31 Days of Decluttering

Towards the end of last year, I was feeling rather overwhelmed and...well...claustrophobic. After adding a tiny human and all of his tiny human things to my average size house, by the end of the year I was all... "That's it! We're moving! I can't live here anymore!". In my defense, it felt like every time I turned around I was tripping/stepping on a toy, animal, or a person. And I was.

So when my sister (review: ex-sister-in-law but also BFF so for all intents and purposes, "sister") emailed me some blogs about organizing and decluttering, I ate them up. I liked this particular calendar for 31 days of decluttering from Simply Stacie.

It was only a couple days until January, so I went through my usual list of possible reasons why I shouldn't or couldn't actually do this. When none of them panned out, I half-heartedly committed to it. (Does anyone else do this, too? Or is it just me?) But over the next couple days I started planning how I was going to go about it, and then I started to get excited about. I decided to post it on my Facebook page and post regular updates on what I was decluttering, and invite people to do it along with me so I could have some accountability. While everyone else was heading to the gym, I was busting out my duster. My sister was doing it, too, so I roped her into posting some pictures as well, and as the month went on, a couple other friends joined in and posted some pictures. It was great to have the support and encouragement.

Day One ~ Christmas stuff

I have to say, Day One was probably the best result and the most satisfying. I managed to get 11 boxes of Christmas stuff down to 6. SIX! I know my future self will thank me come this Christmas. I shouldn't take all the credit though...as you can see, I had some help.

Some days on the calendar I had to modify: we only have one bathroom, we don't have a linen closet, I barely use makeup so I had nothing to clean out, etc. Instead of those things, I added things I wanted to get done, or gave myself an extra day on the garage or basement.

Day 3 ~ Panty

I loved the feeling of cleaning something out and then seeing it so clean and organized the next time I opened the door or drawer. It was refreshing.

Day 11 ~ Bathroom

By now you are wondering..."It's April...does any of this still look this way?" Well, yes and no. A lot of areas are still decluttered and some have gone right back.

Day 7 ~ Desk/Office Space (Or cabinets in our case)

I will admit that our "office" area looks just like the 'Before' picture again...but I hold on to the fact that the inside is still more organized and the trash was thrown out. Unfortunately, the part everyone sees is crazy messy with school papers and bills and whatnot. Meh.

If you want to see all the pictures I posted, you can see them on my Facebook page ~ Everything Evie. 

Come the end of January, this was what the calendar looked like. 

I didn't get every single day done. I mean, it was January and I don't have a heated garage so yeah...no thanks. As far as paperwork, toys, and computer storage...well, the latter just makes my head hurt. So. Many. Pictures. 

I did keep the calendar because I fully intend on completing it. I just can't say when exactly. 

I'd say the biggest take away I got from this experience was shock at the amount of trash and junk that came out of my house. The pile on the curb on trash day one week was just downright embarrassing. We live in a world of more, bigger, and better and it's so easy to get caught up in that. It was very eye-opening to really scrutinize whether we needed that item or not and I do feel much better after clearing out those unneeded items. Not a lesson I will soon forget. 

Needless to say, I got over my "We're moving" tantrum. I love my house and after decluttering and reorganizing some things, we fit in it quite nicely. I do still trip over the occasional toy, pet, or person, but at least now I can breath when I get up again.