Decluttering

I’m still on my now nearly decade-long decluttering effort. At long last I think I am starting to see some clear space! Having the floors on two levels replaced this summer helped. Everything moved out of each room on those levels that was anywhere near the floor. Now, a bunch of that stuff is still down in the basement waiting to be sorted through again, but a bunch of it just plain went away. This weekend TheGuy took three more big bags of stuff off to Goodwill. I’m getting ready to do a first big cull of TLG’s toys, many of which were given to us as the result of someone else’s decluttering. We’ll pass them right along.

I thought this slacker’s guide to decluttering your house before a sale or move was pretty good. We’re not planning to sell or move anytime soon, but I’m always looking for decluttering inspiration. I don’t find anything slacker-ish about this guide, though. It’s pretty comprehensive. It’s only for ‘slackers’ in the sense that it creates some checklists for you. And always in the back of my head when I’m looking at something is the question: “If we did move, would I be willing to pay movers to transport this item to the new place?” If the answer is no, then why keep it around taking up space?

Next on my list:

• Finally discarding a few old electronics (computers, cameras, printers) that have been sitting around forever.
• Culling the cookbooks.
• Culling and archiving (as needed) the paper files and converting from hanging folders to just manila folders to save space.

There. I wrote it down. Now I have to do those things!