Survey #251—Full Response from Kit
| Pronouns | They/them |
|---|---|
| Describe a category of stuff, an area of your home, or an organizing or decluttering project or task that you’ve found particularly challenging. | The garage is our last big challenge. Labeled boxes on shelves call to be gone through carefully, as they're mostly heirlooms / keepsakes and actively-used seasonal items. So this is time-consuming. I'm trying to go through at least 1 box each week this year, and I think I'm nearly on pace. I'm also decluttering each season as I pull things out and pack them away. Tools and cycling gear have an assigned zone against 1 wall, but they don't all fit there. The center of the space is a pile of recycling to be hauled away, large items to be taken to the dump and furniture to be donated, off-season car tires, donate boxes that I'm slowly filling and hauling away, and overflow yard tools. We plan to rent a truck to haul the large items and furniture away, sometime after we quit have frequent rain. Spouse will at some point in the next couple of months return to taking time off work to make recycling runs, too. I figure that my primary goal is to clear shelves of heirlooms and keepsakes to make room for tools. We've already agreed on a basic plan for zones; it's just a matter of taking the time and effort to complete the work. As we're also heading into yard work season, it'll be a challenging balancing act. |
| What advice might you give your younger self to help reduce or avoid the challenge you described in the previous question? | You can keep anything, but you can't keep everything. Even if it's useful or sentimental, it has to fit functionally in its space, or you'll never be able to keep it under control. |
| Describe a category of stuff, an area of your home, or an organizing or decluttering project or task that you’ve found satisfying or enjoyable to work on. | Books! We used to have thousands of books in double rows plus horizontally on top of the rows, plus on top of the bookcases, plus boxed up elsewhere – and it was emotionally exhausting. When Daughter moved back in, she and I decluttered at least 5 large bookcases, designating the ones in the public rooms for science fiction and fantasy only. Then we decluttered those categories, too. I donated hundreds of books to Little Free Libraries over the course of a year, and hundreds more to thrift stores. Spouse rescued many books for his own 3 bookcases, which are now overflowing. And we have heavy-duty bins with gaskets in the garage filled with heirloom / keepsake / antique books that we'll need to go through again. However, Spouse has often said that he loves the peaceful feeling of the clean, orderly bookcases in the livingroom. I think that's one of the things motivating him to declutter his non-book possessions.  |
| What feelings or emotions do you associate with your answer to the first question (The Challenge)? What feelings or emotions do you associate with your answer to the third question (The Good Stuff)? | Regarding the garage, I feel overwhelmed but still armed with a plan and determination. Regarding the books, I feel pleased and accomplished, but still not nearly done. |
| Future topics | Book Club - Cassandra Aarssen: The Clutter Connection: How Your Personality Type Determines Why You Organize the Way You Do After I declutter, I use Cas's principles to organize papers, clothes, my AuDHD daughter's room, our front closet and bathrooms, and most importantly the kitchen! Learning different ways to organize for visual vs hidden people and broad (or low-bandwidth) vs detailed people in our family has made our home amazingly more functional. |
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