fees for fixed price listings ahve gotten pretty cheap & you get 5 free listings a month now or something. I don't ebay anything that I don't think will sell. If it's a large item like a kayak or bike, it goes on craigslist... If it doesn't sell on craigslist, it might move to ebay, but I'm more likely to just list it again and again on craigslist and eventually it will sell. If you set the price low enough, it'll sell on craigslist quickly.

Smaller items I'm more likely to put on ebay as a buy it now or best offer, the listings last 30 days and I can just renew them if they don't sell. I basically will go through the ended listings, see who's had the same item & what they sold for - then I'll list at sort of the medium price for buy it now.

Electronics or books, I tend to just put on amazon marketplace. That works pretty well.

You guys inspired me to tackle my guest room closet. It has been my "returns" closet for the last year or so... Anything I need to mail back to bonktown, backcountry, wherever has been stashed into there. Steepandcheap/chainlove/bonktown moving to 30 days only for returns has pretty much killed any urge of mine to actually order from them lately - so that's been good for curing that "addiction" I watch those sites much less and I only buy if I absolutely know I need it.

So now I have a huge box of returns to go back & I just need to get packaging tape to tape it up & drop it off at UPS.

[sgtiger]

SlowButSteady, I have had similar issues with clutter. I'm a pack rat by nature and tend to accumulate stuff and it doesn't help that I'm a procrastinator too. I'm still working on my clutter demon but I've gotten so much better.

Here are the steps that worked for me:

1) Identify most common clutter traps. Find a system to deal with those, like sorting the mail over the recycle bin that someone else suggested, so that you don't add to the existing clutter. For me it helped to ask my neat freak friends about their habits and observe them in their homes.

2) Restrict what comes into the house. This may be hard to do since you're not the only one who's responsible for the clutter. And you've already mentioned that the other members of the family are resistant. You can't force anyone else around you into change but you can work to change yourself. Let them keep their man cave to do what they want with it. It's the one room that you don't get to criticize. Just ask them to keep the door shut to it and respect that you are trying to get the other parts of the house clean and to please not clutter out there anymore. Someone already mentioned that before you bring in anything into the house that you have to get rid of something first. That is a great idea. However for the clutter situation that you described, you might want to start with letting go of three things for every one item that comes in. Once you're into the maintenance stage you can do go down to 1:1.

3) In the beginning, work in 1' x 1' sections. It is overwhelming to take that kind of clutter as a whole, so work in small sections. As you get better you can work in larger sections. It helped me to lay down something that I could use as a border for the section I was working in, like an embroidery hoop or a small box with the top and bottom cut out. Sort the items by keep, throw out, and giveaway/sell. It helps if you have bags or boxes at hand while you sort. When you're done, you have to find a home for all the items that you've decided are staying. It was very difficult for me to do this in the beginning. My natural inclination was to put many of these items in a new pile in another part of the room, so the piles where just moving around. Ug! Sometimes the part of the house the items belonged is was so cluttered that there was no space to put them into without cleaning out that first. If that's the case put them into a box or bag and keep them in a place where you can easily pull them out once you're ready to organize that space. Plastic see through bins are nice because you can view the contents, but the cost of those can add up quickly if you need a lot of those. I used a lot of paper grocery bags since they can stand up by themselves and I could write down what was inside. Keep a container for each room or category of items. Keep like with like. It's so much easier to see if you have multiples of the same thing. I also kept a box for those items that belonged to Dh that was placed outside his explosion room and asked him to put those items away. If they stayed in the box over a week than I assumed that it was alright to throw out. I felt like that was a reasonable amount of time for him to either take care of it or pull the items into his man cave. I did make exceptions for the things I knew he would miss eventually and placed them into his space. That way it was on him if he couldn't find them: "I placed it on your desk, honey. What happened to it after that, I do not know." He never missed the items I threw out. He probably forgot he even owned them.:rolleyes:;)

4) Or for a small space, such as a bathroom or linen closet , pull everything outside onto the lawn. And only bring back things you need or want to keep. For the items that are not a necessity, ask yourself when was the last time you used it. If it's more than a year or two then reconsider your decision to keep it. If you can't get yourself to part with some of those thing, put it into a box dated six months in advance. If you haven't used those items in that time, then chances are you don't need it. Get rid of it.

5) Before starting a new section, maintain the section you've worked on first. It takes getting used to but it's so much easier to do maintenance once an area is clutter-free.

Remember that it's easier to replace a bad habit with a good one than to break yourself from a bad habit cold turkey. If you find yourself feeling guilty or playing the shoulda, coulda, woulda mind game with yourself, that is the time to just do the thing that's on your mind instead of beating yourself up about falling into old habits. Another thing I do is to watch shows about dealing with clutter. They show homes that are way worse them mine which makes me feel a bit better about my mess. And are a reminder of what could happen if I let things go too far. I pick up tips in the process. My favorite is How Clean Is Your House produced by BBC. I don't watch it often, but every time I do, it makes me want to scrub down all the surfaces in my home.

[Geonz]

++++1 on the "stuff in organizing books is for people who are organized."


Flylady was way too much for me.

I've had people say they were going to try to help me get organized, but they always forgot. If I were organized, I would have reminded them, but that's the point. HOnestly, it wasn't self-sabotage. I can't tell you how many times I've found the evidence of a sorting system or memory system that I forgot I'd started. I do remember to clean out my dryer lint and pencil sharpeners... I think because they scream "fire hazard!" at me. (Or maybe because I'm a closet pyro and really want to collect it all :D:D and burn off all that clutter :eek: )

So, given that, For *me* craigslist or ebay would be too taxing on my lack of organizational skills. Keep track of pictures of the stuff? Ack!

However, if you don't like the clutter because it keeps you from getting organized... then organize the sale, get rid of the stuff, and keep your simplified life more organized. Simplicity has its value ;)

So... I *do* somehow find a way to blog. So I started a "clutterblog" a.k.a. a "CLOG" after my brother's wedding end of May. It's inspired me to *start* cleaning several times and of course, if somebody wnated to join forces and mandate "No, you need a picture of the target area every Sunday night," hey, I'd be game ;) because yea, abotu now (last posting was 7/5) it may die off... http://clog-theclutterblog.blogspot.com/

[shootingstar]

Geonz, will only disclose 1 pic shot strategically of a clutter area. One of our shelves with cycling/outdoor bks. There also piles of cycling maps lying on top and he has somewhere a mini-box of more cycling maps that he collects wherever he visits. Sometimes they are marked up for certain purposes or for future reference (sometimes). printing off electronic version from Internet is sometimes truly awful since some municipalities shrink it to an unusable font/resolution or the opposite, on sizes bigger than legal size (Size of a small engineering drawing, sheesh. Engineers don't think of the general public when they produce their documents anyway.) Not the paper size that homeowners with printers would normally have.

[PamNY]

If you saw my house, you wouldn't want my advice. However, since I do understand the problem, I will tell you that what works for me is defining a specific task: e.g., clean a particular closet or drawer.

I adore Freecycle, though you don't get a tax benefit and occasionally people don't turn up when they say they will. But it's wonderful for getting rid of "special interest" items and I've gotten warm thank-you notes which makes the entire process less annoying.

[melissam]

Great thread! I appreciate the Flylady link and its tips on decluttering. It's inspired me to address my work email Inbox this week. At the beginning of the week I had over 14000 messages, and now I'm down to 5, using the simple discipline of Put Away (File), Throw Away (Delete), or Give Away (Reply, I guess).

Next on the list is my work cube. Baby steps... :)

[Zen]

I took a huge laundry basket of clothes to the hospital auxiliary thrift shop today.
More will go, I'm sure.

[Dogmama]

Inability to throw anything away can be a sign of fear of being able to produce replacements. In other words, we don't throw stuff away because we have an irrational fear that we will be pushing a grocery cart someday. It makes sense in this economy that people would hang onto stuff too long.

My husband is a pathological pack rat. When his stuff starts to creep into the rest of the house, I shove it back into "his room" and shut the door. Hooray for doors.

"They" also say that if you have a closet full of...say shoes...you won't buy new shoes. So, you'll be stuck wearing those old clunkers that hurt your feet & went out of style 10 years ago.

I, too, monitor what comes in. But as somebody said, I'm not always in charge. I can make rules, though. I tell DH to pick what he wants on the bathroom counter. No, you don't get 5 different deodorants on display.

Now, of course MY STUFF is important. I NEED several different types of brushes, colors of nail polish, face creams (day, night and retin-a). You know the drill. :p Seriously, I do catch myself cluttering too.

My problem with clutter is that my mind is so busy, I need my surrounding to be very simple. Otherwise, I go into overload.

[SlowButSteady]

Thanks, everyone, for your input!

This morning I did a quick (15 min) horizontal surface purge--emphasis on books.

I took paper grocery bags--they will stand up and open by themselves and color coded index cards. On each bag I stapled a card with an authors name on it.

Sorted by

TOSS
KEEP
Fiction by Author name (resale on Amazon?) - nice hardbacks, read once
Nonfiction
Cookbooks

I am also using brown paper grocery bags with color-coded index cards to sort clothing for my local Hospice store.

This is my own system invention. Yay for me!

For next weekend, when my SIL and brother come, I have a goal of one specific room. I want to see the top of my dining room table again.

One thing I want to do before they come is maybe get some easy peel off adhesive stickers, again, color coded. Green for GO, Red for STOP (keep)??? I can do a quickie run through and apply stickers so nothing I want to keep gets inadvertantly tossed.

[Trek420]

Books: I go through those, the stuff I've read and will not read again I either take to a local used book store and trade them in which gets me .... yep, more books or drop them off at the local library for their book sale.

Excess sheets, towels I drop off at the Animal Shelter. They always need them for bedding. :o

If you have excess furniture here's an organization to donate to:
www.furniturebanks.org

This is mostly California but a ton of useful links:
www.stopwaste.org

[roadie gal]

I don't have a HUGE clutter problem, but I do tend to collect some stuff. One way that I've found to make myself get out that stuff to donate is to make an appointment with one of the charities that picks up from your house. Around here it's the Salvation Army or the MS Society. Once I've made a commitment to them I feel like I have to get the items out. I don't end up rethinking and putting them back on the shelves or in the closet.

I'm a terrible bookaholic, but about once a year I go through all of my books and ask myself if I'm honestly going to read that one again. If I can't say yes, then out it goes, either to a charity or the local library.

[Trek420]

The best way to get rid of the junk mail is not to get it in the first place. Disclosure some of these links are Bay Area specific:

www.stopjunkmail.org

[Dogmama]

The best way to get rid of the junk mail is not to get it in the first place. Disclosure some of these links are Bay Area specific:

www.stopjunkmail.org

Thank you!

[Trek420]

Happy to save a tree ;)

[malkin]

I wonder how I missed this; it's the story of my life!


I was watching some mystery/crime show recently and the perp had stashed some evidence in a duct behind a vent. I made me wonder if I could keep anything there. Every other place is full!

The best thing has been to find a local charity shop that:
1. takes donations 7 days a week
2. is an easy walk or bike ride.

We can load up a basket and drop it off before I start pulling stuff out and back into the closet.

Also best if I don't fill the basket up at the shop before returning home!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

If you can hide your clutter in the closets or in the attic, you don't really have a clutter problem.
If you can put all your disorganized papers into a big box or a filing cabinet, you don't have real clutter problem.
If you can get rid of your clutter by putting it on Ebay or carting it off in the trunk of your car, you don't have a real problem.
I grew up where there were only 1 foot wide trails that you could pick your way through the rooms on...everything besides that was piled halfway up to the ceiling. God help you if those 6 foot tall stacks of NY Times fell over on you. Clean clothes?...what a joke- go pick the least dirty thing from that five foot tall mound of dirty clothes in the middle of the room and wear it. Where's that big spaghetti pot? Oh yeah, it's still got last year's thanksgiving turkey stew in it and it's somewhere under that shapeless mound in the corner over there where I 'think' the radiator is...and I think I remember the old green recliner chair is under there somewhere too. Want to pull up the shade and open the window for a little daylight and fresh air?...sorry, can't get anywhere near it. Plus, you're not allowed to touch the window shade because it will disintegrate if you move it, like the one in the bedroom did a few years ago. Only we can't get into the bedroom anymore so we stopped worrying about the shade in there letting the daylight in. And don't get me started on what kind of 'food' we kids had to eat.
This is how I grew up, and it was pretty oppressive. My mother, whom I loved very much, had a little issue or two.

The idea of trying to deal with clutter by Ebaying or Craigslisting one's way out of it only works for people who don't have a really serious hoarding/clutter problem. Self help books with 'organization systems' won't work either. They cannot 'get organized', they cannot let go, they cannot face it or solve it no matter how many books they read or pep talks they get from well meaning friends.
It reaches a point where it just becomes beyond self help. At that point only real physical intervention by caring and efficient people can help, best accompanied by therapy and support. Not support to make the hoarder 'better organized'...but merely to reassure and comfort them while the traumatic intervention is happening...while they are losing so much of what they feel they simply cannot live without.
There are many levels of having a 'clutter problem'. I'm not really sure what level the original poster is experiencing, but I do know that it can become progressively worse year by year. It can become a real sickness, the seriousness and hopelessness of which many of us more normal people simply cannot comprehend.

[Tuckervill]

Oh Lisa, that's just terrible.

Yesterday, I decided to "declutter" some stuff I had put in the garage for the garage sale that never happened. I was fed up, and it requires a permit to hold a garage sale and of course on Saturday city offices are closed. I just decided to give it all away.

I made a sign that said "Free! Christmas Shopping" and put it by the main street. Then I spread out two tarps and put everything I could find to part with out on those tarps by the wheelbarrow load. It took a good 2 hours before I got the first customer, and boy was he enthusiastic! He went home and got his wife, and I kept going in and out of the out buildings and finding more stuff that didn't need to be sold.

Eventually, I noticed that several people were sitting in their cars WAITING for me to come out with the next load. I could barely get it through the gate before they were on me. It was incredible. I left the stuff out there all night, and only about 10% of 20 loads was still there (some of the stuff that went early was lots of furniture, most of it broken!).

Two realizations:


Some of these people had to be hoarders.
None of them took the home organization books that I had collected in frustration over the years.

I feel so free!

Karen

[shootingstar]

:rolleyes: Ongoing challenge for some of us, including moi.

We actually have a large Salvation Army bin within our building..permanently. I think people do drop things down there. Since we live in a high rise building, some people are too lazy to go to the dump offloading some small furniture. Some of it looks decent.

But no we don't need it. In all honesty, I'm not an antique nor consignment nor used furniture person. Except stuff from family. I only value antiques/old for items that genuinely having family/friendship meaning attached to it. The only used thing I ever bought from a non-family member, was a nearly new Braun immersion blender. A real bargain that we needed to replace a well-used one.

I probably sound like a snob...but after growing up in a poor family, I got really tired of stuff looking old/used and siblings got tired of getting hand-me-down clothing from older sibs (like me :)). I just live and use my/our own stuff ..for decades.

I mean keeping and using clothing for decades. At least 30% of my clothing is at least 10 yrs. old or older. I keep the stuff in good shape (and myself hopefully, to fit the stuff!). When I used to sew alot, I did completely makeover some clothing into a totally different garment.

But admittedly some clothing needs to be whittled down again.

[Dogmama]

My DH keeps all kinds of weird stuff. You know the plastic containers that tennis balls come in? We have a bunch. The garage is his domain and it's cluttered beyond belief. I told him yesterday that with the first of the year, we're doing a MAJOR de-clutter. I think I heard him whimper. He isn't one of those people on that show Hoarders (I can't even watch that show, I'm always afraid they'll find a dead pet under the garbage) but "neat" isn't his middle name. Alas, I knew what I had when I married him, having been to his bachelor pad. I made sure my tetanus shot was current.:D

[snapdragen]

He isn't one of those people on that show Hoarders (I can't even watch that show, I'm always afraid they'll find a dead pet under the garbage)

Slightly OT, but I did watch this show last week....2 cats. :( "She loves pets, when her cats disappeared, she thought they had run away...."


Back on topic, I'm in the process of purging "stuff". So far one Subaru full of clothing, books, a brand new never used VCR have gone to Goodwill.

[deeaimond]

oh god, i've been watching hoarders these 2 weeks since i got here (no hoarders or cable back home) and it is unbelievable. It's one thing to hoard because you don't wanna throw things away, but then to have **** everywhere and like.. feet high and insects... and dead animals... thats really just too much.

i thought my house is bad, but then the show... unbelievable.

I live with my parents and share a room with my sister, so all my belongings have to fit in my half a room. what i did was to get my dad to build a really high bed, so there is lots of room underneath it.

then i bought huge plastic boxes with covers and i categorise the things i keep. I have boxes of nat geo magazines, winter clothes/clothes i don't need right now, stationery, bags, shoes etc, all categorised like that. so when i need something i just pull the right box out.

it's still cluttered coz of the lack of space, but its still possible to keep it clean.

my mum doesnt like to throw things away but i do it secretly. She keeps worksheets from when i was in kindergarten.. more than 20 yrs ago! sigh...
fortunately my mother is not a shopper. she doesnt buy stuff. so that is the blessing. she bags things and puts them in the storeroom. I take out a few bags at a time go through them and throw the rubbish stuff away. ask my dad to drive the bags to the salvation army. even then, its an endless battle. I'm more grossed out my my disgusting brother. he's eat and throws wrappers behind the bed. he's 17. we can smell his room before we see it. many a screaming match has broken out over the mess he leaves ard the house.

hoarders is just freaky, if i had a home anywhere close to that i'd take a week off work and just throw things out!!

brrrr...

[lph]

I didn't know until now that hoarding is considered a disorder. Just googled it. It's frightening but fascinating, because it taps into a whole lot of strong human instincts that are easy to understand and recognize, like the need for security, for being prepared, and well, the basic need to hoard something good when you have it because tomorrow it may be gone. I can see now that my mother had a tad of it, but not much. She'd utilize all available storage space (under the couches, behind rows of books, ceiling-high bookshelves) just to keep fairly useless stuff she couldn't bear to get rid of. In a way she hoarded cats. Not that they suffered or anything, but still, we had scores of indoor/outdoor cats that weren't really pets. She thought of herself as an "anti-consumer" - but would buy willingly, just never at full price. :confused: I think she felt it was a real letdown to have to actually throw something away, and be a "consumer" just like the rest of us...

I've turned out the total opposite. I hate clutter building up. My thinking is that if I can't remember where it is and find it when I need it, there's no point in having it. I keep some things purely for sentimental value, but I learned a good trick once: you don't need to keep it all. Keep one old school book, the one with all the cute stories in it, not all the school books from that year. Keep one piece of jewelry to remember your great-aunt by, not the entire box you inherited but will never wear. You are not insulting her memory by doing so, you are just being selective!

[Dogmama]

lph - good advice. I'm guilting my husband into giving things away with, "This is a perfectly good coat that you never wear. Some poor guy at the Salvation Army would probably really like it - but you're being selfish & hanging onto it." It's working!

I've also heard that unless you have room in your closet, you won't buy things that actually fit / are in style / etc. I have several pairs of jeans that are old old old - we're talking the waistband is above the naval & they are clown-baggy. I happened to catch part of that show "What Not To Wear" and saw somebody else with my pants on - ho boy did she get ridiculed. So, I'll keep one pair for washing the dog & the rest are out of here.

[SlowButSteady]

Original poster here :)

I've been working on it since July. Hard.

One large house, aluminum storage shed, little barn, big horse barn, yard.

All basically transformed (though still works in progress). I went through systematically, room-by-room. More or less. I did find that I have left a little something unfinished in each room. It is a disorder! :rolleyes:

A conservative guess is that we threw away or donated away a couple of tons of stuff. Not counting several truckloads hauled off by a metal salvager.

We hosted a large wedding and reception (a "frolic" and contra dance held in our horse barn) here in October and everything was simply beautiful.

At a loss for what to do with myself, the week after the wedding, I took a trash bag into the woods and picked up stuff there.

I have been in houses like the one in which BleekerStGirl describes growing up. Mine was never that bad, thank heavens.

But if the clutter causes you anxiety-->which makes you more incapable of clearing it-->which causes you more anxiety-->until it basically takes over your life, you are a hoarder.

In my work as a dvm, I find that I am running across more and more individuals who are hoarding animals. In fact, in my practice, I now find myself having to "head some off at the pass" before they get out of hand and end up on the six o'clock news, busted by animal control.

Now pardon me while I go add to my collection of 3 lb coffee cans. ;)

[redrhodie]

Good for you, SBS! It must feel like such a relief to be unburdened by the stuff!
I love a happy ending. ;)

[ny biker]

lph - good advice. I'm guilting my husband into giving things away with, "This is a perfectly good coat that you never wear. Some poor guy at the Salvation Army would probably really like it - but you're being selfish & hanging onto it." It's working!

I've also heard that unless you have room in your closet, you won't buy things that actually fit / are in style / etc. I have several pairs of jeans that are old old old - we're talking the waistband is above the naval & they are clown-baggy. I happened to catch part of that show "What Not To Wear" and saw somebody else with my pants on - ho boy did she get ridiculed. So, I'll keep one pair for washing the dog & the rest are out of here.

What Not To Wear has inspired me to get rid of lots of old clothes. I'm also more careful in buying new ones -- I'm a sucker for color and texture, so I tended to buy things that might not fit so well because I love the color or fabric. Now I pay much more attention to how things fit.

I still have clutter issues, though. For every sweater I get rid of, I seem to buy two new ones.

[Blueberry]

Yay SlowButSteady!! What an amazing transformation you have made - and how good it must make you feel!!

Congratulations!!!

[malkin]

I've just started thinking about maybe wanting a piano.

We've been trying to lighten our load for years, and getting a real live acoustic piano really wouldn't exactly be working toward that. I'm trying to talk myself out of it by walking around with a tape measure.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

SlowButSteady,
I'm glad to hear you were able to get the clutter under control and that you feel unburdened. :)