Uncluttered: Week 3 – Easy (Take 2)

Posted onAuthorJoyce Moy

This week, we’re finally jumping into some more focused decluttering. We’re zeroing in on some items we have been considering but were not ready to declutter before. This third week is for working through vehicles and living areas. In case anyone is new to this series, these are my thoughts and reflections as I work through a decluttering course. (Read the Note about this blog series in the Week 1 post.)

What are common obstacles to keeping your vehicles and living areas uncluttered?

The Short Answer

We don’t have a problem with keeping our vehicle uncluttered. The common obstacles to keeping our living areas uncluttered are that we do a lot of living in them.

Vehicle

When I started this post, we had two vehicles for the first time since we got married. After 15 years and lots of recent maintenance on the one and only car we’ve had since the 15-year-old was a 1-month-old, we decided to get a new car. And another milestone was hitting 100,000 miles on it last week after my cousin’s wedding. Because we were getting ready to go back to one vehicle after a few weeks, it was easy to get the task of decluttering the car done. The trash is almost always taken out of the car when we go back into the house and there’s not much else in there. The two umbrellas are never used so they will also be re-considered.

Living Room

The living room, on the other hand, is a little busy. The front door area is where we hold many items that are waiting to leave our house via pick-ups from the buy/sell group I host or the Buy Nothing group. It’s also where we play music together when we have a moment. Because we don’t have extra room for storage, we also have random stuff like extra chairs for when guests are over, as well as, holiday stuff in a box. And we haven’t found a good place for old photo albums.

Family Room

The family room is actually the dining room. It was always an open space so that when little visitors come, they can run around and have space to play. It’s not a good setup in here. A relative’s relative who was moving gifted us a living room set. So the couch from my parents is an extra one. Since we’re a homeschool-ish, work-from-home-ish type of family, we also have two desks and a table which we use as a collaborative workspace. It’s also where we do puzzles during breaks and play games when we have some time. Both rooms are rather clear if you’re talking about having open space, but there are definitely lots of items that we can declutter or need to move elsewhere for function.

Reflection

I worked on everything that I had planned for this month. There were a few days I didn’t want to get it done but did it anyway. I was not feeling well for two days so I missed completing the tasks. That’s why I build in a catch-up day and a rest/plan day to make sure the tasks can still get done. I look forward to moving onto the cleaning phase of our home maintenance, so I knew all the tasks were broken down to be completed within 10-15 minutes, and I was happy to check things off.

I didn’t work on other people’s stuff (mostly) so their stacks are still taking up space. We eventually want to have a dining room but for now, it’s a quasi-office/gathering space. 😛 All the walls will also eventually be painted. We didn’t have time or money to change anything when we first moved in 15.5 years ago.

Remember, you don’t have to figure it all out at once or get the whole house done in a hurry. If it took you 5, 10, or 40 years to collect all the stuff in your home, it’s going to take more than one weekend to remove it. – Joshua Becker, Uncluttered course

One Last Thing

I’m sure there is more to declutter but for now, progress has been made.

What are some possible solutions to keeping your vehicles and living areas uncluttered?

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