Tag: declutter

How to Beat Cabin Fever

Posted on by Jordank

In the wake of last weekend’s winter storm, temperatures dropped across the country, leaving many people confined to their homes or at least reluctant to go out. Homes today have numerous entertainments, of course, but cabin fever — that restless feeling that comes with being stuck at home — is a real challenge in wintertime.

Children get especially squirrely when daily activities are limited by deep drifts and icy temperatures. Keep them busy by having them help bake cookies, make homemade Play-doh or build an indoor fort, The Budget Diet suggests, or try to help them embrace the weather by going on a nature walk or sledding trip.

Avoid binging on television and food if you want to beat cabin fever, WikiHow says — such overindulgences can actually make you feel more listless and hopeless. Instead, get plenty of vitamin D through sunlight and healthy foods, engage your mind with a good book or puzzle, and clean your home to make it more comfortable.

Host a dinner, cocktail party or game night if you want to socialize without traveling far, LifeHacker suggests. “Make people trudge through the snow to you. Put on a pot of stew, bake some bread, and break out the whiskey. How do you think people in cold climates stay social?”

You can also take advantage of the downtime to plan for the parts of the year you won’t be stuck inside, WiseBread says. Check out destinations for your summer road trip online or plan your summer garden. Better still, volunteer some of your extra time to help people facing worse problems than boredom.

One of the best things to do to keep cabin fever at bay while making that “cabin” a better place to live is #declutter, says MakeSpace.com. A cluttered home is a cramped home, “so spend the next big snow day cleaning and organizing,” the site says. It will make your space more livable and enjoyable, even while you’re stuck there due to the weather.

When you’re done decluttering, pack up any still-useful clothing and household items and contact ClothingDonations.org for a pickup. You won’t have to lift a finger — we’ll come to you, navigating the slushy streets to get your donations before reselling them to local thrift stores and using the proceeds to fund veterans programs.

That act of charity alone should make you feel somewhat better about being stuck indoors. Stay warm!

Keeping the Resolution to Declutter

Posted on by Jordank

The new year’s resolution to declutter may be harder to keep than the resolution to go on a diet, the Washington Post says. To succeed, make a list of goals and schedule specific projects. The individual components of your decluttering plan don’t have to be huge; just pick a closet, shelf or drawer to start and spend 30 minutes organizing it. Clearing a horizontal surface such as a kitchen countertop or shelf, for example, will show results right away and motivate you to do more. If you can dedicate a half-hour per day to decluttering, it will add up to more than four full-time workweeks over the year. Make 2019 happy and clutter-free!

Happy New Year from ClothingDonations.org!

Give the Gift of Decluttering

Posted on by Jordank

While we at the Organizing Blog often preach minimalism, we still maintain a childlike sense of anticipation about finding brightly wrapped gifts under the tree with our names on it — not to mention the many hours of “retail therapy” that go into giving a thoughtful gift.

But the many new things you’ll give and receive during the holidays do take up space, and when left haphazardly around the home, they become clutter. And when left unchecked, clutter not only crowds tabletops, hallways and closets, it can crowd the mind.

That’s why some of the best gifts are ones that organize all of the stuff in one’s busy life into spaces that make sense — or even cut down on what and how much of any category of thing one hangs onto. Treat decluttering as a gift, and you can show you really care.

This year, try giving things that maximize the space already available in one’s home. SimpleMost suggests 19 clever gifts, for example, that will help your giftees create more storage space in kids’ rooms, mud rooms, kitchens and closets.

Another excellent gift at year’s end is a daily, weekly or monthly calendar, planner or journal. You can’t magically make someone into a Type A, but having a place to write down and organize one’s appointments is a great start. Self offers a number of options.

Some of the best gifts are things that hold other things. Sorting small, like items into a designated place can help keep them from scattering around the house or getting lost. Pop Sugar has selected a bunch of bins, hooks, caddies, shelves and holders that can contain the clutter in style.

You can also give a gift that doesn’t add to the clutter whatsoever. Anything that can be used up is a great choice — homebaked cookies, a nice bottle of wine or a gift basket of gourmet charcuterie. Or you can gift an experience with theater tickets, dinner out at a local restaurant or a spa treatment.

If you get something for which you just can’t find a place, there’s no shame in getting rid of it. The goodwill won’t go unappreciated— even though whatever it is might get lost in a heap of surplus stuff. Quietly set whatever it is aside and include it in your donation to ClothingDonations.org so it can’t clutter your home.

Less clutter means less stress. And who doesn’t want that?!

Declutter and Donate Ahead of the Holidays

Posted on by Jordank

The holiday season is upon us, and every day, retailers provide us with new incentives to spend: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday. But those thoughtful gifts and doorbuster deals can take up lots of space in an already-cluttered home. That’s why you should do a pre-Christmas decluttering, knowing that new stuff is on the way.

If you have children, there will definitely be new toys coming into the home, and you probably have huge bins of old toys that have fallen out of favor or are no longer age-appropriate. Sort through them and get rid of anything broken or incomplete, The (Mostly) Simple Life suggests, and involve kids in the process. Set aside anything that’s useful, but unused.

As you decorate the home, edit out any decorations that no longer make the cut. Whether it’s burned-out string lights, cracked tree ornaments or dog-eared accents, trash anything that’s too worn to fulfill its function. If something is still functional, but you don’t like it or want to display it, set it aside in a “donate” pile.

This is also an excellent time to take stock of cold-weather clothing. If there are items you won’t be wearing due to changes in sizes or styles, set them aside. At the same time, you can sort, streamline and store your summer wardrobe. Was there anything that spent the entire summer in your drawers and closets? Get rid of it!

Put all of the still-usable castoff decorations, games, toys, sweaters, swimwear and other goods into boxes and bags, and visit ClothingDonations.org to schedule a pickup. If you do so quickly, many of your unique but unwanted items will be available to other shoppers for purchase ahead of Christmas — making their holidays happier.

When you give away the stuff you’re not using, it can find a new purpose with someone else who can really use it. They might actually want and enjoy that stuffed Santa or those old baby clothes. And when they purchase those disused items through a thrift store supplied by ClothingDonations.org, they will help fund veterans’ programs throughout the year.

An added bonus? After you’ve done a thorough, pre-holiday decluttering, you’ll know better what you and your family need to buy new — making holiday shopping and gifting easier. Better still, you’ll have reclaimed the space in your home you need to store it. Start decluttering today — Giving Tuesday — for a happy holiday season!

Use Your Extra Hour to Declutter

Posted on by Jordank

First proposed by Benjamin Franklin as a way for Parisians to save money on candles, daylight saving time became ingrained in American society as a way for farmers to make the most of longer days. In the 1970s, daylight time justified itself as a solution to trim energy usage. Today, those long summer nights are still coveted for leisure activities.

Daylight time comes to an end this weekend, so people in most of the nation (except for those in Arizona and Hawaii, which do not observe it) will turn their clocks back an hour on Sunday morning before dawn. And while it may be disheartening to see darkness fall before dinner, you can use that extra hour in your schedule.

Many Americans see the extra hour in the middle of the night as a bonus hour for sleep. However, few will actually take advantage of the extra hour of rest, the Harvard Health Blog says. Since most people’s bodies have become accustomed to rising at a particular hour, regardless of what the clock says, it will take several days to adjust.

If you’re up early, however, you can use the extra hour to do something you’ve been meaning to do anyway. Follow Simply Designing’s advice and do an hour of decluttering every day starting with the kitchen, and your home will be cleaner and more clutter-free in just seven days.

Be More With Less suggests getting rid of 100 things in a “decluttering burst” that lasts only an hour. Grab a box for donations and a bag for trash, set the timer, and eliminate 10 things from the junk drawer. Then move on systematically to the kitchen, car, closets, bedroom, and so on. When the bell rings, you’ll be amazed at how quickly the eliminated items have piled up!

Sound impossible? It isn’t. In every one of those rooms, there are products that have expired or failed to live up to their promise. “Just in case” items are the worst kind of clutter, the blog says, because “just in case means never.” Get rid of them, and you will be able to “stop living in fear of not having enough.”

Once you’ve used the extra hour that daylight time’s end has provided to get rid of a few things, contact ClothingDonations.org for a donation pickup; it’s another time-saver in your ongoing decluttering quest that helps veterans nationwide. Then, take solace in the fact that you’ll be spending five months of wintry darkness in a newly clutter-free home.