Friday, September 18, 2015

Decluttering: The Donation Station

At the beginning of the year, I was all gung ho to declutter. Armed with the life-changing question: "Does this spark joy?" I was determined to be ruthless and pack up everything that didn't bring me joy.

I started strong, letting go of some Christmas decorations. Then, while doing the January Cure, I let go of lots of books from the shelves in my bedroom.

In late January, I started decluttering the dining room--a process which saw the eventual complete transformation of this room.

But then I stalled out.

Some of that had to do with getting busier at work. Mostly, it had to do with the fact that I took all those books and hobby supplies--and just chucked them into the basement.



But the urge to purge is still with me.

The end goal is not merely to have less stuff--though having fewer things does make life easier.
No, the goal of decluttering is to know that everything in your house is chosen. Everything in the house is either too useful to throw away--or indeed, is something which brings you joy.

In other words, part of living a deliberate and intentional life is to make sure that the things which surround you are also deliberate and intentional.

One of the ways to do that is to actually haul away the things you have decided to part with. (Yeah, don't tweet that!)

That day finally came.

This is my donation station. It's underneath my folding table in the laundry room. It is overflowing. We chuck stuff here regularly. But I don't clean it out as regularly as I should.



Carting away all this stuff is a way to begin to declutter, again. It's like starting to clean up by taking out the trash when the garbage is full.



Coming October 1st, I am going to participate in the 2015 edition of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge. Every day, for the month of October, I am going to declutter something-- 15 minutes worth--a bag's worth-- whatever I can do--and I will blog about it.

Does anyone want to join me?



I can write up a list of areas to tackle: one each day--or we can just do our own thing every day. What do you think would be more useful?


2 comments :

Marian said...

This is a very timely post for me! Just yesterday, I finally decided to get the two bags and one box I have had sitting in our front room (ready and waiting to go ALL summer!) out the door and into the car. The final step of *actually* letting the stuff go is always the hardest for me. I will definitely enjoy following your 31 day journey, and I know it'll give me a lot of inspiration, but I'm not sure I'll be able to jump right in and join you. 31 bags in 31 days kinda sorta terrifies me ;)

MMarie said...

Hi Alana, I love the idea of a specific area each day. Reminds me of short videos Peter Walsh did on his blog a few years ago. They were so easy to do and very motivating. I'd love to follow along as much as I am able.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...