Goal Tracking: Declutter and Cleaning

I thought that was interesting too - but the warning that you were doomed to failure if you did a little bit at a time vs. full scale attack made me want to go back to bed

I think she means plans like, "throw out one thing a day". She said she cant remember to do that after the first couple of days! she's like, do it now, or people will do it after you die anyway! Really shes a bit of a crackup. There is no way i could do everything in one day, and i will probably want to switch sides of my apartment - bed / bookcase - that i might not do this winter, maybe next winter, but if i can get my clothes closet and drawers supporting an exercising lifestyle this spring and summer, i will be happy. Heck shes young - she has no idea what we are dealing with!! Well maybe she does, but...

Anyway, i did find the book inspiring and insightful. I like how she says that things will tell you how they want to be stored. When i was working, i used to tell people that projects told me how they wanted to be documented - you didnt need to use ALL the forms, the right ones would jump out at you. They looked at me like i was crazy. Well, she is the same kind of crazy. Things talk to her!

I just threw out part of a stack of old mail and found $50 in it.

Wow!!! Congrats on that $50 find!!!

Hankster, I love the idea of the right forms jumping out at you. And, yeah, the part where she was talking about her throwing out one thing a day experiment, where she was saving things to throw out for the next day -- that was a riot I loved how open she was with her weirdness.

Have you ever heard of the pomodoro technique? Its a formula that you use to increase your productivity. The pomodoro technique sums up to working in cycles of 20 minutes work then 5 minutes rest. After 4 of those cycles you take a 30 minute break. If we look beyond the advertising and buzz words (like increase productivity), the pomodoro acts a schedule that helps you to not get completely burned out.

There are plenty of youtube videos that go into detail and phone/computer apps that provide a time set the 20 minutes and 5 minutes cycles.

Subbing for inspiration and motivation as I am frequently overwhelmed by housework and clutter.

I work until i get tired - which doesnt take long, 15 minutes or so! - take a break until everything stops hurting, and then if i remember (ie can get off my phone), i get back to work. Its the pomodori verdi frites method - fried green tomatoes - cuz im older and i have more insurance? JK!

I need to clean my room. I can't focus on my schoolwork if my room is messy if that makes any sense at all

Marie kondo talks about that in her book. Something about all the things asking to be put in their right place, but then why do they shut up when the deadline (like studying for a test) has passed? Im not used to kindle books yet, i need it on paper!!

I hope you're feeling better and more focused today, Blue_Bird. I know what it's like to be afraid you'll fall behind with school work. Those were anxious times.

Thanks Angelique! I got a chapter done a few minutes ago. Gonna try to do more later. May make myself take my textbooks to the library tomorrow so I don't get distracted.

That sounds like a great idea! A dedicated place to study could make a big difference. I wish you excellent luck and results.

I hope you can find that reference because I can't remember it either! Was it that we have to order our physical environment to order things in our head? I don't remember!!

The Pomodoro technique is great. I tend to do 15 minute bursts. I also do 5 minute mini bursts.

We've been more or less keeping up with the dishes. I spent some time today helping a hoarder's widow load up her fifth container. Hauling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of stuff into a trash container is a good reminder that I don't want to do the same thing.

Most of the stuff is neat, but because of the volume, no one has energy to go through it. I saved some newspapers from the 1860s today as well as a few photo albums and scrapbooks that had landed in the wrong pile.

I just finished getting my room pretty well organized and cleaned up. It's much better than it was. Now when I come home tomorrow I can focus on my schoolwork.

It seems that I am not alone in trying to declutter and clean - thank you everyone. I used to let the state of my spaces (physical and mental) wear me down. It became increasingly difficult to focus on and complete tasks, and then everything would downward spiral from there. I was lost even thinking about where to begin and where to end so generally I did nothing. The trouble with doing nothing is that you don;'t know when you're finished. The solution for me came about quite accidentally for me - doing something was infinately better than doing nothing. Now I don't plan and schedule a lot of "organizing" activities - I just start doing one. Even a simple thing like cleaning out the magazine rack in the bathroom. I start by taking the stack of periodicals and just throw out the ones I haven't looked at for 4 weeks. I don't save any just because I 'Might" do something from it - I haven't done it in 4 weeks, it likely isn't going to get done: I don't fool myself. Now one thing is out of the way. Next, I may just bend over to pickup a piece of clothing from the floor and it just seems foolish to only pick up one so I start picking up the rest. Simple, but effective for me. And at this point that's good enough for me

Good ideas. With the "if you haven't used it in 6 months" rule, I've almost convinced myself to get rid of all my old cartons I moved here with but I can't stop thinking about something in them I might really want.....

I'm often tempted to post about things I'm *going* to do. Would that make me more likely to actually do them? Not sure.

1. Compost the food I bought for a trip I made 2.5 years ago. 3 year old dehydrated beans and minute rice do not spark joy!
2. Wash more lino glue off the stairs.

That's awesome. You're right, doing something is better than nothing. It has been six months since I did anything with my stair refinishing project. I spent five minutes wiping them down - better than nothing.

Your four week rule is really impressive. I just pulled down my camping food collection. I'm looking at dried food that's 2.5 years old. It can last for ever, but if I haven't eaten it now, am I ever going to? Why am I keeping stuff I don't want to eat that I could replace for $10? What is the thought process behind this? I don't get it.

I am trying to ask myself why I am keeping this food and I am not coming up with a good reason. The only reason I can think of is that it would be a waste to throw it out... which is kind of irrational because I don't really want to eat it. It's too old to give to a friend or a food pantry.

I keep saving it thinking that I will be lazy sometime and decide to eat crappy old dehydrated food, but it hasn't happened yet.

Okay, I am really going to go toss the food. Putting it out for the animals makes me feel like it's not completely wasted.

Today I will clean the kitchen table so I can use it to color mandalas and do jigsaw puzzles.

It's like a whirlwind went through the downstairs of my house. I am not sure how this happened. Couch, tables, chairs, counters covered with crap. As much as I want to just lie around in bed reading mystery novels, I think I had better take a half hour to try to sort this mess out...

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. It seems like so many of my friends are on a declutter/cleaning kick right now. There must be something in the air!

Fail... I will try again today.

Good luck with the table clearing! I got as far as catching up on dishes and clearing off some counters.

I found a community online yard sale page on Facebook. It's a closed group with only people from my community so it feels safe. I've sold 3 big things that totaled $140 but the rest of the over$300 I've made so far has been multiple $3 and $5 items. So excited not only to have the cash but to have got rid of so much stuff.