Sunday, July 8, 2012

Next Steps

Hobbies - I originally wanted to keep my craft room as the last thing to tackle, but I realized I need that space to store the donation items and items to sell. I know that they say to get rid of them immediately, but the closest Goodwill is 40 minutes away because my parents felt the need to live on the moon. Getting these items out of my room will help to see improvement in my bedroom. It is hard to go through a room when the things you purged are still in the room.

Clothing - Go through the rest of my clothes, try on clothes in "try on" bag

Books - Scan any patterns that I can't part with before I donate the books

Photos - Scan the rest of the physical copies. Save to external hard drive. Tag people in photos. Delete some more digital photos

Office - Go through office supplies, put stuff I grab for a lot in desk, rest goes in box

Jewelry - Get rid of more. Keep favorites and a couple extras

Clothing Accessories - Go through bags

Sixth Day of 30 Day Clutter Bootcamp


Kind of sad that Day 2 is over. I liked having something to do from the couch when I didn't feel up to par. And since I haven't felt good for quite a while, tackling Day 2 made me feel productive.

Day 2 - Music [Done]
Tackled the rest of my music today. Went through 13 got rid of 12. I couldn't bear to get rid of the Backstreet Boys first album. You can't make me! It's a classic! Anyways, the process would have gone slightly longer than it did but 3 CDs would not play on my laptop. They were making funny sounds in the slot. The reason for 2 of them was because I had added CD labels to them. This was long before I owned a laptop and the family computer had a tray instead of a slot at the time. I figure instead of popping them into the CD player and seeing what was on them, I would just give them a toss. I won't miss what I didn't know I had! I still have 3-4 CDs I keep in my car, but I am keeping those and only 1 of them is being purged.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Digital Clutter - Email

I have hoarding instincts and it is a problem. But some people don't think about digital clutter. Digital clutter can be a problem too! For instance, how many unread messages are in your inbox? Do you go through them often? I just went through my mom and dad's shared email and sorted through over 5,700 unread messages! It took many hours but it was worth it. I got stressed every time I had to find an email in their inbox for them, usually to print off concert tickets or confirmations.

When I went to declutter their email I would do it by page. I recommend starting on the last page. You are more apt to get rid of older emails and that is where they all are! I first check off all of the definite trash and delete it. Next I go through and check off every email that belongs in a group and put them in a folder. For example, I made a folder called "Coupons/Sales/Deals" for any sales flyer type email. Another called "Passwords and Confirmations". This is where all the confirmations and emails about password resets goes for future reference. I especially like putting password emails in there for websites that I frequently forget the passwords to. That folder is the first place I look when I forget. Confirmations can be anywhere from payment confirmations to flight confirmations. I recommend creating a separate folder for payments you make frequently like bills. I have a folder specifically for my student loan payment confirmations.

Recently I discovered the Sweep feature in my Hotmail account. You're email service may or may not have something similar. I have had the same email from Hotmail since I was about 8, so I don't know what other email services off. Sweep is a gem. I wish I had it while going through my parent's email. It would have made things go a lot quicker!

Some of the cool features of Sweep is that you can have emails from certain senders go directly into the folder you want. My sales flyers get sent directly to "Coupons/Sales/Deals" now and no longer clutter up my inbox. I am subscribed to get the daily Zits comic sent to my inbox every say so that now gets directly sent to the "Comics-Zits" folder.  I can't even tell you how much it has helped out my everyday chore of cleaning out my inbox.

Now you may say that I just moved all of that digital clutter out of sight but it is still there. Well, that is another nice feature about Sweep. You can give emails an expiration date! Sales usually do not last over a week so I have those emails set to be automatically deleted once they turn 10 days old.

I challenge you to try it!

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Fifth Day of 30 Day Clutter Bootcamp

I had a busy day today between a cook-out at my brother's house to visiting with my grandparents, so I only work on this late at night.

Day 2 - Music [not complete]
More burned CDs today. Anazing how much music I didn't know I had! I didn't know how much downloading I actually did way back when I was in High School! Lots of songs I didn't even know the artist to. These songs sure do bring back memories! Stats: Went through 9, got rid of 9.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Fourth Day of 30 Day Clutter Bootcamp

Day 2 - Music [not complete]
Today is a little harder than yesterday because I am tackling burned CDs. Because they were burned they didn't have the song titles, artists, or albums attached. So sadly I have to take the time to google half of the songs I come across by their lyrics to get their info. Otherwise I will have a butt load of "Track 1" and such going on. Stats: Went through 23 CDs, gave 1 back to my parents, got rid of 22.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Third Day of 30 Day Clutter Bootcamp

Between The Windjammer Festival and health I haven't had much opportunity for decluttering

Day 2 - Music [not complete]
I went through the CD that were not burned versions today. I popped them one by one in my laptop, listened to clips of each song and ripped the ones I wanted to my computer. While I was waiting for them to rip I went through the "Comic-Zits" folder in my email to get rid of some digital clutter. Stats: Went through 23 CDs today, 6 went back to mom and dad, got rid of 11, keeping 6 for the moment.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Second Day of 30 Day Clutter Bootcamp

Well my health hasn't been 100% lately and migraines have been kicking my butt, so a few days went by.

Day 11 - Books [not complete]
Got rid of 7 books today (5 Craft books, 2 others). I decided that some of my craft books I will likely never use. I had John Grisham's book "The Street Lawyer" for many years. I read half of it when I was much younger, but never finished. Now that I am older I would need to start from the beginning. Well, I have a kindle fire now, so if I was going to read this again I would probably get it in an ebook format anyways, so away it goes.

Day 13 - Movies [done]
I went through my dvd collection today. I had 60 DVDs (not including TV series). I got rid of 8 and I am now left with 52. My Disk Gear dvd box holds 100, so I am doing pretty good. I mean they take up the same amount of room whether I have 100 or 2, so getting rid of those 8 were just to make things simpler since I don't watch them much.

Day 20 - Collections [not complete]
  • Beanie Babies [done] - Went through the rest of my beanie babies. Updated Stats: I had 65 beanie babies, I got rid of 51, I am keeping 14 at the moment (12 Reg, 1 Jingle, 1 Buddy).
  • Disney Items [not complete] - Got rid of a 2000 WDW Snowglobe.
  • Misc. - Got rid of 2 beanie baby like toys