Wednesday, February 22, 2012

40 Bags in 40 Days - 1 down

In the blogging circles where I run, there's been a lot of talk about decluttering in the past year or so. It has made me think and I believe a few things to be true. The more we have, the more we want to get. And the more we collect, the more we have to clean up, and the more stress we experience maintaining all the stuff. I have a desire to simplify and overall reduce the amount of stuff in this house. And I think a good decluttering would be a good annual habit to make.

I've been reading over at Clover Lane lately, and every year during Lent she does a 40 Bags in 40 Days decluttering project. The focus is to let go of our attachment to things for what's more important. So I decided to join her this year. She recommends starting with a list of the areas of the house that you want to attack and plan goal dates. I decided to list 30 areas because I know I'll end up using weekends to catch up on the areas I didn't complete during the week.



The boys cooperated today and took good naps. When that doesn't happen, I'm not sure how I'll get it done. But I tackled the pantry to get an easy start. I tossed one bag of trash and started a pile of donations and...maybe a garage sale pile?

I'm not going to bore you with pictures of all 40 bags, but I thought if I shared my plan, I'd be more motivated to follow through.  I took before and after pictures of the pantry, but it didn't look that much different. Most of the clutter was hiding in the back corners. But in the name of progress...at least I know what's in here now!


But wow, if I got 2 bags of stuff out of this little cabinet - we're in for a busy 40 days.  Please let me know if you have any decluttering tips.

2 comments:

Mel said...

Great plan!!

A couple things I do when I'm sentimentally attached to an item that just takes up space...take a picture of it or scan it (if it's paper - like school work?)....then you still have the memory of it, but you don't have to store it....just make sure to back up your computer! :)

bluedaisy said...

Awesome idea! I just did a declutter challenge that a friend of mine did on FB (she is a licensed social worker and professional organizer). No great advice but I think just pace yourself and don't worry if you fall behind here and there--every effort is worthwhile. I got alot tone even in a 10-15 minute spurt.