Friday 17 June 2016

Living with Less Stuff in 2016 - May/June

I thought I'd do a bit of an update on my own decluttering challenge, before I embark on Courtney Carver's 21 Day Decluttering Challenge this month, as due to going away at the end of May, I didn't actually provide an update for that month.

May saw pretty good progress with 51 items donated.  June, was even better with 69 items donated or put aside for donation.  Added to the yearly total of 410 at the end of April, this means I have now achieved a total of 530 items, thus meeting my initial target of donating at least 500 things this year.

I'm pretty pleased to have reached the target so soon and as a consequence, it seems more appropriate now to embark on someone else's challenge, so as of the date of publishing this post, I will be taking a sabbatical from my own challenge and will be temporarily focusing on Courtney Carver's.  I will resume my own challenge in July, when I will add the total number of items decluttered in the 21 days, to my yearly total.

In readiness for starting the new challenge, I found a spare hour or two on Thursday to organise the donation pile that I've collated since my last visit to the Give & Take.  There are two boxes and a suitcase full of items, culled whilst cleaning the house before the arrival of our recent guests.  Here's a picture of the pile. As you can see once again, unwanted clutter builds up very quickly around here when I set my mind to tracking it down.




As Courtney Carver's challenge started a few days ago, I took the opportunity to catch up, by decluttering 5-10 items into an empty box (I managed 8), decluttering our already decluttered to within an inch of it's life bathroom, (only 2 items decluttered here (both either discarded or recycled), ditching a few duplicates that I could find around and about and decluttering the junk drawer in the kitchen.  (It's not really a junk drawer, just a drawer where we keep batteries, aluminium foil, cling film, etc. I do go through it on a regular basis, so there wasn't much in here to actually declutter).

This has now catapulted me to day 7 of the challenge and I now await the next task tomorrow via YouTube. Wish me luck!

6 comments:

  1. We collect so many items, and discard so few, we had huge declutter a few years ago, and our home and lives fell much better without all the stuff. We now only buy what we need, we still have too much stuff.

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    1. I know that feeling. I've dramatically reduced the amount I buy, but there's still so much stuff to declutter. I'm slowly getting to a better place and the house feels visibly less cluttered and much easier to negotiate.

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  2. Heck, you'll soon have nothing left!
    xx

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    1. Don't worry, there's still plenty more to be rehomed. I just have to be in the right frame of mind to let go.

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  3. You are soon going to be a minimalist. Great going on the decluttering. I just wish I could get my tush in gear and do more.

    God bless.

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    1. I don't know that I'll ever be a minimalist to be honest. This is just the tip of iceberg really, but it is an improvement in our home environment.

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