My Next Challenge: Decluttering

Yup. Decluttering. Honestly, it has been something that's been on my mind for quite some time. I've been reading the Becoming Minimalist blog for a few months now, and last year for my birthday I requested and received The 100 Thing Challenge. So really, minimalism and decluttering have been on my mind for over a year.

I already go through phases of purging possessions on occasion, usually in one focused area. But this time, I'm going through the whole house. I have a plan and am setting goals, plus hope to track my progress here. Of course, knowing me, this plan comes in the form a of a list. A categorized list in Excel format to be exact.

I've broken down each room (right now excluding the basement and garage) into bite-sized chunks. Maybe even toddler bite-sized chunks. When I get 3 weeks into this and the high of my new challenge and list checking wears off, I want my weekly 'tasks' to be easy to accomplish rather than daunting. So, what's the challenge you ask?

115 areas to declutter in 6 months
See --- I told you toddler bite-sized chunks.

My plan is to attack just 5 areas each week. How I got to a whole 115 is be breaking each cupboard or drawer into it's own item. So, down the road, tackling one drawer during the day won't be too big of a deal. I realize some weeks will be more productive than others, that's why I'm not planning for 7 items a week. At the end of the 6 months I'll have gone through the main living areas of our home and will have a big pile of items and we'll hold a garage sale or find places to donate.

So, now that you know my challenge and the simple plan of attack, here is what I accomplished today, a full week of items, five kitchen cupboards! This week is going to be one of those highly productive ones since I'm excited to get going!

Before:
These 2 cupboards don't seem that full, but after unloading them and weeding through the items we haven't even used the 2 years we've lived in this house, it proved there was more than I realized. Items just taking up space that we don't use.

This is nearly everything that didn't go back in the cupboards. I have some jelly jars to give back to Mom, lots of glasses for the garage sale and a group to go through with Jesse. See, this is all of our stuff I'm going through, not just mine. He needs to be all in on this too. It wouldn't be right for me to give away an item that means something to him that I didn't realize. We ended up keeping most of that group that I checked with him on.

The cupboard afterwards, only one side filled up! It felt so freeing since I know eventually I want to remove 4 of our cupboards so we can take down part of the wall and make the space feel more open. Being able to open up more cupboard space feels great!

I went through 3 more cupboards. Not a whole lot in those changed since I'd recently gone through them, or they are small enough where only items we use fill them up. Here are the after pictures:

The other benefit of going through these kitchen cupboards, I'm cleaning out the shelving too, which I've been putting off. I'm excited for the week and to see how much more I can get through!

Do you go through phases of purging your possessions? I'm hoping this process will open my eyes to some things that I buy and then don't use so that I can stop myself buying it before it gets stashed somewhere and then given away later.