Decluttering for December

Its on again, the Decluttering challenge.  Why? Well I was looking in some places I had decluttered in the August challenge and some of them are looking like a dogs breakfast.  Where does this stuff come from! It has to go.  I tend to stick to this challenge if I'm accountable on my blog so I'm here to stay on track and hopefully to motivate someone else to do the same.  Yes it is December, and yes people are busy, but it's honestly barely 5 minutes a day.  Set the timer if you don't believe me.

Each Monday during December, select five items to declutter and place them
into one of 3 boxes - bin, op shop or family/give to friends.  If you want you can have a pile for ebay or gumtree too, up to you. I'm not as I don't want it hanging round nor do I want even more time on the computer :)  

Then, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, select one item a day and add it to your boxes.  It could be a pile of magazines as one 'item', don't just move one mag at a time!  Same as a draw or a cupboard may be one thing if you have lots you want to get through.  Continue this rotation until the last day of December. As I said, set the timer and go hard for the time you allocate. 

The areas I personally want to tackle are:
1. The amount of my daughters art work I have stashed.  A thing that I'm planning to do with the precious artwork, is to take a photo of it as I've got such a sentimental streak I hoard this stuff like a mad woman.  But will she really want to go through the boxes when she gets older, I don't think so.  The problem for me is the art work symbolises steps in her development, but a scribble on a page at aged 2 isn't really worth clogging up my life, a picture stored on the computer will be perfect.

2.  THE kitchen junk draw.  I did this in August and I'm afraid it is back, not as bad as before, but its slowly getting out of hand again.
3. The plastics cupboard.  Dear Lord, this stuff just multiplies on its own, but never bares the right lid!
4. The car.  Enough said.
5.  The front of the fridge, I bet your's is the same.  I can't see the actual fridge from all the photos, magnets, artwork and more artwork and post it notes.
So 4 weeks, 5 areas. Easy...yeah right!

The questions I will be asking myself if I feel stuck and feel too attached will be:
Do I love this?
Do I really need this? When was the last time you used it?
and this one I love
If the house was on fire would you grab this?

The next day - the weekend- you can take your boxes to the op shop bin or where they have to go, making sure you come home with empty bags/boxes.  And you should have some more time for this.....

"Don't let your possessions overwhelm or control you.

After all, you're really their custodian, not their owner.

Look at them differently.

You can't take any of them with you.

So only keep things that are useful or beautiful.

Live simply."

By Patrick Lindsay

I'm away for most of this week, hence why this post is early, but it gives you time to prepare yourself!!
I hope some of you come along for the ride :D

Ciao, Jan