1- I really enjoyed this podcast ep:
My only (possible) pushback would be that I do not see planning techniques as a futile exercise where one is trying to fit ‘everything’ in.
I see the act of planning as a valuable process in deciding what does make sense to fit in. An effective planning system does not mean you can do everything (!), but I do believe it brings more intention to the allocation of our (finite) hours.
2- I am still extremely behind on email, have not looked at EPIC, and our house is still kind of a wreck. Oh well. One day at a time! I do believe I will eventually catch up. The vacation was worth it! Josh noted that we need to give away / discard half of the kids’ stuff and I countered with the fact that this probably applies to ALLLLL of our stuff. At least he seems motivated now too . . .
3- I finally had a good night of sleep and feel amazing but . . . I slept until 8 am. This will not be feasible tomorrow — it’s back to work + the regular routine! Hopefully I will be able to start going to bed at an earlier hour but the kids are still asleep right now so . . . this will probably be a process.
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I came back from vacation on Thursday and did some decluttering on Friday! It felt so good to get rid of stuff. Most was already in bags in our basement and ready to go to goodwill but I added to it. I cleaned up our basement so Phil could vacuum and was tempted to get rid of WAY MORE STUFF! But I held off. I thought of a Dr. Becky episode where she compares someone decluttering kids stuff to someone taking your phone and removing a bunch of aps… which does not sound good! But I tried to find a middle ground of getting rid of a few things they haven’t played with in ages. There is sooooo much more to get rid of. In a couple of years maybe/hopefully the kids and us can go through things…
I have never had a kid mad about something I got rid of . . . which probably just means they have way too much.
When my husband and I got rid of some of Dylan’s stuff (most of it was junk, pieces of plastic, not even toys or artwork) when she was five, she freaked out and in the middle of the night got up and dumped out all the garbage cans looking for things of hers we had thrown away. Since then I’ve tried to involve her in the process. Of course there are now boxes and boxes of playmobil in the basement than she hasn’t even considered playing with in 3 years… I will throw away her legos occasionally without asking since she’s never going to build the model sets with them again. Clothes I still make her go through with me. It’s so painful for me to throw away cute stuff she never wore that no longer fits.
I haven’t had a kid get mad yet either but that episode really stuck with me! But it definitely depends on the personality of the kid. We’ve involved them a bit in decluttering, especially before Christmas last year and they were pretty good sports about getting rid of things – we said we needed to make room for their new toys and our oldest seemed to understand and was cooperative. There is still way more to go but luckily it doesn’t take up much room! Hopefully we can do another round before Christmas this winter.
I think I’d be grateful if someone got rid of some apps off my phone 🙂
Not necessarily! Persoanlity is an issue. Tiny Boy had a complete meltdown that I got rid of a broken seashell hidden in a bowl for years. Adhd hoarding tendency…
Makes sense – kids after all are individuals just like us 🙂
I used to have a “moratorium space” where I decluttered my son’s stuff and then kept it all hidden in boxes (under the stairs in my case but a garage would be a good idea) for about 3-6 months and only then would I take it to the charity shop or dump it. I think he only ever queried one thing but it made me feel better about the danger. I also managed to sell a fair amount of it to my surprise – although I guess that with only one child some of the less popular toys had seen very limited use.
Ooh good intermediate solution!
Also doing the same decluttering routine after getting back from a lovely vacation 😊 I did a lot over the last few months (and still have more to do…) and found doing it a few hours at a time (vs. an all weekend+ event) was helpful. I love my Buy Nothing group on FB for this!
Freecycle works really well for us locally. Someone took our giant stone fountain and sent photos of it restored and up and running.
I think there’s something about staying in a minimalistic holiday rental that makes me come home and look really critically at my space. Like if I could survive quite comfortably with a suitcase of clothes, and a small basket of books and toys for kiddo, couldn’t I do so at home?
I do quiet purges of artwork, the most annoying toys, but try to get T involved now that he is older. Having a specific destination helps – “let’s take a folder of stickers/art supplies you don’t want to the library”, “let’s refresh your classroom library”, “bring a few books to a younger pal when we go for a visit” rather than a big box going off to nowhere. And he gets the satisfaction of seeing how happy the librarian/teacher/pal is.
We’ve been doing Home Exchanges and so my project this week has been cleaning out all the linens and making up a basket of designated linens, with spares, for the HE people so we don’t have to scramble before an exchange.
I’m going to work city next week to pack up, and will ship office stuff directly to my new office, and ship clothes home so I’ll do a big clean up when everything arrives since I’ll have undies x2 etc.
Next up – cleaning out the greenhouse. I’m coming to accept my gardening limits and am just going to keep the bare minimum for the greenhouse, and putting the rest of pots and accessories on freecycle. Lots of them were in the style of the previous owners and were fussy things, required planting annuals, which is just not within my capacity/budget to do.