goodbye to junk

I never thought of "clearing clutter" as a hobby, but I think it should be.

Since cleaning out my parent's home (where they raised five children) to move them to an apartment, I decided ENOUGH of this saving stuff.

That summer I started purging drawers, closets, cabinets, dressers, etc. at my home. It felt so good.

I've learned the trick is not to replace it with new "stuff".

What are yo doing about clutter?

I divorced him....what?

JJ

Funny JJ and so did I but its taken till now to get him and all his darn clutter, junk out of here. Free, free at last. Didn't someone famous say that? Just kidding....

I just recently discovered www.flylady.com. I've had to modify her suggestions to work with my horseback riding and online classes, which prevent me from doing as much housework as she suggests. But her suggestion to spend 15 minutes or so running around with a "To toss" box and "To give away" box each day is a good one.

I am so not looking forward to clearing out my mom's house to sell, which is why it is still not on the market.

I'm usually lost in clutter. Excuse: I'm right brained and file by pile. It's true though.

But other than fighting my way to the surface for air every once in awhile; I pick a drawer/closet/desk top/whatever and:
Pile like items together by whatever criteria works and include a pile of "not now", "too expensive", "yuck", and "?" That pile goes in recycle (in case I really can order that dress from that once in a lifetime catalog.)

The other piles get put with like piles elsewhere.

Sometimes, I sort by what I'm using. Like my knife drawer, yep drawer. I've taken all the knives I've not used this past week and moved them to the deep back. They'll stay there awhile and eventually I'll get rid of them--or buy a small set that will replace them all but my one favorite paring knife, of course.

Hope this helps. It's the only way I get to see any flat surface.

Agate,
I checked out flylady.com and I signed up. I'm definitely suffering from Chaos! Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

With my relatives dropping like crazy, it got me to thinking about the clutter left behind for your family. My poor children! My husband would probably just take boxes to the city dump like he does with his unwanted things. Of course, I'm thinking about clearing the clutter but here I sit at my computer instead. Hmmm

Here's a new career for somebody...

THE CLUTTER MUTHER....(MOTHER, get it?)

Go around and clean out people's clutter. Or you could at least have a presence on the web like the flylady except you wouldn't have to send a bazillion emails like she does...that was my only complaint with her. She is terrific and has tons of good ideas, but my inbox was saturated with her emails...I tired of that very quickly. JJ

JJ,
I didn't realize she did that. I'll give it a try anyway. Maybe she'll "guilt" me into cleaning more! It might work better if she sent the emails to my kids! On second thought, maybe I'll just pass them along to my kids...LOL

Oh I think it will be worth you stay with her if you don't mind the emails....no joke. She is very helpful and has tons of good tips. Tons!

So, don't leave her based on my whining. There is another thing you might want to try in addition to her and that is a book called "Sidetracked Home Executives" or S.H.E. It was written by a couple of women (sisters I think?) a kazillion years ago and they offer a routine for getting organized and cleaning up your home. Pretty smart women. Course it's all common sense when it comes down to it. Which is something I obviously lack! ha!

JJ

Mary, do you have family in town to help with your mom's house? When we cleaned out Mom and Dad's house with them, a few of us siblings would meet there and have fun doing it. The only thing that discouraged us was when Mom couldn't part with something. We were hard on her. Poor thing. We MADE her part with STUFF!

Our system involved three piles:
trash, Goodwill, keep

Then there were the other piles that each of us took to our homes.

Paja, I'm a pile maker too.

I tried the flylady and got tired of the emails. I love her concept though. If you follow her quick little ideas your house will be organized in no time.

JJ, great business idea. There's a new business that showed up in town last year. It's called GOT JUNK? They haul your stuff for a fee.

Have any of you heard of the one touch rule with junk mail? You touch it once and pitch hit. Your never going to buy all those items in the catalogs with the dog-eared pages...

Also, another thing I've learned, but don't always follow is to simply put things back where they belong when you're finished using them. It's that simple...

Oh boy you guys weren't kidding about the emails were you! LOL But. . . she sure does have some good ideas! I've been with her for one day and my house looks better already. I think it's more "the body in motion" concept though!
The one touch rule for the junk mail sounds like a good idea too! It's like deleteing spam!

I receive flylady's e-mails as a digest so I just get one a day and skim through it. Kind of defeats the purpose of being a reminder but I'm at work all day and don't run my e-mail at home but once in the evening so it wouldn't help me that way anyhow.

I don't have siblings in my adopted family, but I have a couple cousins who want to look at stuff before I give it away, which doesn't really help me with the process of going through everything. They would probably help me after I do all the sorting.

Oh my Goodness, I need someone to help me de-clutter my life. I feel like "my space" at home gets smaller and smaller.

I really do have to blame most of it on my husband. He leaves unfinished projects EVERYWHERE, and I'm not allowed to touch them to clean them up. He wants to be able to "fnd" stuff again.

How do I motivate him to put his tools away, clean up after himself, and get rid of stuff he's never going to use again?

HELP!

Vicki, Sign him up at Flylady.com LOL!
But she really has good ideas!
But she really is very annoying!

Vicki, how about giving him incentives and deadlines? That's what I have to do with my children.

"I'll be happy to take you for lunch as soon as you get .....done."

"You may have your phone as soon as you finish........!"

Maybe for him you could make his favorite meal or something like that. Is that queer?

Vicki, I don't know if this would work for you but... when my husband refuses to throw something away, I put it in the garage. If it's still there years later, I sneak it into the trash can the day of garbage pick-up. If he asks for it years later (and he almost always forgets about his old junk) I say I forgot, or I don't know. I learned in the past: if I announce that I'm going to throw away the 8-year-old cheap plastic lawn chair with missing slats, he goes ballistic because he "was going to fix it," but if it's gone he never misses it. Then, my husband's kind of a nut case anyways.

Meredith, I agree. Mine is the same way. It's fine as long as you don't announce it. Once you announce it, it becomes a prized posession. If I just dump it, he never realizes it. This works with my kids too!

Hmmm... your ideas make good sense. I'll see what I can do about motivating him into cleaning up his junk (I mean his stuff)

Don't know if I could do Fly Lady. I don't handle being annoyed very well.

What I need is a personal organizer. Someone to come in and make me go through stuff and get rid of it. Then show me how to organize what I have left. I'm not very good at organizing stuff. I'm more of a stacker and boxer.

We have a new business in town. It's called Got Junk? They own lots of truck with their logo on the side and all they do is remove junk from people's homes. Can you imagine making a living doing that? We Americans need to stop purchasing!

no, I can't. They could retire after my house.

JJ

I once wrote an article called Pack Rats Anonymous. It was sort of a personal essay on something that happened to me, really. I said that someone should start a club called Pack Rats Anonymous and that I could be the chairman of the board. It was published on an ezine and long since forgotten when I got an email from some woman who actually did something like that! She was not too happy with me and wanted it removed immediately from the ezine. The editor decided that the woman had a problem and didn't take it off. It almost got ugly.
Louisa

Is the article still online? I'd love to read it. Two of my kids are pack rats. The oldest throws everything away. I go through the trash when he cleans his room and fish out items to give to friends, or Goodwill.

You think your kids are pack rats? I found Jimmy Hoffa under a pile of clothes in my bedroom. Hey...it just hit me...Elvis..I wonder...hm...

JJ

jawjaw - Finally the answer to where Jimmy Hoffa is!! ROLF

Please go look for Elvis so we can end that mystery also!

What is it with husbands and their junk?? Mine is the same way. He orders magazines and hardly ever reads them, but can I throw the ones that are 4 yrs old out?? NO!! He wants to read them, I told him if he started now and read for the rest of his life he can never read everything he has sitting there to read. (Don't tell him, but I do throw the old ones out)

He is that was with paperwork, old clothes that he will never wear again, furniture etc.

It took almost 25 yrs go get him to get rid of our first couch. Who remembers the couches in the 70's that had the tables built into each end of the couch???? Ours was that awful gold (harvest gold), we kept it forever in the basement. He thought we could have it recovered and use it again!!! ick!!!

I guess I can always get rid of junk, but it wouldn't be as easy to find another husband who treats me as well as he does. Even after 36 years!!!

summerbreeze

Can I interest anyone is 25-year-old phone bills from my last house? --going once to the highest bidder; going twice to the lowest bidder; going three times to anyone with a public mail address... My husband thinks we "may" need them one day. His work room is a certified fire hazard, with papers piled halfway up the windows.

I keep all catalogues in a drawer. If the drawer doesn't close, I have to throw out an old one before putting the new one in.

This clutter thing has taken over my mind, my soul! I've cleaned out 5 dead relative houses in the past three years and am swimming in "treasures". It's time for a massive purge but no one wants the family heirlooms...why am I the only sentimental one? I know as soon as I get rid of them, the rest of the family will go ballastic. One step I've started with is getting rid of the everyday, K-Mart, May Co. things. Like out goes the everyday silverware, I'm now using the beautiful silverplate ware that's been in a cabinet for 30 years. My dishes are now the antique china that my great, great grandmother had. What's the point of having these beautiful things if they are packed away? I think getting the cancer made me re-evaluate..think like everyday can be my last and enjoy what I have.

YOU GO GIRL! Use it all. I am with you. None of us are promised tomorrow. I think you have a good point and we should all pay attention.

I wish I lived closer, I love going thru other people's junk/treasures! I would LOVE to help you get rid of it.

Course, the whole point initially was to declutter, wasn't it? Whoops...guess I got off track. Forgive.

Well, no matter...I'm following her good advice and going in that kitchen right this minute and eat a pice of sour cream pound cake. I mean...it could be my last night, am I right?

JJ

Elsie, my oldest sister and I are holding sentimental pieces of Mom's at our homes for my brother to take to his. He says he doesn't have room. I just heard through the grapevine that he and his wife now have a storage space. Time to purge on his behalf!

Since going through Mom and Dad's home, (the one where they raised five children)I've taken a harder look at my own. The summer we ransacked their's, I started doing my own. I got rid of so much stuff. But you know what's happened? I now have filled it back up with all the items I got from them.

Don't look in the back of my car. Sunday, two of my sisters and I went through more of Dad's belongings. He wants us to get rid of everything so we don't have to deal with it when he dies. He's not going anywhere soon, but is itching to get these chores done. Anyway, I have three bags to take to Goodwill, a huge suitcase that Dad no longer needs... for our attic and a silver tray.

HELP!

One of my plans to attack the clutter was just to stop shopping! I'm not a shopper my nature to begin with, don't go to the mall just to have something to do. So I decided only to go shopping when I absolutely, positively needed something. I started this for about a year before I got sick, and then going thru the treatment, was not able to go out, so no problem. Figured that by attrition, all the clutter would be taken care of. I've always been one that stocks up...if you find a good sale price, why not buy two or three....So I'll just start using up what I have and in a year or two things will nice and neat.

Two things I learned...
1) that I never missed what I didn't buy - since I never saw it to begin with.
2) I have so much stuff that I will never be able to use up what I have so will never get to buy anything new!!! I just found another box of brand new panties and bras with tags on that I didn't know I had. Boxes too of brand new t-shirts and jeans. Enough cosmetics to last a lifetime..
ok and maybe a third thing: 3) I should have stopped shopping when I was 12....

[ October 24, 2004, 11:12 AM: Message edited by: Elsielc ]

I got started on my wardrobe this weekend - getting rid of clothes I will never wear again. Then a migraine put an end my efforts - still have to tackle an overstuffed underwear drawer.

With Christmas looming I am wondering how to downsize my daughter's toy collection - as the youngest in the extended family she is always being given pre-loved toys when other people have a clearout! I already have a couple of full bags of toys I put away that she hasn't missed, ready to go.

I'm trying to limit what Santa delivers this year but "Daddy" loves finding Christmas bargains

I confess that I have a really useless thing hanging in my garage - an old leather coat of my fathers that dates from about 1945? I just couldn't let it be thrown away, even tho it not really wearable. I also have the tails my great grandfather wore at my grandmothers wedding. No wonder my house is so cluttered.

Julie, you bring up a good point. I don't think any of us need a darn thing for Christmas. How do you have Christmas with children and not buy them anything? You can't.

My husband and I both love Christmas. Now our kids do too. We always go overboard. Thus continuing to add to the clutter.