How are you getting on with this challenge?
On 1 March, Lent started and so did our 40 bags in 40 days challenge. For the 40 days of Lent, you’d declutter one shelf, drawer or other area in your home per day. You don’t think it’s possible?! I challenge you! You can do it!
You don’t have to fill the big 95 litre bags each day (good if you can!!). You can count your progress also in smaller bags. Personally, I love to take before and after pictures. A client keeps a one of these pictures on her fridge. It serves her as a constant reminder of what she never wants to experience again – living in a cluttered home.
Are you lacking ideas of areas or items to declutter? You can find plenty of inspirations on our Pinterest site. Check out our suggestions for you!
- Expired food
- Rusty cutlery
- Chipped mugs and glasses (you don’t need to cut your lip or worse, swallow a bit of glass)
- Dishes you never use
- Old take out menus
- Plastic bags too small to be reused as a rubbish bag
- Clothes that you no longer wear
- Earrings without their matching buddy
- Shoes without their partner
- Bras that no longer support you
- Wire hangers
- Dried up nail polish
- Expired cream make up (normally after 6-12 months)
- Your toothbrush (unless you replace yours every 3 months)
- Toys you or your kids no longer play with
- Stuffed animals that spent the last few years in the basement or on the attack
- Old magazines
- Duplicate books
- Incomplete puzzles or games
- Dried up glue sticks
- The bits and pieces from previous art projects which, no matter how good your intentions are, you won’t use in another project
- Wrapping paper scraps
- Expired warranties or warranties to items you no longer have
- Batteries with the rust and gooey stuff at the top
- Chargers for electronics you no longer have
- Cassettes or videos if you can’t even play them
- Floppy disks
- Blurred pictures
- Pens that don’t write
- Staplers that don’t staple
- Hole punchers that don’t punch, now this is German humour at its best 🙂
- Receipts past their record retention dates
- Training notes from a course long time ago
- Jam jars, especially if you don’t make jam or use them otherwise
- Expired medicine
- Dried up paint
- Keys to doors from previous homes
- Water hoses with holes
- Old flower and vegetable seeds
- Most of what’s in your garage and/or attic! You don’t even know what’s there!
You’d be surprised how much of this list you have at home. The biggest shock for me was to see the amount of old food I have – despite cleaning my fridge on a regular basis! It’s like a little fridge monster creeps up overnight. Well, now, there’s hardly anything in the fridge and I’m back to going to the shops almost daily. It’s a great way to get my 10,000 steps in per day and to ensure my food is fresh.
But over to you! I’d love to see your before and after pictures for your 40 bags in 40 days challenge. Send us the one that made you proud and tell us why!
Looking forward to sharing your success with the other readers of Organised Life and Mind!
Until next time,
Agni