Finding Colleen’s web site really was an eye-opener for me as I did feel overwhelmed by stuff at the time but didn’t really know where to start. I just moved in with my boyfriend and we both had lived in shared flats before, so we had a mixed jumble of furniture and household goods and got help and cast-offs from many relatives as well. So I was in that new apartment surrounded by lots of stuff that didn’t really match and didn’t really fit either. Moreover as he liked his stuff and I liked mine, of course we didn’t want to give away our own stuff but would have preferred the other’s to be sold, donated or trashed. You know how it’s always easier to point out other people’s trash, as you have no sentimental feelings about it and it might also not suit your taste as well as things chosen by you. As there was not much money to spend on this project and we both have a “no-waste”-mentality, so trashing wouldn’t have come easy anyway, I was so glad to find Colleen’s website and her slow-and-steady approach. From the first day, I stuck to it and it really wasn’t hard to find one thing a day to give away or recycle. I also tried to implement the “one place for everything”- strategy soon, which meant that we joined all our office supplies, tools etc. and started using them up instead of bringing new things in due to not knowing that we already owned something like that.

However over the time, mostly happily hauling small or big bags of stuff to the thrift store every other week, I hit frustration a couple of times. Even after months our apartment wasn’t near to a minimalistic state, we still own quite a lot which isn’t really necessary, just because we or one of us doesn’t want to let it go.

We didn’t drastically reduce our space or furniture and it still seems to be rather well filled. So I asked myself more than once: What did I do all this time? Is there progress at all?

Last september I took a few photos of parts of our apartment, namely shelving units etc.

Here you see our bookcase in the living room then and now. Can you spot the difference? (I can’t help that the after picture is darker, this is due to our winter weather)

Before and After

Oh yes, it is still full, but note that all that left this bookcase, left for good, while many other things that cluttered other parts of the apartment have found their way in: This suitcase (which holds our yarn stash and knitting needles) had no home before – it was somewhere underneath the sofa or somewhere else on the floor. Same goes for the basket which is now next to my sewing machine – it holds sewing/mending work in progress and was underneath the sofa as well. Also, our bookcase now holds the wrapping paper, my clarinet and three unused canvases that had no real home either.

Mostly books and CDs have been decluttered, but also a few other things, like two vases that went to the thrift store, the little black laquer tray I gave to a friend or the pin cushion which now fits in my sewing kit.

So, yes, although we still have a full bookcase, although there are still many purely sentimental items in it, I can spot a difference in the before and after photos and I know that this means one less moving box for books, which shows to me that I am, after all, making progress, as slow as it may be.

Since Sanna first sent me this post she has decluttered even more. Proof that, over time, one is prepared to relinquish more and more items that once they thought they never would. A job well done I’d say. Below is a very current photo of the decluttered shelves and below that a collage of the Before After and Now shots just so you can compare the difference. As Sanna said when she sent me the new photo this week….

“I just looked at the “before” picture myself for the first time in a couple of months. Wow. I’m amazed by the difference! Taking pictures really does help to see the progress. I wouldn’t have remembered how cluttered it was.”

The shelving unit now

Before                                                                                   After                                                                              Now

Today’s Mini Missions

 Last but not least I am once again going to harp on about those tchotchkes collecting dust around the home. They have to be cleaned, they have to be housed and they take up valuable space that could be used for something useful. I am not saying get rid of them all, I certainly won’t be. Just do yourself a favour and lighten your space and your work load. Declutter a few more this week.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

I am sure you all know what it is like. You buy one electronic gadget and then it dies or becomes out of date. A new one takes it’s place but all those cables look so useful and you never know, you might need them some day. Before you know it there is more than one drawer or box in your home that looks like a snake pit. Of couse these snakes (cables) are all in hibernation just waiting for the right time to imerge into life.

Photo credit Offbeat Earth

Well, guess what? 99% of the time you will never use them again. My husband decided to take the chance that this is right and did the big cable round up in our house. and here is the result.

The round up in progress

The cables that got the chop and were sent to the thrift store.

Cindy's Laundry Cabinet "BEFORE"

Yikes! It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? But really, the cabinet needed a tidy even more than it needed a declutter. Here’s what I did:

• removed two towels, which I mentioned in my post The First Fruits
• removed the package of sponges, which I donated to local food pantry
• transferred the Socks Looking For Their One True Love from the crumpled bag on the top shelf into a plastic bin. (Freed up from other decluttering, of course!)
• took down the cardboard box on the top shelf, which has light bulbs in it. I cleaned out the box itself and removed 9 light bulbs (one of which I used right away) and 7 packages of mantles for a gas outdoor lamp, which we no longer have.
• refolded the towels and sorted them by rag bath towels and rag hand towels

All together, I spent 30 minutes, including changing the light bulb, matching a couple of socks, breaking down some packaging for recycling, and posting a free listing on my neighborhood listserve for the mantles, which quickly found a new home. (It used to be that everyone in the neighborhood had a gas lamp on a pole in their front yard, but many of them have been removed over the past 45 years.)

The AFTER shot

The Dreaded Office Project

A guest post by Andréia

My home office is also my working office as I work from home. But I don’t work for a company, I work independently and my clients come to my office to talk and to hire me. Some time back I began to notice my office was always a mess, I started to find it necessary to begin my client sessions with an apology saying: “Sorry about the mess, I am doing a cleanup…” But that was a lie! I was not doing a cleanup I was trying desperately to keep my office under control.

I felt bad that my clients’ first impression was not of me or my words, or how well I could or would do the job, but of my disgusting messy office. This is not a good way to present myself or my business and things had to change. Then, in October 2010 I decided I have had it with this place. The desk, which is very long (about 2 meters = 6.5 feet) and wide (about 1 meter = 3.2 feet) was FULLY PACKED WITH STUFF!

I had piles of paper, folders piled high, hanging files, lose papers, stationary, magazines, you name it. Most of it it belonged in the office, some of it needed filing some of it needed to be placed somewhere orderly to be dealt with, none of it should be lying disorganised all over my desk. Well, it was a whole lot worse than the before pictures I have included here show, believe me.

Before Photo 1

Before Photo 2

Before Photo 3

So when I started to declutter the office my first thoughts were: It is hopeless! I will ever keep it clean, it will just get messy all over again…But I had to give it a try. So I got all my dead files from their hiding place and put them on the desk. I would scan it all. I had more than 6.000 (yes, you read right it is SIX THOUSAND) individual papers to deal with. The first folder I scanned I kept its contents in the desk until I had a backup copy and a CD copy and I kept at it. By the end of my first 700MB disc I started throwing paper away. Oh, what a liberation! All those papers that had been occupying folders and space in my house were gone.That first good feeling pushed me forward, but as my scanner is not exactly state of the art, the work was long and tedious. It would take me five to six hours every day to scan 100, 200 pages of archives. Then I had to transfer it to the proper folder in the computer, name it, and finally back it up in a CD.

Every night I sat in my computer and kept at it. My work was getting behind because I could not concentrate in doing anything with all that mess I had to sort out. By January my progress had slowed considerably because my computer was overloaded, had a tilt and had to be fixed. I couldn’t work and couldn’t declutter. I spent a few days in full stop. Then, by the end of January I finished with all the old files. But I still had the new clients, files and things to file away properly. I had a hectic couple of weeks in the beginning of February, and by middle February I was sick. So nothing got done for a whole of three weeks or more.

Then March arrived and I was determined to finish the cleaning of the office but was tired and unmotivated. So I took on some other projects around the house, and kept stalling finishing cleaning my desk. Finally, after reading Colleen’s post on April 14, as you can check out for yourself here, I asked for help. Colleen put the fear of her Jedi powers into me and I gave myself a deadline. I would post the before and after pictures to her the following Friday. On April 21, just before Easter I finished cleaning my office. The desk was cleared out and everything had a proper place.

The yellow box on the desk is now an inbox, where I keep stuff that has to be sorted out during the week. This system has been working for an entire month, as I continue to work, paper has come in and it has not been thrown on the desk without a proper place. I have not misplaced a single sheet of paper. They are all in their designated files, and when I have to work or find something, I take the file out do what I have to do and put it back again in its proper place. As a paper comes in I place it in the inbox, and at any given ten minutes I organize, put away and do whatever has to be done with that paper, and clear the inbox.

I am very proud to say I have been using my office normally, I have been working, and the office is pristine clean as it was the day I took the after pictures. A clean surface has inspired me to keep my deadlines under very strict care, and they have been accomplished more easily, as I know exactly where everything is. I can find any file in two minutes, give or take 30 seconds. I can find stationary, office supplies just opening a little box or a drawer that is in order. My staplers, which were always under something before and never in sight, are now, neatly beside my box of supplies. To keep control of stray paper I verify if I need to keep the original or just a digital copy will do. Originals have to be stored in specific folders (usually the one I have opened for that client), until I give them back to the clients. Copies are scanned and the paper shredded and recycled on a regular basis. So, there is no danger of being swallowed by paper again. It feels good to come into this office, I feel at peace working in it and I am sure the image I portray to my clients is a far more professional one.

After Photo 1

After Photo 2

After Photo 3

Well done Andréia, what a huge improvement.

The following pictures are before and after shots of my living room that once again show that even in an uncluttered room things can end up out of place. Can you spot the 12 differences between the two photos

If you want to see a the solution to this SPOT THE DIFFERENCE puzzle here is a link

Saturday is fast becoming a confession day for Cindy but if she is willing to keep sending me these pictures who am I to not use them.  I am quite willing to take anyone else’s confession if you are willing to send me your before and after shots. I promise I will be kind and not allot too much in the way on penance, maybe a couple of extra mini missions.

The before shot of Cindy’s desk

Putting things away when you are finished using them is not always easy to do when you have two children and a husband to care for and a part time job. At some point though the mess will catch up with you and instead of a couple of extra seconds here and there you find yourself with a twenty minute clean up task to deal with.

Cindy wrote – It had been looking this bad for at least a week, but I was shocked when I looked at the before photo. As we’ve discussed before, if you have trouble “seeing” your clutter, a photo will certainly bring things into focus for you. The great thing about this cleaning was, because almost everything on my desk actually has a home I was able to declutter two items, re-homed seven things, put a half dozen papers in the recycling bin, and dust my desk all in twenty minutes.

The after shot of Cindy’s desk

Quite an improvement don’t you think and only twenty minutes of effort. Good job Cindy!

Cindy you are a trooper. Thank you again for your before and after shots they are an inspiration to those who have given up hope of ever having a tidy home.

You are probably starting to think that I am very secretive about my own clutter but I have been up front from the beginning that my clutter is mostly hidden clutter and for the duration of married life I have always been a bit of a neat freak. I have added photos of both my husbands desk and mine for reasons of transparency. My husband’s desk is almost as usual clutter free except for that roller-blind that fell down some months ago that requires the ladder to replace and we just haven’t gotten around to it. While my desk has a project in progress but my white board could do with a bit of a declutter. Like Cindy said things look a lot worse when you see them through the lens of a camera.

Steve’s Desk                     My craft desk