This was the final week for my Holiday Declutter Challenge. I didn’t get too much decluttering done, opting instead for some much needed relaxation.
Day 18
I went through the giant pile of mail on the dining room table and tossed or recycled 60 items. It was mostly magazines that I have already read (or am not going to read) and junk mail. One of the first things that I did when I began to simplify was take my name off every mailing list that I could find, yet I still get junk mail! And I just love the companies with which I have signed up for paperless billing, and now I get an elctronic bill AND a paper bill. Sigh.
Day 19
I went through all our kitchen cabinets and threw out all the expired or stale food. Altogether I got rid of 37 items. I hate wasting food, so this has caused me to think about how we purchase food.
And that’s it for the final week of the challenge!
This week’s total: 97 items.
Decluttering Challenge Total: 638 items removed
Not too bad!
Final thoughts and lessons learned
Though I was unable to declutter every day, I still call this experiment a success. By breaking down the seemingly insurmountable task of “decluttering my home” into tiny, easily-digestible pieces, I was able to remove hundreds of items from my home in 5 weeks.
My experiment began with a list of 35 areas to declutter. I didn’t get to many of these (the storage shed, the yard, under the bed), and I added a few new areas along the way. Over the next few weeks, I would like to finish the remaining items on my list, and use the momentum from the Holiday Declutter Streak to continue working through the thousands of items remaining in my home.
I had intended to declutter 2015 items in 2015, and though I did not reach 2015 items, I did remove 1800 items from my home over the past year. In some areas, I can’t even tell a difference, but in other areas, it’s really starting to show, which is encouraging.
So what did I learn from all this? Well, for one, trying to declutter daily during the holidays, or do anything daily during the holidays (remember, RW Run Streak?), is very difficult for me. It’s not that we are super-busy with a whirlwind of holiday parties or family engagements. It’s mostly that I am just tired from the year-end push at work, and would rather relax with my family than clean my home.
However, if I am eventually successful at simplifying my home, the day will come when I won’t need to even try to declutter daily. Won’t that be nice?
Happy New Year, everyone!