declutter and organize

....or shall I say, where good paper goes to die. Why am I keeping all this paper!? I took an entire file drawer (3+ feet long) and shredded it last night. There were just a few things I saved. Most of this information (like past year’s bills) I can get online. My wife and switched to online billing and payments, but some utilities around here still send some via mail. Sad, seeing how we are living in 2009.

So, 1 drawer down, 2 to go. My intention is to downsize to 1 small file box from Ikea that will fit on the Ikea shelf we own. Then I can get rid of the huge 4 drawer file cabinet all together. That will give me an extra 3+ square feet and a wall! My shredder is lovin every second of it.

And since I have a very nice fire pit, I am using the shredding as kindling. So there is no landfill waste!

So far the declutter process has been great. All of my stuff has been shifted around the house but there is a noticeable “less stuff” and my family and friends see this. One friend asked how I kept my house clean and then they realized that it was the fact that there is less crap sitting about. Ancient Chinese Secret!

My wife bought a container to hold our 1 year old’s toys in the main room. We also agreed upon a rule to change out the toys that he does not play with every month so it is not full of useless plastic. So far so good. The downstairs area looks so good as a result, and I try my hardest to pick up his toys when he goes to bed.

The basement project of building a home theatre, bar, and play area is going great as well as I started by making a storage area first. Then I spent a day throwing out half of the stuff that we wanted to store there, so it looks a ton better!

I think the last area that needs decluttering is the garage.

- I have made leaps and bounds in terms of finishing the laundry, one of the main aspects of my organizational problem.
- I got a new desk recently, a rare antique that my lovely grandmother gave to me, making me the forth or fifth generation in my family to receive it. Luckily for me, it had many compartments and I was able to fit most of my stuff in it.
- I also spent a few hours organizing the clothes in my closet, so all that’s left is to sort out the corner of the closet and the pile next to the TV. Yay!

Starting with my closet didn’t work, so I think I’m going to start with my desk and get rid of a lot of magazines and paper clutter.

I was looking for my carmex lipbalm and I found a bunch of old expired lip balms. I went through my make up bag and found lots of old stuff that must be like 3 years old or older. I rarely wear make up so I had no idea that stuff was still in there. I threw out old eyeliner, eyeshadow and lip balms. It feels good to get of stuff I don’t use. Please check your make-up expiration dates!

I have been making daily locations to de-clutter. We have made EXCELLENT progress. There is tons of stuff that has left the house either in trash bags, or sold to various stores. I have plans on giving a bunch of my old clothes to Goodwill. I am even planning on selling my DVDs since I rent everything from Netflix these days anyways.

The exciting news is that my wife has caught the bug and has even started joining in as well.

Minimalist lifestyle, here I come.

I took some time and organized my book shelves. After the good start it was easy to keep going. The room looks 1000% better, however I was stopped before I could get into the drawers. I will tackle those tomorrow.

Whew!

I’ve got the day off so I’ve decided to really clean out my top dresser drawer. It’s really full of a bunch of junk. I need to focus and hopefully not get distracted!

I really need to declutter/organize my closet. This may take a while.

... when your brain just doesn’t catch up with the new order, and you can’t still find anything because you keep on looking for stuff in places stuff used to be?