K.I.S.S: Decluttering the Computer Desktop

 

Well, this is embarrassing...

Here I lay bare my ridiculously jumbled, unorganised desktop with you, in the hopes that the shame of it will drive me to pick up my game. Simplifying life for us is an all-encompassing pursuit, and that means the hub of our digital life too - the computer.

Confession Time:


I edit photos and "save" them straight to the desktop. I have files and folders still there from my business (which has been closed for over a year now). Not to mention scores of hours of video and thousands of photos that haven't been catalogued or sorted. Ever.

And please, please, please don't mention the b-word. (Back-up). I did have it setup before the renovation, but amongst moving and having Toby and moving back in and life, I lost one of the cables and haven't ever bothered to find it again and set up the external hard drive.

This isn't going to be a quick project, but I'm putting it out there now, that by the end of the month I will have organised my desktop and put in place a system for blog images, family photos and videos, personal files and home files. Plus set-up my backup again.

Hold me to it. Please!

My Name is Brooke and I am on a Decluttering Bender.

Sorry for the radio silence, friends. Every spare moment lately has been spent clutter-busting our home. I'm only a fraction of the way there, but damn it feels good. I feel lighter somehow.

I've been reading lots about minimalist living and the slow home movement, and buzzwords aside I think they're both really interesting, desirable, accessible ways to live. They both apply to what this whole journey is about.

So far:

Sparky and I have cleared our wardrobes, with the hope of sharing one wardrobe and getting rid of the other, as it clutters up our bedroom far too much. This 30 minute exercise netted us 5 big garbage bags of clothes to donate and two big garbage bags of pure crap, which was recycled or tossed as a last resort.

Yesterday I cleared out both of our bedside tables (netted another huge bag of recyclables/rubbish) as well as our bathroom cabinet. Another big bag full'o'junk there.

Went through my multiple piles of costume jewellery and tossed 95% of it. It was mostly tarnished, broken, mismatched or really really ugly. I actually don't wear much jewellery, so I need very little in the way of this stuff.

I cleaned out my craft cupboard and threw away two more bags worth of random scraps that I'd been keeping for "just in case". Nope, no more.

I sorted through our cookbooks and bookshelves, put aside all those books I've borrowed over the years and never returned (sorry, Dad!) and now have a big basket that I will try to sell to the local second-hand bookshop or otherwise donate to Vinnies.

You know those magazines that you buy/subscribe to and keep for no real reason? Yeah, me too. But as of yesterday: gone. I tore out anything I really wanted to keep and the rest was recycled. (I did keep my Organic Gardeners though - I use them a lot).

This morning I'm tackling the laundry and may just be crazy enough to try and tame the beast that is our "store room". Maybe.

Get Out(side)! Plus the Clean-Out Continues...

Ahoy! I hope you all had wonderful long weekends? A pretty wet affair here in Sydney unfortunately. We managed to get one day's worth of outside work done though, which felt so, so, very good (nothing beats gardening and outdoor work to chill my mind and work my muscles) and we now know exactly where the vege garden will be going in a month or two, as well as the fruit trees, compost bins and chook run. I'm ridiculously excited! I'll be sure to take some photos of the work as it progresses.

Aside from the garden planning, I managed to have another big clear out of our storage room, and have culled another 4 big garbage bags of clothes and toys that can go to Vinnies. I also finally organised the craft cupboard and went through all my remaining jewellery stock. I only have one crate of it left, so it's gradually going. I can't tell you how much better I feel with every cull I do. Just releasing ourselves from the excess stuff we've accumulated is seriously liberating.

I estimate that I've got about another 6 crates worth of stuff that can go, it's just a matter of sorting through it all to find what I need to keep, what I really, really want to keep (remember: love it or get rid of it) and what can go.

K.I.S.S: Love it or Get Rid of it (part 3)

As I've mentioned before (here and here) I've been trying to trim down our worldly possessions bit by bit every week. I'm selling some of our stuff on ebay, having a farewell fire sale on Etsy, giving a lot to charity and throwing out the bare minimum.

It was a bit of a crap weekend here, Sparky had to work and the kids and I are still a bit under the weather, but I did manage to clean out my wardrobe and swap over my summer clothes for my winter ones. (Our wardrobes are on the small side and I keep a box of seasonal stuff, to make sure I have enough room. Annoying but necessary. Plus it forces me to go through my clothes and shoes twice a year.)

I have a fairly decent amount of clothes and shoes for Vinnies, as well as a heap of maternity clothes I'm lending to my sister-in-law. It's so nice to be able to see the bottom of my wardrobe again, and not have to shove millions of coathangers aside whenever I want to see what clothes I have.

Bonus: I was going to give this skirt to charity too, but the fabric is too pretty and I think I'm going to try and use it in some as yet undefined craft project. (I'll add it to the pile of unfinished projects now, shall I?)

Brooke x

K.I.S.S: Love it or get rid of it (part 2)

My efforts to simplify and declutter are slowly paying off, as I've sold a few things on ebay already. It's so nice to get a bit of cash for clutter, but it's even nicer to see the back of the extra stuff we've accumulated over the years.

This week I need to get cracking though, and try and offload some more. Here's what I have lined up to go:

• ladies 160cm Salomon snowboard
• ladies Salomon bindings
• ladies Vans snowboard boots 
• ladies Dakine ski mittens
• 3 x snowboard pants
• tonnes of jewellery-making bits and bobs

There's a saying about only making space in your home for things that are either functional or beautiful, and while I think that level of extreme decluttering is a bit far-fetched for us right now, I like the idea behind it. I sometimes feel so tied down by our stuff (and we really don't have a huge amount by today's standards) and wonder how people think past generations got by without six of everything?

Personal storage facilities are a new invention - they've only been around for the past 20 years or so. Before that, we could just, you know, fit our stuff in our houses. Crazy, right?

K.I.S.S: Love it or get rid of it

so we bid a slow goodbye to our clutter...

In the never-ending quest to simplify our lives, Sparky and I have a heap of stuff we'd like to get rid of. Most of it is in really good condition, but we just have no need for it anymore (if we ever really did have a need for it to begin with).

So I've decided to start getting rid of five extra, unnecessary things every week. It'll be like an ongoing declutter. I'll either be selling them on ebay, donating to charity, giving them to someone I know who needs it, recycling or, as a very last resort, throwing them away.

This week we hope to bid adieu to these, via ebay:

barely used snowboarding mitts

dakine wrist guards - worn about three times

brand new ski gloves

good condition electric ski/board goggles

lightweight snowboarding jacket - worn three times max

heavy duty helly hansen snow jacket

Sparky and I lived and worked in Canada for a year a while back and fell for the snow big-time. Unfortunately we've only been once since coming home and the chances of us hitting the hills any time soon are slim to none. So it's all going. Our snowboards, bindings and boots are on next week's hit list!

Anyone else have some extra stuff around that they can clear out? I bet you'll feel better if you do!