Inside: Decluttering the closet. A scary place–and not because of monsters. You never know what you’ll find hiding there. Take courage, my decluttering friend! 

• This post contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read our disclosure policy.

Decluttering the Closet

You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of outdated clothing and broken athletic equipment, but of framed family photos from the seventies. A journey into a chaotic land of clutter. Next stop, the closet zone. . .

Okay, we’re at Day 6, and I’m a little punchy. We’re almost to the finish line. Just another couple of laps. So today we turn to the closet–or rather we open the door and then quickly shut it again, only to reopen it and sigh. Big mess. Or maybe I’m thinking of mine. So what kinds of things can you find in a closet?

• clothes and shoes (though we are focusing on this tomorrow)
• old pictures and photo albums
• Christmas décor
• an abundance of wire clothes hangers
• boxes of books
• spare blankets and pillows
• memorabilia
• board games
• used athletic equipment
• miscellaneous (Again with the miscellaneous!)

How Did I Do?

So 25 items is my goal, and I was able to get rid of 36 things–some old boxes with packaging (Hubs tends to save that kind of stuff), old receipts, check stubs (lots), cardboard wrapping paper tube, and an old cough drop (and a partridge in a pear tree . . .). I barely put a dent in it, but at least I’ve started.

Tomorrow it’s on to the last category–clothes and shoes. So if you are following along with my locations and categories, you might want to focus on other closet clutter than clothing. (Say that five times fast–other closet clutter than clothing, other closet clutter than clothing. . .)

Anyway, tune in for Day 7 as we wrap up the decluttering challenge.

What’s hiding out in your closet? Tell us about it in the comments.

Related posts:

Announcing Our Decluttering Challenge! (Rules for the challenge found here.)

5 Good Reasons to Declutter

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 1: The Kitchen

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 2: The Spare Bedroom

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 3: The Junk Drawer

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 4: Paper

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 5: The Living Room

Recommended resources from my bookshelf:

Organizing From the Inside Out, Second Edition: The Foolproof System for Organizing Your Home, Your Office, and Your Life by Julie Morgenstern

One Thing at a Time: 100 Simple Ways to Live Clutter-Free Every Day by Cindy Glovinsky

Inside: It’s TGIF, and today we’re decluttering the living room–otherwise known as our second favorite catchall! Will I find 25 items scattered around this space dedicated to rest, relaxation, togetherness, and fun? I’m thinking yeah.

*This post contains affiliate links.

We turn to the living room today to do our purging, and, for me, this is one of those places that fills up with stuff quickly. The project du jour or current book or magazine I’m paging through. Work-related items if I want to get something extra done while I’m watching Perry Mason reruns. Used coffee cups, if I’m being honest. (I go by the 12 -hour rule of returning them to the kitchen.) Hey, at least I bring in the bowls and plates I’ve used–if I don’t fall asleep in front of the TV, anyway.

Enough about me.

So what types of items might we find in the typical living room for casting off?

• old movies (maybe even VHS)
• ancient video games (hopefully not Pong)
• magazines on the coffee table
• books
• décor needing to be retired
• used up candles
• old VCRs, DVDs, stereo equipment

How Did I Do?

I surpassed my goal of 25 items by throwing away 35. Today’s haul included manuscript pages (lots), several old ink cartridges, a used envelope, business card, trash. Yes, more paper. Occupational hazard. So while not exactly typical living room items, the room feels a bit lighter!

So how is the decluttering going? Tell me about it in the comments.

Related posts:

Announcing Our 2018 Decluttering Challenge

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 1: The Kitchen

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 2: The Spare Bedroom

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 3: The Junk Drawer

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 4: Paper

Resources:

Clutter Free: Quick and Easy Steps to Simplifying Your Space by Kathi Lipp

Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy

Inside: We’re over the halfway point with today’s challenge–decluttering paper! Piles and piles of it. Forgotten clipped recipes, half read newspapers, sales papers, pay stubs, bills, wrappers, packing slips, trash–oh my! 

* This post contains affiliate links.

Decluttering Paper

It’s Thursday, and we’re more than halfway through the 2018 Decluttering Challenge–yay! Today I’m putting myself out there–75 items. Paper abounds in most homes, except maybe some of these twenty- and thirty-somethings who have actually gone paperless. Have you heard of that? Crazy. Can’t even imagine that! Nor would I want to. I like to have a hard copy of many, though not all, things. Relying solely on a digital source doesn’t work for me, so I’ll leave that to the millennials.

Meanwhile, there is paper to be removed. What might fit into this category?

• old magazines
• old newspapers
• junk mail
• scrap paper
• used notebooks
• paid bills (whatever you don’t need to keep for your records)
• packaging
• fliers and ads
• candy and food wrappers
• miscellaneous paper (of course!)

How Did I Do?

When you write and edit for a living, you tend to have old manuscripts and stacks of magazines lying around. Today’s trash bag was heavy with paper, but did I make the quota? Yes! I got rid of 94 items, which included old magazines, scrap paper, receipts, fliers, newspapers, sales ads, and printed materials I no longer need. It’s not easy to get rid of magazines, but I’ve learned I can always tear out the pages of an article rather than keep the entire magazine. I got rid of a lot of stuff today. But . . .

Go paperless? No. Go with less paper, definitely!

From here it’s easy peasy. Tomorrow we turn to the living room. Will I find 25 things? Stop by and see.

Do you have any paper pile-ups in your house? Tell us about it in the comments.

Related posts:

Announcing Our 2018 Decluttering Challenge! (Rules for the challenge in this post.)

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 1: The Kitchen

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 2: The Spare Bedroom

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 3: The Junk Drawer

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 5: The Living Room

Resources:

Overwhelmed: How to Quiet the Chaos and Restore Your Sanity by Kathi Lipp and Cheri Gregory

Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy

Inside: Today we turn to decluttering the junk drawer–or drawers! The humble junk drawer is not without mystery. A motley assembly of odds and ends, from whence they came, who knows? Time to de-junk them! 

Decluttering the Junk Drawer

Junk drawers. We all have them–or, well, if you don’t, then please seek medical attention immediately!

You’ve seen one of mine. I have several more. Today will be a piece of cake–or, more likely, 25 pieces of junk. What types of things might you find taking up space in a junk drawer?

• pencil stubs
• pens with dried ink
• markers, crayons
• half used batteries
• screws or nails from various projects
• keys to who knows where
• scraps of paper
• tape, dried out glue sticks
• paper clips, rubber bands
• old pairs of glasses
• plenty of miscellaneous

How Did I Do?

Hmm. . . Well, out of the 25 designated items, I got rid of 26. And here’s the crazy part–I didn’t really add much to the junk drawer since the last purge, except for one area–slips of paper. Each drawer had pretty much remained the same aside from this habit I have of jotting down tiny bits of important info on little slips of paper. (Okay, so important can be a recipe I don’t want to forget or some blog post ideas or writing related information for clients from my day job as editor.) I was able to declassify 11 such slips of paper and dispose of them. So then I went on a hunt for other junk drawers that, while not perfectly organized, didn’t contain anything needing to be pitched. No old appliance warranty info or the manual to an old vacuum cleaner. All of those were current.

So I got creative and opened up my ottoman which I’ve been storing some notebooks in, plus a few old magazines. I ended up finding fifteen old printed pages from some online class and three gardening magazines I’m going to talk my mom into taking off my hands. (Right, Mom?)

So today, ironically, was all about tossing paper. As tomorrow will be. Stop by then for the grande-sized challenge when I attempt to throw away 75 papers.

But for now, team, you know the drill. Go open those drawers and throw away stuff! You can do it! Rah, rah, rah!

What odd items might we find in your junk drawer? Tell us about it in the comments.

Related posts:

Announcing the 2018 Decluttering Challenge! (Rules for the challenge found here.)

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 1: The Kitchen

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 2: The Spare Bedroom

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 4: Paper

5 Good Reasons to Declutter