The first dungeon in my house that I took care of was my
office. There wasn't that much stuff (books, trinkets) to declutter, but there were pounds and pounds of paper clutter. I did the 'stuff decluttering' first. I used my timer and did just 15 minutes at a time. It didn't take long to do that part of it. But I couldn't face the paperwork. I closed the door and tried to forget about it. But I knew what it looked like in there and it kept bugging me.
One day last week I decided to tackle the paper clutter. I had to pull out all of the paperwork at one time because it was all in different places. It wouldn't have made sense to do one bin at a time because there was a lot of crossover. I would declutter a bit then take a break. I did that for hours. It didn't feel like a burden either. I was having fun. With every piece of paper I got rid of I felt better and better. Hubby shredded everything. What I thought would take me days, only took hours. And that's because I took so many breaks.
I ended up tossing 25 pounds of paper clutter!
You can check out my videos, on youtube, about my office dungeon,
here.
The second dungeon we dealt with was the
garage. The entire floor was piled with boxes, bins and stuff. We started decluttering in April 2007 and finished 3 1/2 MONTHS later!
We used the timer and decluttered 15 minutes at a time, taking breaks and only working as long as it was fun. Let me just say, there were lots of days that only 15 minutes of decluttering was done. We just kept plugging away at it until it was done. It's not perfect and that's okay. We are able to park BOTH vehicles in there now.
David has his work benches set up and I put some storage shelves together (camping gear, auto supplies, etc.).
It was awesome when we could see the majority of the floor in the garage. It was a long project, but so well worth it.
You can check out my videos on jumpcut about my garage
here.
We've made a lot of progress and it feels very good.
We still have another dungeon to deal with: the
master bedroom suite. I know that Marla says that this is the first room that should be taken care of, but we've left it for last. I don't know why that is.
I can't relax in my bedroom because, even though we've been in the house for over a year, the parts to my bed frame are leaning up against the wall.
The lights that will go over the bed are on the floor. It NEVER looks welcoming or relaxing in my bedroom. But I know now that working just 15 minutes at a time will fix this. Now I am hopeful. It doesn't seem overwhelming anymore. It's still not done, but I know that soon it will be.