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[Cleaning & Decluttering] Tips, Tricks, and Dismantling Our Depression Nests
Mim
dead.Registered User regular
dead.Registered User regular
Hello all!
Hope you don't mind but a few folks and I discussed making a Cleaning/Decluttering/Organizing thread for Before and Afters, tips, tricks and solidarity. Especially for routines to help us keep things going as the year(s) progress.
No judgement for depression nests (if you decide to post one), we're all here to support one another.
I do like motivational videos to watch so here's a couple I've found that help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HI1idlltq0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWi8F86A4Vs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD_ts5KJ3Yk (IDK why car detailing does it for me, but it revs me up to get to cleaning)
Let's start 2022 clean, organized and decluttered! A clean house can help lead to a turn around in life!
Hope you don't mind but a few folks and I discussed making a Cleaning/Decluttering/Organizing thread for Before and Afters, tips, tricks and solidarity. Especially for routines to help us keep things going as the year(s) progress.
No judgement for depression nests (if you decide to post one), we're all here to support one another.
I do like motivational videos to watch so here's a couple I've found that help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HI1idlltq0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWi8F86A4Vshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD_ts5KJ3Yk (IDK why car detailing does it for me, but it revs me up to get to cleaning)Let's start 2022 clean, organized and decluttered! A clean house can help lead to a turn around in life!
BlueSky: thekidwonder Steam: mimspanks (add me then tell me who you are!)
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If you are looking to do a big declutter I would recommend watching her show.
Satans..... hints.....
I did a big closet purge with my friend a few years ago (she did that as a side business, that was her gift to me)
Since then I’ve also bought way too many clothes
And not just that I just have too much stuff and make bad use of my closet space
So
Gonna try to address this
Still, it's coming close. I've been inventorying all my toys, and seeing what I have and what is missing. It's given me an opportunity to touch and hold every toy I have. I'm up to 620 items.
I feel like I'm close. I probably have about 50 more to go in the current batch, though there's still a lot to do. Gaps and holes are appearing, and places where I need to dust. It's.. actually feeling good!
However, my pandemic hobby (woodworking) does need a fair number of disposable rags from time to time, so I've been using old socks and t-shirts for that. Just have to make sure they're stored safely (I finally understand what all those fire-safety videos were talking about when they'd go on about piles of oily rags).
Now in that room figure out what you need to do to make this clean, pick one of those sub tasks.
Then get to work.
The smaller tasks flow into each other and before you know it, the room is done.
Great. Next room.
And now you've a place that's clean, so if you need to move items from areas you are cleaning, say chairs or a table, then put them in the space you just cleared.
Seems a bit counter-intuitive , but it means you're not just moving stuff into a mess you've not cleared, making it seem worse, and it sticks out like a sore thumb, so you'll move them back when there's space for them.
And finally, give yourself a whole day, don't try and do it all after work on a Wednesday. You'll not achieve anything, and get disheartened. Get rest the night before, get up early, and go at it. You'll be surprised what you can do.
Celeste [Switch] - She'll be wrestling with inner demons when she comes...
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age [Switch] - Sit down and watch our game play itself
Also I’ve started making lists so I have a visual reminder of what I want to accomplish.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Like, in principle you can clean and declutter every inch of a vehicle in a way that you can't necessarily for a living space which is in constant use, and may not have adequate storage space for their to actually be a place for everything
The communal areas they help clean.
The four year old is starting to figure out how important it is to keep your favorite toys organized when she can't find them and I shrug and asked her where she put them.
Okay that's too much about kids.
We did the Kondo stuff which really helped make me feel it was okay to get rid of stuff, especially old collections and gifts.
One question I have for the thread is I've bought a bunch of board games to save to hopefully play with the kids when they get older. Anyone have storage suggestions?
For the kondo, it was also hugely helpful in letting me say, "yes my mother sent me this, but it is just garbage I don't look at or use, and she won't know I tossed it." As well as "books are for reading, not talismans or proof to others I read, only keep that which will get re read within....five years. (I barely re read books, this sent a LOT to the used book store). So since I didn't read the words off, off they go to hopefully be read again by someone new! I look at my dad's huge collection of books now and see it for the status/mild hoarding thing it is, and am glad I broke away from lugging boxes and boxes for no reason house to house of things that other people could use again.
Bout time we hit our attic though, having one at the current place has been TERRIBLE for, "well I can just delay this decision using the attic...."
I know everyone rags on Ikea, but truth be told.. I really, REALLY wish the nearest one wasn't 2 hours away. I know their stuff is just hex cells made of cardboard inside, but it's been incredibly durable for me and looks nice.
They ship too, and it's flat pack anyway so it ships fine.
Ikea is much better quality flat pack than pretty much any other company.
Every time I've gone with non Ikea self assembly it's been worse engineered, worse quality, and more expensive. So my furniture policy now is either it's an heirloom piece intended to be passed down for generations, or it's Ikea. Nothing in between.
Edit: also i don't think anything they do is cardboard hex, the cheaper stuff is mostly composite. Their mid range tends to be solid wood.
They didn't a while ago when I looked into it. But again, a trip to Chicago isn't too bad.
bnet: moss*1454
There are two effects - 1) I'm less likely to leave these kids of materials collecting because as soon as the bin is full it gets taken to the rubbish bin (though I have been curious about using it possibly for compost - haven't done any research on the efficacy of that idea).
2) Papers that aren't shredded often mean they're important and require action.
----
Right now my declutter mission has been to tackle things (like old video game boxes, little league trophies, original boxes for fragile things, etc) that are in various storage holes (like a closet in a guest room). It's stuff that basically is getting zero use, but also has been out of sight/out of mind for a while.
I started during the holiday break, and have been chipping away at it during the return to work - slowly.
The toughest part is that I had been fairly ruthless due to moving a lot for over a decade of my adult life, so the majority of items have sentimental value.
Once the shelves are empty, I'm gonna dust and clean the hell out of them.
But that means tomorrow is day 1. And day 1 consists of going through all my clothes and folding what I am keeping and donating the rest at a bin down the street next weekend when it won’t be raining/snowing.
Also doing the dishes, because why not.
Whatever else I end up doing will be a bonus.
Will post when I get up (but after I walk the dog because she comes first)
I'm trying to form a habit of just doing a bit of tidying every day instead of waiting until my living space is a wreck and then having to do a massive job at once. It's hard though. I don't know why but it is.
your move kondo
This is what my mom affectionately calls "The wave." It's hard! It's what my apartment is currently going through.
I will say, since getting ADHD meds, I've been a lot more consistent on working on it, even if I don't work on it every day.
The bit of tidying every day is the best thing to do. There's no reward (or so it seems), but it makes it seem less intimidating.
Here's where my current wave is.
After stuffing my face, I shall get down to business and also hope the elevator gets fixed today because walking up 7 flights is a nightmare.
Yes, I pull everything out and think “woo, gonna put it back in an organized fashion!” But it never happens (except like the top of a dresser).
It’s a curse and I don’t know why my brain thinks this is acceptable. I do it even with my adhd meds. I’m actually known for it in my family. As soon as I say I’m cleaning someone will quip “oh so taking everything out and then walking away?”
It’s not my favorite attribute.
I like some of her folding methods, and I prefer some of the methods I learned in Naval bootcamp. So I do a mix.
But I’m not a big fan of her decluttering methods only because decor wise I am definitely a maximalist and not a minimalist. And she’s definitely about minimalism where as I’m trying to be a maximalist but with intention.
Going through my clothes, I am getting rid of clothes I feel don’t make me feel good. Stuff definitely too tight or where the shirt is cut in a way I wouldn’t like OR the material doesn’t make me feel good against my body (too cold or too hot).
Ahhhhh so much.
so basically the next time I purge out my clothes, a LOT of stuff is getting tossed out.
(also I've put on some weight so it doesn't all fit anymore)
I’m trying to not get rid of everything and slowly replace items as time goes on. Like I know I need new dress pants, but I’m also trying to get fit to see where my new pants size will fall.
Also the skirts I have that do not have pockets have to go! A WOMAN NEEDS POCKETS
Before:
After:
All my underwear/socks currently fit in a duffle bag, but I expect that to change after I do laundry. Which I couldn’t do because the elevator was out this weekend, but now it works.
Woo, I didn’t expect it to take me all day but it did and my clothes are a lot neater for it. Onward and upward!
I think the sheer act of going through all these toys is making me kind of despise them. I've had a couple that I've been like "ooh, that's cool," or "I'm definitely keeping that one." But most are just... no, why are you such a pain?
I spent a good 7 hours today, maybe more, working through things. I'm taking the time to properly transform them, make sure I find the bits, all that fun stuff. My day just ended with 20+ minutes spent on one of the most evil transformers I have -- one that I will be selling and not looking back.
If you were to walk into my apartment right now, you'd be like... You're "Decluttering?" ... but in actuality, I really am. Because I'm doing all this inventory work, my plan is to do a sort on the spreadsheet when I'm done and then group like things together.
I'm up to 730+ items on this list. And I know that's just manuals and such, as I still have a hundred or so that I need to find and bag. It just keeps coming.
The black bags in the back are from my recycling, which I did today. The full one is full of bubble wrap, that I've kept around from my moves. Takes up more room than my toys, surprisingly, but I need to donate it.
It is WAY TOO MANY TOYS.
Edit: Here's the reverse view, for context. The really sad part is that as much as I was telling myself that this was covered by my insurance, I don't think I would have been able to recreate / list this...
We may never know.
that is space that i could use a lot more efficiently but i'm not sure what - bins? more shelves? hmm
Yeah, the closest Ikea to me is like 3-4 hours away. But when I decided to buy my current computer desk from them, I was also about a month away from visiting my parents in Dallas. So I just bought it there and hauled it back myself in my car since it fit in the back with the seats down.
I did go through my bags of assorted cables'n'stuff for the first time in like... 15 years and got rid of a crapton of power cables, and network cables of varying lengths and reliability, and USB adapters for devices that I didn't even remember what they were.
Athenor, lets both figure out how to sell stuff.
I have 2 flat files full of posters and there is no reason for me to be holding all of them.