Operation Minimize: 231-336

Operation Minimize is a challenge to rid my home of 2,010 items by the end of the year. I’m playing along with several other bloggers/Moms from You Are What You Keep. I started around the first of August so I have a lot of work to do if I want to finish by the end of they year. Along the way, I post updates of my progress here.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted an Operation Minimize update. It seems the further we get in to this challenge, the more difficult it becomes. I’m ashamed to admit the first 200 items were easy because they were all just visible clutter taking up space in my home and while I still have my fair share of visible clutter (and even more hidden away) … we are getting to the point where I have to make decisions.

Oh, how I do not like to make decisions. Honestly, it is my lack of decision making that got us in to this mess in the first place. I read a book a few months ago that stopped me in my clutter tracks. It taught me two lessons I am trying desperately hard not to forget. The first – piles of clutter are just stacks of unmade decisions taking up residency in your home. And the second – everyone has a routine for organizing. Even if your organizing routine is to drop everything when you walk in the door. You still had to make the decision to drop the items there and walk away. Or leave the dishes in the sink as opposed to washing them or placing them in the dishwasher. Even walking away from an overflowing trash can … they are all decisions you make about the state of your home and the way your items are organized.

For some reason, these statements just made so much sense to me. Every time I walk in the door with a pile of mail and want to throw it on the counter. Piles of clutter are stacks of unmade decisions … plays in my head. When I want to leave my folded clothes for the next day or the clean clothes in the dryer … again, I hear a voice saying, it would only take you a few extra seconds to go the extra step and cross this off your to do list.

It’s been helpful, but alas … I need more help. I only managed to gather up 105 items over the last two weeks and while it felt like it should have been much more … 105 is better than nothing. Two more giant bags of stuff dropped off for the Medina Children’s home, an ice cream cart that is going to have a fabulous new life, a more organized pantry, fewer needless items in my bathroom. It feels good to get rid of these things and for the most part I have done a good job about not bringing in any new items while we are trying to get rid of the overflow we have already.

141 Trash

48 To Sell or SOLD

147 To A Better Place

__________________

336 Items No Longer in My House!!

But we’ve still got a LONG way to go to get to 2010. My goal for the next week is to break the 500 mark.Wish me luck!

Miss the start of this series? No worries it’s all right here:

1-115
116-231

I added this post to the Raising Homemakers homemaking party!