Operation Minimize

Operation Minimize: 520 – 1077

by Stacy on November 10, 2010

Holy cow, I haven’t done an Operation Minimize post since the 1st of September and boy have we cleaned out a lot of clutter since then. We were gone for a significant portion of this time, but we cleaned house before we left and have been continuing the purge since we got home. I’ll admit things were slowing down a lot after our cross country trip, but after watching the unforgettable hoarding episode on CSI a few weeks ago, I have had no problems tossing out the junk. Did any of you see that episode? Oh my, I am still having daymares about it. Solved my clutter problems that’s for sure.

Here’s the breakdown:

60 More items to Medina Children’s Home (baby stuff, toys, towels & clothing)

3 Years of Magazines Recycled (that’s 5 1/2 years worth of mags so far!!)

425 Trash or Recycling

____________________________

557 Items out the door!!

For a Grand Total of 1,077 items no longer taking up residence in my house!!!

(I can almost hear the applause & cheers now)

But, we’re not done yet. I’ve just barley crossed the halfway point and I’ve got a long way to go before the clutter gets to a manageable level. I’ve got a major yard sale planned in a few weeks that will clean up a ton of real estate in the house, but it is mainly big ticket items. If I’m going to finish this challenge, I’ll have to buckle down and tackle those despised “clutter zones“. Mine are the kitchen counter, dining room, play room, master bedroom and closets (any & all of them). How about you, have you tamed any of your clutter zones? And if so, how did you do it?

As reluctant as I have been to assign myself any specific areas up to this point, I think I will have to focus on one area a week or maybe a piece of one area every afternoon in order to finish by New Years. I could use some encouragement right about now, advice or even funny anecdotes to help keep me motivated. Any comments would be greatly appreciated, even if it is just to say, “Hey you, get off the computer and get to cracking on all that junk in your house!”

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Operation Minimize: 337-520

by Stacy on September 1, 2010

Wow! I can’t believe I actually did it. I made it passed the 500 mark, meaning my home is now rid of 500 pieces of useless clutter. THAT IS HUGE. yet not. Since I obviously still have so far to go. I chose not to tackle any specific areas, but rather to just pull junk from anywhere I happen to be at the moment. The results are slower but I feel less confined by rules (alright, I’m a rebel). Corners of my home are starting to look better and I am “getting” to the point that I might be comfortable posting photos of my progress.

What do you think? Would you like pictures to go along with this challenge?

I hope you guys will not think less of me or cast judgements based on the state of my home. We’ve got three kids and I am borderline pack rat … it was only a matter of time until something happened and I would much rather lay out all my dirty laundry here with folks that care about me then ever be on an episode of Clean House. Sure Niecy is cute & all AND I would love to see what outrageous outfit or what color flower she would wear to my house … but … I would never, NEVER want the world to see my home like that.

NOTE: My home actually looks nothing like the ones on Clean House – we have all the usual – you know, visible floors, usable chairs & other home furnishings so I’m not sure we could even make it on the show but you get my drift. Don’t you?

It’s the lack of visible counter space that is driving me mad. The state of my bedroom which somehow became the drop off point for things we would put in the garage sale one day … when is THAT day going to come? Soon I tell you, people! Soon!

This week we sent 40 more items to the Medina Children’s Home, 133 items to the recycle or trash bin and 11 items marked for resale.

I gave up 13 magazines (one of my weaknesses) which is monumental for me, hey that’s more than an entire years worth of magazines folks! And found out my baby boy has only 4 shirts and a few pairs of shorts that actually FIT him. Hence the reason if you see us around town, he is rocking his older brothers way cool swim trunks. No worries though, new threads are on their way and I’ll be trading in some of his nicer duds for some new ones at our local Once Upon A Child.

274 Trash

59 To Sell or SOLD

187 To A Better Place

__________________
520 Items No Longer in My House!!

I even had a moment to create this snazzy new tracker which I will use to keep you updated on my progress along the way. Why yes, the Mister is out of town this week … why do you ask? No, I actually get this much stuff done all of the time. Thank You Very Much. Ok, I’m lying now. Not only am I a horrible liar but I actually don’t get all that much done around the house with three kids 4 & under and none of them in school.

How about you? Did you rid your home of some useless junk this week? If you did, you KNOW I want to know all about it!

I added this post to the Raising Homemakers homemaking party!

Miss the start of this series? No problems, you can catch all the decluttering goodness right here:
Operation Minimize – A journey in decluttering

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Operation Minimize: 231-336

by Stacy on August 23, 2010

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!

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Wants vs. Needs & More Decluttering

by Stacy on August 1, 2010

In the grand scheme of things, this falls no where near my list of needs and not even that high on my list of wants … but every season I fall in love with several items from the Boden catalog. I pine over them until they go on sale (to a price I could possibly afford). I put them in my shopping cart, I visit them a few times each day and eventually they’re all gone. Sold out & I’m remorseful for a missed opportunity to add something timeless/classic to my pretty expendable wardrobe.

This is one of those items:

It’s called a Photographer’s Jacket (which in my opinion makes it that much cooler) and it first entered my life when I featured in a What to Wear to Bloggy Bootcamp style advice column for the super cool Cindy of Skip to My Lou fame. Back then it was $98 and a bit of a splurge but it’s on sale now for $65 and I hear it calling my name throughout the day.

I have three problems with that. 1) How could I choose just one color? I love them ALL. Which one is your favorite? 2) I made a deal with myself at the beginning of the year to only buy clothes when I hit specific weight loss goals (every 5 pounds) … I haven’t gotten close to a goal in 4 months! And 3) I’ve been trying not to make any unnecessary purchases until I get a hold on all this clutter.

But then it calls to me again …

Update: Apparently, in the 8 hours it took me to publish this post ALL the photographer’s jackets have disappeared from the site. Dang it, they got me again. Breaks my heart every year and now I’ll spend weeks wishing I would have jumped on it & how much cooler my wardrobe could have been, if only …. Ah, well what are you going to do. As long as we’re here, let me know if you need any style advice of your own. I like to shop vicariously through the needs of others. Check it out here -> KSW At Your Service

In other news, I purged another 116 items from our home and I am starting to notice the difference! The untrained eye might still come in our house and see mounds of clutter … but too someone who lives with it every day, I’m starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m even going as far to rule out any items from the garage. (That’s a 2010 project all on its own) And thinking I just might tackle 2011 items from there next year. Yay!!

That brings our grand total to 231 items out of the house!!!

86 Trash

48 To Sell or SOLD

97 To A Better Place

I’m hoping to make big strides this week while the Mr. is away … wish me luck. For those of you who said you might play along, how many items did you gather up this week?

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Operation Minimize: A journey in Decluttering

by Stacy on July 25, 2010

Sometimes I have to laugh at myself.

Do you ever stumble on to a certain blog or web page and think to yourself you were destined to read those words … at that exact moment? Well I do. It happens to me all the time. Maybe not in a “fate brought me to this” kind of way but in more of a, “Wow! This is really going to change my life kind of way.”

I really need to start sharing these moments with you guys more. I promise I’m going to get on that right away. Hmm, might as well start now.

So last week I was sifting through my feeds, trying to catch up on the 1000+ backlog of posts I need to read. When somehow or another, I came across the website You Are What You Keep. The writer, Tabitha is on a mission to reduce the number of items in her home by 2,010 by the end of the year. I know, cool right? Well, as I read her posts I got to thinking about how much I wanted to join Sarah from Clover Lane on her mission to get rid of 40 bags in 40 days during Lent. Instead I sat around, thinking about it … procrastinating … watching as she progressed and items in my house kept accumulating instead of disappearing.

That’s probably why Tabitha’s experiment appealed to me so much. I often play the throw 10 things away game when I walk into various rooms of my house, so I just sort of figured this would be a version of that … just on a MUCH larger scale.

Anyway, I ran the idea by the Mr. and we both decided the house would look a whole lot better minus two thousand and ten items. So, we’re in! We started today. Here’s our Day 1 breakdown:

1-11 toys from the playroom
Note: Starting small, today I just asked the kids which cars they didn’t want. Cars are taking over our lives. Turns out diecast construction equipment is “not their favorite”. Yes! Those are the worst to step on anyways. (AUNTS & GRANDPARENTS see Note – no construction vehicles for holidays)
12-29 Magazines (Yes, 18 brand new magazine. All my SIL’s who moved recently, mailing them in the AM. Just wait till I get around to my magazines! Dang you $5 Amazon magazine subscriptions.)
30-33 Some of SIL’s Things (also being mailed tomorrow)
Note: Yay! for Megan she just scored a great gig in Cali and is officially moving on Fri. If you’ve got a minute, stop by I Love … I Hate and congratulate her.
34-82 Kids Clothes boxed up for resale
83-109 Kids Clothes donated to the Medina Children’s Home
110-115 Women’s items also donated to the Medina Children’s Home
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115 just on Day 1!

Not a bad start, ashamed to say this didn’t even make a dent in the clutter that is taking over my life, my home and my happiness. Like I’ve told you before, I’m a sucker for numbers and stats so I think this challenge will suit me well. I’m not sure if I’ll make it by the end of the year but if I don’t, I’ll just up my number to 2011.

Tabitha likes to log items by Sold, Trashed, or sent to a “Better Place”. I want to play by the rules so today’s 115 items break down like this.

48 Sold
67 To A Better Place

If you like this idea as much as I do, feel free to join in. Tabitha even has a Flickr group if you’re brave enough to post photos of your clutter and progress along the way.

The rules state items can be given away, sold, or thrown in the trash. Trash items only count if they are leaving your home and you are not replacing them with similar everyday items (toilet paper rolls, cans, bottles, etc). If you lose count she has handy system for just counting a full bag as 10 or 20 items.

If you’re on the fence or curious about my progress, drop me a line or leave me a comment. Chatting about it will only help motivate me more. I’ll post updates along the way and see if I can whip up some handy dandy tracker widgets so you can see my progress when you stop by.

Yay! Never been so excited to get rid of things

I added this post to a Homemaking Link Up on Raising Homemakers

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