This time on Declutter Monday, I tackled the hall closet, the cat room, and my jewelry box. We were supposed to do the Master Bathroom, but we didn’t because of reasons (life). I’ll try to get that done for next week.
Thought 1: Round 2 of any declutter seems to fall into one of two categories: really hard or really easy. Hard, because you’ve already done the easy decluttering. All that’s left is the hard stuff—high quality, sentimental, unique. Easy, because you’ve already done all the hard work. What’s left is a bit of organization—now that you have space and a new eye.
Thought 2: My jewelry box fell into the hard category. I had already gotten rid of the trash, the mis-matched, the tarnished, the stuff not worth saving. I was down to good stuff I had a hard time donating. Suddenly I understood some of that need to pass it (whatever it is) on to family and friends. However, one of my sisters-in-law whom I recently re-met has almost exactly the same taste as me and is more than happy to take my good jewelry off my hands. That made the task of sorting, keeping, purging, and packaging it up so much easier.
Thought 3: The hall closet fell into the easy category. It had already been worked to death. All it needed was a bit more organization. I got to move some stuff out of the cat room now the closet had space. A place for all things. That’s the nice bit about the closet. I know what is on each shelf.
Thought 4: When decluttering a place like the cat room where you don’t want to have to dig the cat(s) out of the closet, there are some steps you need to take. Step 1 is to close the room door before you get into the closet. Step 2 is to make sure there isn’t a cat already in the cat room, hiding. Steps 3 and 4 is to close the closet door before the cat gets in and remove the cat. Then you can get down to the looking, staring, and organizing.
Thought 5: The cat room was easy. Mostly because I avoided the “office/convention” shelves. All of them have been cleaned up but not perfectly organized. Since I’m about to destroy it by going to Gen Con in a couple of weeks, I decided I would do the official clean and declutter of that one bit of the room in August after we got back.
Thought 6: In truth, I think the hardest thing to declutter was my jewelry box—made easier by knowing who those pretties were going to. Yesterday’s Declutter Monday focused on areas that have been cleaned and organized and not actively used in a general sense. They are not “lived in” areas. So, there wasn’t much to do. Mostly, after a bit of thought, clean and straighten.
Next week will be a different story. Sunday will be the Master Bathroom with help from the Husband (unless life) and Monday will be my office. I’m really not looking forward to my office. All that’s left is the hard stuff to think about. We’ve already bought me a new shredder in anticipation. My last one died a horrible death yesterday. Then again, it was twelve years old.
