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Decluttering Update

November 4th, 2008 at 02:29 am

It has been some time since I blogged about decluttering. You may remember that a few months ago I was on a mission to clean the house. I accomplished quite a bit but did eventually lose the motivation as other things took over my free time, particularly all the work we did getting ready for our daughter's Bat Mitzvah in September.

I decided even before that day that once that was past us and the synagogue retreat my wife and I run each year was over (it was last weekend), I was putting my wife and daughter on notice that it was time for ALL of us to seriously work on cleaning the house. I told them that I wanted ALL of us to start doing what I had been doing over the summer.

Every single day, each of us is to clean at least one thing. That might mean doing as little as throwing away an unneeded receipt sitting on your dresser or getting that pair of shoes that you wore last week out of the family room and back into your closet.

Of course, the hope is that most days each of us will do more than one thing. It has been a week so far and everyone is cooperating. My daughter gets annoyed when I ask if she has cleaned something each day, but she is doing it. My wife has been doing really well. I think knowing that all of us are working on it has helped motivate her.

I've certainly been doing my share. Friday I attacked a pile of stuff in the basement that has been there for ever and ever. My reason for going there was to gain access to the exam/manipulation table that was blocked by the stuff (I'm an osteopathic physician and wanted to be able to use the table to work on DW and DD's necks and backs). I threw out some stuff and put some stuff away in the storage closets and, for the first time in a few years, was actually able to use the table. In fact, it was the first time my daughter was ever on that table.

Today, I spent some time in the garage and cleared out a bunch of trash and packed the recycling bin full of boxes and papers.

I've also done a variety of things inside the house, on my desk, in the kitchen, etc.

I'm sure that if all of us keep at it, pretty soon this place will start looking a lot better.

5 Responses to “Decluttering Update”

  1. Jenna Says:
    1225768210

    Try flylady.net-- you'll be cleaned up and stya that way in no time

  2. thriftorama Says:
    1225770824

    I'm on a fall cleaning spree too. I want everything we don't absolutely love out of the house. It should mean a house full of empty closets...

  3. creditcardfree Says:
    1225771208

    Great job getting back in the swing of it. I hope to do some more around here before the end of the year...hopefully before the holidays get too hectic. Keep us posted!

  4. mbkonef Says:
    1225807693

    Ha! It made me laugh to hear about the exam table in your basement. My dad was a psychiatrist but before he went back to school for psychiatry, he had an office as a family practitioner for a few years. When he stopped doing that he no longer needed his exam table so it has been in my parents basement for 30+ years. My mom has always used it as a table to fold laundry on. Everyone in the family forgets that it was ever anything but a laundry table. Thanks for a memory. Glad hear you are making progress. If you ever run out of things to declutter, you can come over to my house - I've got plenty.

  5. disneysteve Says:
    1225827670

    mbkonef - Trust me, we will never run out of clutter around here.

    As for the exam table, what is really strange is that it wasn't originally mine. The people from whom we bought the house left it behind. Neither of them was a physician so I have no idea why they had it. It was just a coincidence that I actually was someone who had a use for it (other than folding laundry).

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