declutter my life

I tried freecycle but craigslist came through for me. I had lots of cruft to get rid of during a recent move and wanted to go the recycle route. I had to schedule a bulk garbage pickup but didn’t want any of my stuff to end up in a landfill. I posted on freecycle; most were kind of finicky and picky. But the craigslist vultures had my back and that crap (I miss my audiocassette collection) was gone in basically less than 24 hours. Way to go!

Ok, I finally got rid of that extra mountain bike I’ve had for over a year. And I got extra shelving for holding all the shampoo, etc lining my bathtub area. For the scattered flip-flops under the bed and dresser, I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond for a cheapie underbed shoe organizer. I wanted a shoe cubby, but darn those things are expensive.

I now have an extra kitchen garbage can that neatly holds my recyclables so that they are no longer in paper bags taking up space in the middle of the floor.

And I just bought some materials to create my own chalkboards so that I can easily make notes of what tasks need to be done, have them visibly posted on a wall and not have the excuse that I forgot what they were. I thought I’d go ahead and buy a corkboard and a whiteboard too for the different work areas I will setup in order to be more organized with all the different things that I work on at a time.

This part of the decluttering is easier than I thought it would be. I’m getting rid of the stuff stacked up in the closets that I know I will never, ever wear again, but I had kept for years anyway. Why do we put so much value into this crud? I’ve just got to find a curbside pickup service that will make this donation valuable to a needy community.

Thank goodness for craigslist and freecycle. Through these sites, I’ve gotten a lot of interest for my old stuff. I’m so glad I can find a place for these things instead of just tossing them out where they’ll needlessly end up in a landfill somewhere. They still have some use; I’ve just got more than I need or can deal with.

I joined SF Freecycle after hearing so much about it from a coworker. Great. Now I can dump my extra stuff on someone else instead of in a landfill. Wheeee!

The next step is to get my book addiction under control. I am not trying to open my own library and I need to stop collecting books as if I am.

Step 1: End magazine subscriptions; they only serve to brainwash you anyway and put you on junk-mail lists increasing the clutter.