We haven’t written any articles since Christmas – apologies to all our readers. Catching up with admin, work and school after the break seemed to take all our time. But we are back now and looking forward to another year of decluttering and organising. Here is Sally’s take on the New Year so far in the world of decluttering…
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Before children, I must admit I used to find January a tough month – cold weather, days still short, and a long time to go until the sun starts to shine.
But, as a working Mum, I find I like these short days and having the excuse of bad weather to stay at home with the children at the weekends, baking cakes, playing games.
And I have also discovered that post-Christmas is a really good time to focus on tackling some smaller but still annoying clutter piles.
Take our bedroom, for example… It is not untidy, it has been recently repainted, the bed is nice BUT for the last year, we have been sharing our sleeping space with
– a storage box full of magazines
– 2 musical instuments
– 2 boxes of hanging files and associated labels
– a lever arch file from an OU course I did in 1994 (!)
– an empty games console box, kept in case we need to return the console for repair
And now that the Christmas whirlwind has calmed down, I have decided to reclaim our bedroom!
The usual problem with objects like the above is that you almost cease to notice them and when you do think about what to do with them, it seems impossible to work out where else to put them. And so you leave them where they are….for months and then years.
Step by step is the only way to tackle this seemingly insoluble collection of stuff, I thought to myself. This weekend, therefore, I targeted the lever arch file. It was full of notes and essays from a management course that I did over 15 years ago. When I first came across it again two years ago, it was in the loft. I had thrown out all the material from the other two courses I had done but decided to keep this one as I thought I might use the material again. Having looked through the notes and essays again this weekend, I gave myself a stern talking to and pointed out that I had not looked at the folder at all in the last year. Not only that but I had a book that covered very similar ground that I could refer to if needed.
So, I have put all my notes in the recycling, am going to shred my essays as they have personal information in them and am going to reuse the file for my son’s school work. And have given myself a pat on the back for finally being able to let the file contents go. And it feels good!
Box of magazines next week!
Happy New Year Decluttering !!!!
