Day 10 and it’s time to get out of the house … and declutter the garage.
For years, my garage has been the dumping ground for everything. My business, my kids’ stuff, tools, craft projects, out of season clothes, out of season decorations, mid-project projects, suitcases, gardening supplies, games, puzzles, and the bike that never, ever gets ridden.
It Gets Better in your Garage
I’ll be honest with you: my garage is still a huge work in progress. The good news? There IS progress. When I went to go work on my 20 items today, I knew the corner I had to tackle: the “Camping Corner.”
Roger and I love to go day camping, so we keep a lot of supplies. But this corner has been overrun by one too many “dump and runs.” There were out of season clothes, decorations (apparently, I’m obsessed with giant fall pumpkins), wrapping paper, books, and the results of too many Costco runs. We’re good on toilet paper for the rest of our lives.
So, I gave myself an afternoon to go through the corner, get my 20 items, and make sense of all of the stuff.
I was done in 30 minutes.
Why did it take so little time? Because after all my flings in the past, there really wasn’t that much to declutter—it just needed to be put away properly.
I know that as a clutterer, I tend to be overwhelmed by projects and think they’re going to take more time than they actually do. Starting off with only 15 minutes is going to help you break things down and get them into doable chunks. You can do this!
Instructions
– Set up your three boxes/totes and two bags.
– Pick one area to work on. One shelf. One corner. Don’t get overwhelmed. Start sorting and revel in the space that you are reclaiming!
– Set a timer and go for it. 15 minutes usually can do it, but if you need to put another 15 minutes on the timer, go for it.
Bonus
Some bonus things you can do in the basement or garage:
- Label storage areas. Make a big sign so everyone in the family knows where things go.
- Boy, can my garage get dusty. If there are items you care about, dust them or store them in a storage box.
- Speaking of storage boxes, can you get rid of a few now that you’ve flung so much stuff?
Share Your Fling
After you fling, either tell us about it or share a picture in the comments. Remember, each day (at the end of the Fling) there will be one winner, randomly drawn from the comments, who will receive a copy of The Cure for the Perfect Life from Kathi Lipp and Cheri Gregory. So share below and tell us about your fling.
I can’t even get into my garage, it is sooo stuffed…but, perhaps, today, I will get out there, because that is where my painting rollers and other painting tools are…and wouldn’t you know it, they are buried halfway in there in a storage cabinet. ughhhh
The garage is where I’m storing all the items I’m flinging. Going to drop it all off next week.
No basement and the garage is hubby’s area for the most part, I would never try and decluttering his tools! But the pantry are I was able to organize and find a few things that needed to be tossed.
Wish I could send in a photo of my garage right now!
Work in progress is putting it mildly. My husband’s stuff abounds. VHS tapes, anyone? Why are we still keeping these? I don’t know either. Still, I tidied what I could and found some things to fling, and got bags ready for donation.
I flung three bags of junk from the guest bedroom today. Tomorrow is a new day….
I worked on my garage yesterday. My hubby took another truckload from the garage to goodwill today. I still have more to do in there, but he has torn it apart because he’s putting up drywall in there. So, instead I worked on flinging some papers from my weekly Review basket (that hasn’t been reviewed in a few months). Not done, but at least was able to recycle some and shred others! Oh, and I also threw away another item from my bathroom. Love making progress!
Love this “Starting off with only 15 minutes is going to help you break things down and get them into doable chunks.”
With this and focusing on 20 items has helped me accomplish eliminating 200 items during this process.
Thank you for encouraging taking the small steps and celebrating progress.
Awesome Marsha!
I unfornunately was so busy today that I did not get to fling anything today-life got in the way but am planning on working on the garage tommorrow.
Dnot have a garage or basement but as a family we cleaned out a cabinet we no longer needed and rehomed a small cabinet to our laundry area for my husband to keep his tools. It looks so neat since it is all behind closed doors. 🙂 Thanks Kathi for the past 10 days!!!