I’m not quite sure why I have left the task of ‘clearing behind doors’ for so long. The one I wanted to focus on today was the bookshelf in the spare room. As my husband is working in there at the moment, I said to him that I would wait until he had finished work for the day and then sort it out. His reply was ‘oh, apart from a couple of files, it can all go into the bin can’t it?’

I think he was trying to help but I couldn’t even answer. I was horrified and wouldn’t even entertain the thought of opening a black sack and throwing it all in. This is why I find it difficult to delegate decluttering!

Mini project plan

I create project plans all the time for work projects, but don’t do it for home stuff. I thought about how many jobs like the bookshelf one that I still have to do around house this year. I also want to start tracking the maintenance jobs I’ve been getting quotes on.

I mentioned it to my friend at work and she told me about this app called Trello that she’s heard is good at tracking projects. I realised that I had already downloaded it earlier in the year, so decided to give it a go.

Here’s the bookshelf behind the door and the list of steps for today…

Here’s a bit more details on what I did with the items…

The books: The best place for these was the garage where I put the large bookshelf last weekend.

The large files: Two of these files were empty and I’ve added the rest of the files to the ‘paperwork’ category stack in the spare room ready to do a mass sort one weekend. I do love it when everything is in one place. It makes me feel like I’m getting somewhere.

The CDs: I need to work out what I’m doing with CDs. They are currently in three places: in this bookshelf, in another rack in this room, and in the garage. Again, it’s best that they are all in one place until I have time to go through them.

The DS Games: I have no idea if the girls even want these or will ever use their old DS consoles again. I’ll store them with the CDs for now.

So, to summarise, all items have a place or can be donated, the bin is definitely not one of the options for any of it.

Then I gave everything a clean…

Here’s the end result of the view behind the door. I felt really pleased with myself as I ticked everything off and it didn’t take very long. Today wasn’t about decluttering, it was more about clearing at categorising ready for the sorting another day.

It’s been a bit of a calmer day today. The roller coaster I was on yesterday felt like it had slowed down a bit and I even managed to grab a quick nap this afternoon. My husband cooked me a lovely dinner as well.

Bath time now for a bit of self-care.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra