I clear away yet another layer of nonessential stuff | Andrea de Michaelis – Creating my own reality, one thought at a time

A place for everything and everything in its place

I tackled the decluttering of my shed this morning. I woke up and briefly debated going to the gym, then remembered I wanted to clean up my shed and get it organized, so I opted to do that. I did what works best for me when reorganizing: Take everything out of the room, only put back in what you intend to be there, and have a plan before putting anything back in.

My shed measures about 12 x 15 and I mostly store furniture and old files and good pieces of wood. I’m always moving furniture in and out of the shed, into the house, into another room, and I don’t always put away everything I carry out to the shed. I began by taking the furniture out of the room and then began going through old boxes of files. I now have a recycling bin full of files I’ve not needed for years, as well as a bin of trash full of broken or unusable stuff. If I had 2 more bins I could fill them right now. I swept the floor, moved furniture along the walls according to height, left all the electrical outlets visible and made easy access to the windows.

I cleared off countertops and tightened the overhead lightbulbs and turned on the old stereo. The biggest chore was moving all the wood and seeing what I had and making room for it out of the way. I have several more boxes to go through and a few more recycling bins later I should be completely uncluttered. Let’s see how long it lasts this time.