Project De-Clutter Begins

Most of us have it. You know what it looks like. Somewhere in the house there is a closet or a cabinet or a drawer that is filled with all the stuff you don't feel like dealing with or think you might use one day. For some us, many of the closets, cabinets and drawers in the house are filled with things like that. For us, it's even our basement.

This year Project De-Clutter is my focus. While it is not on this year's goals list, it should be. By next quarter I'll add it. We are moving my mother-in-law in with us, so things need to get donated or tossed out. I'm in the process of moving my office downstairs. Maybe I had a premonition that this was going to happen when I began packing up my books last year and labeling all the boxes by genre.

Just like any big project, Project De-Clutter will be broken down into many steps. Today, the Lil' Diva and I started throwing trash and broken toys away in the bonus room above the garage. Then later on, I figured I needed to whack back my cooking magazine collection.

In that pile on the bottom left is years worth of various cooking magazines. I can count on one hand the number of times I've opened one of them for a recipe. Tonight, I went through every one and pulled out the few recipes I might actually make, so that I can scan them onto my PC later. Then I recycled the rest of each magazine. Here's what I ended up with...

Room for actual cookbooks. Wow! How did that happen.

This cabinet is still a work in progress. I'll go through all the cookbooks to see if there are any I can donate. Most of them are in a set, so probably not. After that, I'll go through the rest of the items in the cabinet and see if I can't trim it back some more. 

Next week's goal for the bonus room is to get most of the floor picked up. Not sure if I can do it with my work schedule, but I'll give it a shot. 

Are you tackling any large home projects right now? How are they going? 

Tackling Clutter One Step at A Time

We all one of those "areas." The place where all the clutter gathers. If you're like me, you have more than one spot you swear grows into a mountain in the time it takes you to change your socks. When tackling clutter, it's easy to feel like you should get rid of it all at once. I've found I'm much happier and much more able to manage getting rid of clutter if I tackle it one step at a time.

The other day, that area happened to be the magazine rack which is filled with magazines, catalogs, and newspapers. We have a beautiful wrought iron magazine rack in the kitchen. I have several magazines I don't like to get rid of (history and gardening) and some I am willing to recycle once I've looked through them to make sure there's nothing else I need out of them.

I began by taking out all the magazines and newspapers. Then I created a pile of the ones that are must saves. They will be boxed in my office closet. Then I went through the other magazines and cut out any articles of interest, recipes, and tips I want to remember. I put them in my Inbox in my office to scan later. Then I recycled the remnants.

Not only did I reduce the remaining pile in my magazine rack by half, that corner of the kitchen looks much neater.

I'm not sure which area of the house I will work on next. Maybe one of the upstairs closets.

How do you tackle clutter? What is the most clutter-filled area of your home?

Clearing Out Magazine Clutter

I am a magazine and newspaper article hog. There, I admitted it. I save magazines I might get to read one day; magazines I see a cute craft idea or home decorating project in; and newspaper articles I find interesting.

At this point, I don't subscribe to any magazines. I get a gardening magazine as part of my lifetime gardening club membership, but other than that, the only magazines that come into this house are ones I buy infrequently at the grocery store. My magazine pile, however, is rarely less than knee high. I toss my catalogs in that pile too, but still, it's a bit much for that corner of the kitchen.

This morning, I pulled out all my magazines and catalogs from the rack. I immediately sent any old catalogs to the recycling bin, which included at least seven American Girl ones. I decided I would keep all my gardening ones--they are free after all--and my Thriving Family magazines that come from Focus on the Family. The rest of the magazines I spent a half hour going through, pulling out craft ideas, indoor and outdoor games I might use for Vacation Bible School this summer, and a few interesting articles. I don't clip recipes anymore. I have a mountain of cookbooks, and after more than a decade together, I've realized my family is made up of creatures of habit. I have a few staple dishes that appear each week, and even when I make a new dish, I use many of the same ingredients I have on hand. I'm not about to shop for recipe specific ingredients I might never use again.

When all was said and done, my knee high pile was closer to mid-calf and I had a 1/2 inch pile of clipped articles saved from the mountain of magazines I discarded into the recycling bin. These clippings go into files that I keep in my office cabinet so I can find them easily when I need them.

Magazine clutter doesn't have to take over one corner of your house. By going through it regularly, you can stay on top of it and still keep what you need.

How do you deal with magazine clutter?