De-Clutter Update

Tomorrow, a crew comes to put down the hard floor.  We're not doing carpet for a few more days.  Probably the biggest improvement in the house will be the de-junking we accomplished.

After clunking away at this a few days, a few insights came along:

1.  With Freecycle, no-shows are a real pain.  People say they are coming to get things, then don't.  I found that I have to set a deadline and then move to the next person.

2.  Most eliminated items should never have been allowed in our house in the first place.  The items accumulated because we thought we'd have time later to deal with them, and we never had the time.  For instance, we found a couple boxes of internal network cards.  John found such a good price on a whole group of cards (when he only needed one) that he bought the group and then never found a use for the rest.  I'm just as bad, having to give away a whole year of a magazine that I like very much because I never read them.  I figured 2009 had to go so I can try to read 2010.  I think I'll cancel that subscription.

3.  Dreaming aside, we're not going to get it all decluttered this go-around.  We will have accomplished a lot, but there is definitely more we can do, and must do, if we're going to downsize in retirement.  We need a strategy that involves continual decluttering of some kind so that the house gradually gets better instead of gradually getting worse!  What strategy might we adopt?  

4.  Now that I've spent a week of my precious "spare" time sorting through old junk, the reality bites about the direct trade-off between spending my time on "stuff" and spending my time on "people."  Friends of ours spend every Christmas holiday on a vacation instead of exchanging gifts.  Maybe that's the right idea!