De-Clutter Your Home

• De-Clutter Your Home: Week Six (Email)

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  It’s the 6th and final week of the De-Clutter Your Home challenge. Have you enjoyed this series? I really hope that you have.

  The final de-cluttering challenge for you is: de-clutter your email.

  Almost everyone is guilty of hoarding emails in their inbox. Please tell me I’m not the only one!

  Seeing a cluttered inbox is a bad way to start (or end) the day, so let’s get to work on getting everything organized.

  This De-Clutter Your Home challenge will not have a recap next Saturday, because this is more of a “how-to”, rather than a group de-cluttering challenge.

  Step #1 – Create Folders Folders are your friend when it comes to de-cluttering your email. Every time a new message shows up in your inbox, you can either respond immediately, or move it to a folder. I currently use (and recommend) the following 3 folders: - Hold: This is a space for you to put shipping confirmations until you receive your item and conversations with people that owe you something. - Follow Up: This folder is where you store emails that you need to respond to, but just can’t get to right away. - Reference: If you receive an email that you think you may need to reference again some other time, put it in this folder. Remember to go through your folders often and delete emails that no longer need to be there. Step #2 – Empty Inbox Habit Make it a habit to keep your inbox empty at all times to avoid things getting cluttered. When you are checking your email, respond immediately if possible, and if you can’t – at least move the email to it’s respective folder and get back to it later. I’ve promised myself that I will not touch any emails in my inbox unless I’m prepared to deal with them (respond or move to a folder) right away. Step #3 – Schedule Reading Time If you ever want to get a handle on your email, it’s a good idea to schedule time every day to go through and process all of the messages that you have received. Personally, I check my email once in the morning, once in the afternoon and then once more before bed. I receive hundreds of emails every single day, so I need to check it that often. If you only get a few emails a day, you could probably get away with just checking your inbox once per day. When you click on an email, do something with it immediately. You can either respond or move it to a folder. Whatever you do – don’t read the email and then let it sit in your inbox. Emails start to pile up faster than you can imagine, and then next thing you know you have a cluttered inbox again. Step #4 – Unsubscribe To prevent dozens of junk mail messages, be sure to unsubscribe to mailing lists that are of no use to you. Many emails have an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email message that they send to you. Click that and follow the instructions to remove your email address from their mailing list. If you cannot find an “unsubscribe” link in your email message, you may have to contact the source of the email directly. I recommend removing yourself from all mailing lists that you are not interested in. If you never read the emails from certain companies and manufacturers, you probably don’t need to be subscribed to their mailing list. Step #5 – Separate Email Address Most companies ask for your email address when you are signing up for freebies and coupons. Unfortunately, this is necessary for almost all promotions. To prevent cluttering up your personal email inbox with various emails from stores and manufacturers, set up a separate email address for freebies, etc. You can get free email addresses from tons of places online, but I suggest Hotmail and Gmail. When you sign up for free samples and other online deals, be sure to use this email address instead of your personal one.

  Do you have a suggestion for a future series? Let me know!

  More from this series: De-Clutter Your Home

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• De-Clutter Your Home: Challenge #5 Complete (De-Clutter Your Coupons)

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  De-cluttering my coupons was a pretty big task this week, because I had to get rid of all of my coupons that had expired in May (and there was a ton of them!).

  The first thing that I did was think about whether or not my current coupon organization system was working, and I decided that it wasn’t.

  Right now I am using a large binder for most of my coupons and a medium sized storage tote for all of my extra coupons. The problem with this system is that I would never bring my storage tote to the store with me, and I would always need it when I was out.

  The other usse that I had was that my binder was about to explode from the amount of coupons I’d stuffed in there!

  

  So, I have decided to go the 2-binder route. I will have one binder full of food and beverage coupons and the other binder will be full of everything else.

  I know, I sound a bit insane, don’t I?

  I know a few people that organize their coupons this way and they say it works really well, so I’m going to give it a shot.

  I’ll be purchasing my second binder next week (I completely forgot to pick it up when I was at the store yesterday) and will get the food coupons moved over to that one.

  Oh man, now I’m really going to look like an “Extreme Couponer” when I go shopping!

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  The second thing that I did was really go through my coupons and get rid of the ones that were totally useless to me and that I was 99% sure I would never use.

  I don’t know why it’s always so difficult for me to let go of coupons, but I did it anyway!

  Check out all of the coupons I said goodbye to (I gave some to a neighbour and gave the rest away on freecycle):

  

  I also got rid of a ton of expired coupons. It was so sad to see them all go!

  

  The last thing that I did was re-organize the area that I collect my coupons (until I am ready to cut them).

  I always advise people to clip and organize their coupons as soon as they get them, but I receive hundreds of coupons every week and I simply don’t have the time to organize them as soon as they come in.

  I set aside an hour or two (depending on how many new coupons I have to add) once a week to get them all organized.

  There’s no need for a before photo of my “coupon holding area”, because I didn’t have an actual place for them. Just imagine a gigantic pile of coupons taking over my desk. It was a nightmare.

  I now have this huge bin in the organizing unit beside my desk that is just for my new coupons. When it’s time for me to clip and file my coupons, I just take the drawer out and get to work.

  

  I usually watch TV while I clip coupons so that it doesn’t feel like such a chore.

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  Did you de-clutter your coupons this week? If so, please share your results!

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  Stop by tomorrow for the 6th and final De-Clutter Your Home challenge!
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  More from this series:
  - De-Clutter Your Toys (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Books (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Recipes (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter A Cabinet (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Coupons (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Email

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• De-Clutter Your Home: Week Five (Coupons)

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  Do you use coupons? If so, you are probably aware of how fast they can really start to pile up. One day you have 20 coupons, the next day you have 100 and the next you have 200!

  If you let those wonderful pieces of paper sit around for too long, they will become a huge cluttered mess. The clutter will be an annoyance but perhaps the biggest annoyance of all will be the fact that you may miss out some really great deals because you can’t find the coupons that you need.

  Although I really do love using coupons, I admit they are a huge pain most of the time. The finding, the clipping, the sorting, the purging – it’s a lot of work.

  In order to make things run smoothly in regards to my coupon collection, I need to continuously keep up with the huge amount of coupons that I seem to collect in any given week.

  So – that brings me to this week’s De-Clutter Your Home challenge.

  It’s time to de-clutter your coupons!

  

  Decide if your current coupon organization system is working for you.
  If your system isn’t working, it’s time to try a new one. I always recommend organizing your coupons in a coupon binder, since that’s the fastest way to flip through your coupons, but if you don’t feel comfortable with something quite so large, there are many other ways to organize your coupons.

  If your current coupon organization system is still working well for you, then all you need to do is a bit of cleaning up.

  Get rid of coupons that are useless to you.
  This is something that I just started doing and believe me when I say that it is so much easier to stay on top of my coupons when I allow myself to get rid of the coupons I see no use for.

  I keep a lot of coupons that I find – even coupons for products that my family doesn’t use – but only if they are high-value coupons that I think will yield me free products when a great sale comes along.

  I suggest getting rid of coupons that, even if there is a phenomenal sale, the item would still likely cost money (items being ones that you do not use).

  For example, just yesterday I was going through my coupons that I’d received in the mail the day before and I saw a coupon for $0.75 off any Depends product. I’m pretty sure that these items cost around $15 per package in store, and I have seen them as low as $5.00 on clearance. There is absolutely no way I could ever find a package of Depends for $0.75, which would mean I would never get them for free. Since no one in my family uses Depends, paying any amount of money for them just doesn’t make much sense.

  So, I threw out the coupons, and guess what – the world didn’t end!

  It’s okay to get rid of coupons that you have no use for and it is something I recommend to anyone who may be overwhelmed with their coupon collection.

  

  Keep track of coupons that are about to expire.
  There’s nothing more frustrating than finding an expired coupon in your organizer when you are at the store and about to buy something.

  Make sure that you are keeping track of the expiration dates printed on your coupons.

  Go through all of the coupons in your collection and get rid of the expired ones. If you have coupons that are set to expire in a week or less, keep them in the front of your coupon binder or envelope. When the expiration date comes and goes, you can easily find all of your expired coupons and throw them out.

  There are a few ways you can stay on top of your coupon expiration dates:
  - Write the expiration date on small stickers (usually used to price items at a yard sale) and affix them to the slot that the coupon is located in your coupon binder.
  - Keep all coupons that are set to expire within the month in the front or back of your coupon organization system.
  - Create a spreadsheet that lists all of your coupons and when they expire. Go through that list once a month to see which coupons have expired and that you need to remove from your collection.

  Organize new coupons as you receive them.
  If you really want to stay on top of your coupon collection, it’s best to put them away as soon as you receive them.

  When you are really into coupons like I am, they can start to build up quickly and by the time you get around to organizing them all, you have hundreds, and it will end up taking you hours to get them put away in an organized fashion.

  I highly recommend putting your coupons where they belong as soon as you receive them, but if you simply do not have the time to do so, at least go through your new coupons once per week and get them organized.

  Next week I am going to show everyone how I did with de-cluttering my collection of coupons, and will post the final de-cluttering challenge.

  If you de-clutter your coupons this week, please post in the comments and let everyone know how and what you did.

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  More from this series:
  - De-Clutter Your Toys (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Books (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Recipes (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter A Cabinet (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Coupons (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Email

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• De-Clutter Your Home: Challenge #4 Complete (De-Clutter A Cabinet)

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  Did you de-clutter a cabinet this week? I know I did! Once I posted the challenge I raced off to de-clutter that awful bathroom cabinet that had been driving me nuts for months.

  The cabinet that I chose was in the upstairs bathroom – the one that we pretty much only use to brush Elliott’s teeth in. All sorts of random stuff gets thrown into that cabinet when I don’t have another place to put it. So, I decided to just get rid of every single thing that didn’t need to be in there.

  My main goal was to only keep items that belonged in that space.

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  Here is a photo of what our bathroom cabinet looked like in the beginning:

  

  There was lots of stuff just crammed into the back of the cabinet. Stuff I had forgotten was even there.

  

  I went through every single thing and had a small pile of trash that was just taking up space. I even found expired medicine from over 2 years ago. Gross!

  

  There were a few things that didn’t belong in the cabinet, so I took them out and put them where they were actually supposed to be.

  

  I re-organized everything in my medicine container by adding a few small baskets inside the larger container.

  

  This worked very well for corralling small items like bandages.

  

  Our medicine container looks very neat and tidy now!

  

  My next issue was deciding what to do with Elliott’s toothbrush and toothpaste. It just seems really gross to leave those things out on the countertop and I didn’t want to just set them directly inside the cabinet either. I was all out of small bins, so I was at a loss for where to put those 2 small items.

  I took a break, went downstairs to get a drink of water, and that’s when I had my AH-HA! moment.

  I found 2 plastic cups that we did not use very often and put the toothbrush and toothpaste in one of those. I used the other cup for the dog’s toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as his nail clippers.

  

  All of our cleaners went back into the same bin that they were in before and I kept our bathroom tissue at the front of the cabinet.

  I keep a few small face cloths for Elliott in this cabinet as well. I stuck with the “use dishes from the kitchen” trick and used a small plastic bowl to contain all of them.

  This is what our bathroom cabinet looks like today:

  

  I no longer have to search for things when I open the cabinet doors. I know where everything is!

  Now if only my husband could remember to put things back where he finds them…

  Did you de-clutter a cabinet this week? If so, please share your results!

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  Stop by tomorrow to get ready for the De-Clutter Your Home challenge #5!

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  More from this series:
  - De-Clutter Your Toys (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Books (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Recipes (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter A Cabinet (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Coupons (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Email

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• De-Clutter Your Home: Week Four (Cabinet)

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  Week #4 of the De-Clutter Your Home challenge is upon us.

  So far we have de-cluttered our toys, de-cluttered our books and de-cluttered our recipes.

  This week it’s time to de-clutter a cabinet in our home. Any cabinet is fine!

  Here are some cabinets you may wish to de-clutter this week:
  - Medicine Cabinet
  - Spice Cabinet
  - Under The Kitchen Sink
  - Under The Bathroom Sink
  - Pots & Pans

  Think about one cabinet in your home that needs to be de-cluttered the most and start with that. The reason I suggest this is because it is much easier to start de-cluttering other cabinets in your home when the absolute worst one is already finished.

  Step 1: Remove and clean. Just like any ol’ de-cluttering and organizing process, the very first thing you need to do is take everything out of the area you are tackling. Every single thing. Have separate piles or boxes for the following categories: donate/sell, move elsewhere and keep. You may also need a trash can handy. When everything has been removed from the cabinet, give the area a thorough cleaning. Wipe the walls, the cabinet door(s) and handle(s), the shelves. Don’t forget to wipe the top and bottom of the cabinet as well, if possible. Tip: Use contact paper to protect the shelves in your cabinets. Step 2: Create a plan. Decide how you want to organize your cabinet once it has been de-cluttered. I suggest getting your plan down on paper (being as detailed as possible) before you start putting everything away. If you just shove everything back inside, thinking “I’ll organize it later”, odds are that you won’t remember or have the time to do it later. You have the time NOW, so do it now. When you de-clutter and organize areas in your home, it’s best to get things completed as soon as possible so that the process doesn’t drag on and on and completely exhaust you. Tip: Baskets are a great way to create boundaries in your cabinets. Put all like items into their own separate baskets and label them accordingly so that you know what’s inside. Some questions you may want to ask yourself when you are creating your plan: Under The Bathroom Sink: Do I want baskets? If so, how many and what size? Do I need to keep towels in here or can I keep them in the linen closet? Should my medicines stay here, or would they be better kept in one of the kitchen cabinets? Pots & Pans: Do I want to invest in a hanging pot rack to save space in here? Where would I put it? Can I keep my baking sheets and muffin tins in the stove drawer instead of in here? Step 3: Purchase needed supplies. If you have decided to purchase any organizing supplies for your cabinet, pick them up as soon as possible. If you are purchasing baskets, dividers or other organizing supplies, be sure to measure the cabinet before you go shopping. Don’t purchase anything until you have measured the space, otherwise you may end up buying an item that does not fit (resulting in frustration and another trip to the store). If you don’t need to purchase any organizing supplies, you can move on to step #4. Step 4: Put your plan into action. It’s now time to complete the de-cluttering and organizing process for your cabinet of choice. Start putting everything back inside the cabinet, according to the plan that you laid out in step #2. If you have created a very detailed plan, this process should not take you very long. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - When you have finished de-cluttering your cabinet, remember to keep it up. Take an extra second or two to put things back where they belong when you are returning them after use. show other family members the new, organized space and encourage them to keep it up as well. Having an organized and clutter free cabinet will make the items inside so much easier to find when you are looking for them.

  Next week I am going to show everyone how I did with de-cluttering one of the cabinets in our home, and will post the next de-cluttering challenge.

  If you de-clutter a cabinet this week, please post in the comments and let everyone know which cabinet you chose and how you did!

  More from this series:
  - De-Clutter Your Toys (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Books (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Recipes (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter A Cabinet (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Coupons (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Email

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• De-Clutter Your Home: Challenge #3 Complete (De-Clutter Your Recipes)

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  Another week has passed… did you de-clutter your recipes? After I de-cluttered my books last week, I was actually really looking forward to getting my recipes de-cluttered as well.

  It took me all week long to organize all of them. I had so many recipes… in cookbooks, online and in my recipe binder. I did a little bit at a time and finally finished yesterday. I really wish I had just picked one day and spent a few hours completing the task.

  I chose to organize my recipes in a recipe binder (I also kept a few of my favourite cookbooks). I love my super simple cover:

  

  The very first thing that I did was go through my recipe binder and take all of my recipes out of the page protectors. I also deleted all of the saved recipes on my computer that I didn’t plan to make again.

  

  I had to thoroughly clean my binder and the page protectors, as there were lots of splashes and smears. It was not a pretty sight. I really need to wipe them down every so often.

  I got rid of all of the recipes that we didn’t like and put them in the recycle bin.

  The remaining recipes were then printed from the computer after I typed them up and they all looked the same (you obviously don’t have to do this.. I’m just a little OCD about my organizing and I like everything to look the same!). This is really what took the longest amount of time throughout this process, so I wouldn’t suggest doing it (unless you really want to and have the time of course).

  

  I purchased divider tabs from Walmart and separated my recipes into the following categories:

  - Pizza & Pastas
  - Breads
  - Poultry
  - Other Mains
  - Desserts
  - Side Dishes
  - Breakfast
  - Soup & Salad

  

  After deciding on my categories, I organized all of my printed recipes into those categories and then stuck them in the binder in their proper places.

  There are little pockets on the inside of the binder and I use the front one for recipes that we want to try, and the back one for recipes that we tried and loved (and that I have to type up and put into the binder).

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  Once my binder was organized, I went through my very small collection of cookbooks.

  

  I hardly ever use cookbooks, so I only kept the ones that had recipes I still really wanted to try in them. Once I try all the recipes that I want, I will get rid of the cookbooks (since the recipe would be typed up and put into my recipe binder).

  I ended up getting rid of 6 books.

  

  I kept 7 and they sit in the center of our hutch in the dining room.

  

  My recipe binder sits on top of the fridge in our kitchen and it’s so much easier to find recipes now.

  I find that making dinner takes less time because my recipes are right there in front of me – I don’t have to scramble to find the one that I want right before it’s time to cook.

  Did you de-clutter your recipes this week? If so, please share your results!

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  Stop by tomorrow to get ready for the De-Clutter Your Home challenge #4!

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  More from this series:
  - De-Clutter Your Toys (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Books (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Recipes (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter A Cabinet (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Coupons (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Email

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• De-Clutter Your Home: Week Three (Recipes)

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  I hope you all are enjoying the De-Clutter Your Home series. We’ve de-cluttered our toys and de-cluttered our books. It’s now week three and this time we are going to de-clutter our recipes.

  This includes:
  - Cookbooks
  - Magazine Clippings
  - Recipe Binders
  - Online Recipes

  For us, we have a recipe binder and a few cookbooks. Oh right, and about 100 recipes in my favourites folder online.

  I’m often left scrambling to find a particular recipe come dinner time, and I’m fed up! It’s time to get our recipes organized once and for all.

  Decide how you want to access your recipes. Do you want to have all of your recipes in one big binder? Would you prefer to have all of your recipes hosted online (AllRecipes.com is a good website for that)? Perhaps you want to have a binder AND keep your favourite cookbooks as well. Decide which route you want to go and stick with it. View your online recipes. If you have a bunch of recipes online that you want to try (or that you have already tried), go through them all right now and delete the ones you will never make. Be realistic about what you are going to keep. Personally, I’ve kept this one onion rings recipe on my computer for over 2 years and Richard and I don’t really even like onions. So why am I saving it? Time to delete that one. If I do ever decide to make onion rings one day, I’m sure I can find that recipe again. Once you have removed all of the recipes that you know you will not make, either print them all for your binder, or add them to your ‘recipe box’ on AllRecipes.com. If you want to keep your recipes online, you can also bookmark your favourites – but organize them! Separate breads from salads, poultry from beef, etc. by using folders. For example: Recipes>Poultry>Spicy Chicken Wings Recipes>Desserts>Crepe Cake With Strawberries & Blueberries Recipes>Pasta>2 Cheese Penne Pasta Review your cookbooks. Look through all of your cookbooks and make note of the recipes you enjoy. Write down the recipe name, cookbook name and the page number that the recipe can be found on. If you plan to have a recipe binder, I suggest having a page right before each category (an index page), and on that page you would list your favourite cookbook recipes. I saw this on Jen’s website and thought it was a marvelous idea. Doing this ensures that instead of flipping through a bunch of cookbooks, trying to find that one fantastic recipe, you just look for it in your recipe binder (where everything is organized). Now, if you don’t want to have a recipe binder, you can still make note of your favourite recipes found in cookbooks and keep that sheet of paper wherever you store your cookbooks. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - - Get rid of cookbooks that no longer have recipes that interest you, and store the ones you do love in a place that is easily accessible (preferably in the kitchen). Keep your cookbooks off of your kitchen counters, as they can be splashed with food or liquids and be damaged. Since our kitchen is tiny, we keep our cookbooks in the hutch in our dining room. It’s right beside the kitchen, so I don’t have to trek too far to get a recipe. Organize your recipe binder. If you cook quite a bit, I would definitely suggest putting together a recipe binder. It’s very handy to have all of your recipes in one spot that you can bring with you from room to room (the office when you print off new recipes, the living room when you make your weekly meal plan, the kitchen when you cook…). Divide your cookbook into many sections, so that you can find certain recipes easily. You can find page dividers at any home office or discount department store. Here are a few category suggestions: - Breads - Soups & Salads - Pasta - Poultry - Beef - Seafood - Desserts - Breakfast - Side Dishes It’s a good idea to keep all of your recipes in page protectors, so that the pages don’t get stuff splashed on them when you are cooking in the kitchen. Wipe off these page protectors every once in awhile with a damp cloth. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - - Keep your recipe book (as well as cookbooks) as close to the kitchen as possible, so that your recipes are easy to find when you it’s time to do some cooking!

  Next week I am going to show everyone how I did with de-cluttering our recipe collection, and will post the next de-cluttering challenge.

  If you de-clutter your recipes this week, please post in the comments and let everyone know how and what you did.

  More from this series: De-Clutter Your Home

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• De-Clutter Your Home: Challenge #2 Complete (De-Clutter Your Books)

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  Another week has come and gone. Did you get your books organized? Last week we de-cluttered the toys that (I’m sure) were taking over our homes and this week was all about getting of our books organized (not including children’s books or cookbooks).

  Did you join in on this De-Clutter Your Home challenge? If so, please post in the comments. I’d love to hear how everyone did this week!

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  Our book collection is embarassingly small, but I’m an anti-clutter freak and always get rid of things if they are just taking up space in our home. I will only keep books that I know we will read again (of if they look vintage and cool, and I can use them for decoration).

  This is the pile of books that we started with:

  

  Not too large of a pile, but not very small either!

  Over half of the books were Richard’s, so he helped me to go through everything and decide what we were and were not going to keep.

  After about 20 minutes, we had a pretty good amount of books to be donated (23-25):

  

  Richard took the books down to the basement and put them in our “to donate” section (which is overflowing, by the way – we need to get over to the thrift store ASAP!) and I cleaned up the bookshelf.

  Man, those things get dusty pretty fast!

  I also wiped down the covers of the books with a damp cloth.

  Once the shelf and books were clean and dust-free, I put all of our “keep” books back.

  This is our current book collection:

  

  We went from about 75 books, down to around 50 (some of them are not on this shelf).

  I’m so proud of us! That’s less stuff that I have to worry about keeping clean around here.

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  Since we don’t really have a huge collection of books, I decided to organize them by height (and I also separated my books from Richard’s, since they are so different).

  

  The very bottom shelf has a container with my camera stuff inside. That thing is huge and takes up too much room on my desk, so I gave up some space on the bookshelf to house all of this equipment (camera, flash, extra lens, etc.).

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  This entire De-Clutter Your Home challenge probably only took about an hour, start to finish. Organizing your books is something everyone should do from time to time, getting rid of books that serve no purpose to you anymore. If you aren’t ever going to read it again – give it away to someone who will.

  Did you organize your books this week? If so, please share your results!

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  Stop by tomorrow to get ready for the De-Clutter Your Home challenge #3!

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  More from this series:
  - De-Clutter Your Toys (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Books (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Recipes (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter A Cabinet (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Coupons (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Email

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• De-Clutter Your Home: Week Two (Books)

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  We’re on to week two of our De-Clutter Your Home series, and this week we are going to tackle our collection of books.

  I really do enjoy having lots of books around me, even if I’m not reading them. What can I say, they make me look smart! I do, however, realize that it is definitely not necessary to keep every single book I bring home.

  I haven’t been able to get rid of many books lately (mainly due to laziness – hey, I’m honest!) and it’s time to clean up this house and get rid of all those books that just sit there and collect dust.

  Gather all books in one location. Go through your entire house and find all of the books that you own and bring them to one spot. This includes, but is not limited to: - Novels - Reference Books - Children’s Books - Magazines - Textbooks - Comic Books This does NOT include cookbooks. We will be tackling those next week. Don’t forget any books that you may have stored somewhere, or books that are in the car for travelling. All books need to be in one central location so that you can go through them all at the same time. Keep, Sell/Donate or Toss. I know that getting rid of books can be difficult for some people. It can be so easy to get attached something that you will never use again. I have heard so many excuses for not getting rid of things (not just books). It was a gift from someone special. It was expensive. I might need it someday. When sorting through your books, remember that if the book wil never be enjoyed again, there is no sense hanging on to it. - If it was a gift from someone special, take a picture of it, and hold on to that instead. - If it was expensive, get over it. - If you think you might use it someday, you’re probably wrong.. and if you aren’t, you can always go to the library to check that book out. I always give myself 5 seconds to decide which pile the book is going into. Once it’s in my hands, I have to quickly decide if I want to keep, toss or sell (or donate). Display your books so you can enjoy them. When you are finished sorting through your books, separating them into respective piles (keep, toss, sell/donate), it’s now time to put them away. Wipe off your books with a damp cloth and put them on a bookshelf somewhere that they will be seen and enjoyed. If you tuck your books under your bed, in a closet, or packed away in boxes, it’s likely that you will never see them (and therefore, never read them). Display your books! Show them off! Read them! Here are some ways to display your book collection: - Colour Coding - Tallest To Shortest - Shortest To Tallest - By Category (Magazines, Novels, Reference, etc.) If you have lots of books, you can also make some labels for your shelves. That way, everyone in the house knows where to put their books away.

  Next week I am going to show everyone how I did with de-cluttering our book collection, and will post the next de-cluttering challenge.

  If you de-clutter your books this week, please post in the comments and let everyone know how and what you did.

  More from this series:
  - De-Clutter Your Toys (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Books (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Recipes (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter A Cabinet (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Coupons (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Email

  credit: photo 1, photo 2, photo 3
  

  More from this series: De-Clutter Your Home

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• De-Clutter Your Home: Challenge #1 Complete (De-Clutter Your Toys)

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  So, how did your week of organizing go? Did you get all those toys tidied up?

  It took me a few hours, but I finally got down and dirty with all of the toys that Elliott had.

  Take a look at the overflowing storage bins:

  

  I know it doesn’t look too bad, everything is off the floor, so that’s good – but those baskets… they were driving me absolutely bonkers! I’m a bit OCD when it comes to organizing and I like everything to have a place. Seeing those toys all mixed together gave me a headache, so I had to do something about it.

  This is what his cube storage shelf looked like:

  

  Again, not too bad, but I felt like I was wasting the space. I just crammed stuff in there to get it off the floor. If you had asked me to go in there to find a particular item, it would probably take me awhile to find it.

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  I was ruthless when it came time to say goodbye to things. If it was something that Elliott didn’t play with very much, or something that we didn’t like, or feel was needed – out it went.

  Here’s the pile of stuff that is going to be sold and donated (not including a massive pile of books that were hidden in his closet and not found until 2 days later):

  

  There was only a small amount of trash.

  

  Poor Kermit.

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  I also set aside a bunch of toys that Elliott no longer plays with, but I still love. We are saving these for when baby #2 comes along (not any time soon!). That little piano is one of my favourite toys!

  

  Here’s what his little cube shelf looks like now:

  

  Nice and organized. The toys that aren’t played with often, but he still likes, go up at the top. When he wants to play with them he will start to whine and point. Haha. The books are on the bottom for easy access. My little man loves reading now. It’s way too adorable to see him sitting there with a book open, speaking jibberish.

  His storage bins now look like this:

  

  Ahhhh, that’s better. My label maker saves the day!

  I separated all his toys and put labels on them. Now when we are cleaning up, we know where things go. The only thing that Elliott actually putsin the right spot is the foam letters. And look – we have room to grow! 3 bins at the top are empty. It’s lovely. His birthday is coming up, and he always seems to get a pile of toys as gifts, so now we have some place to put them when they arrive.

  Here’s a close-up of the bins:

  

  Am I the only person that gets extra excited when they see labels on bins… even if they aren’t straight? Ha!

  Did you organize your toy collection this week? If so, please share your results!

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  Stop by tomorrow to get ready for the De-Clutter Your Home challenge #2!

  More from this series:
  - De-Clutter Your Toys (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Books (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Recipes (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter A Cabinet (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Coupons (Challenge Complete)
  - De-Clutter Your Email

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