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.

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!