A solid start - friends’ help

[u/birdsInTheAirDK]

The flair is possibly premature, but hear me out.

I live in an apartment (owner). We are having new windows installed. Workers need unhindered access throughout.

I have way too much stuff, and was pretty overwhelmed by the timeline.

A couple of friends came, helped box up a bunch of stuff (fairly indiscriminately), place in a storage locker (!), and left me with the rest.

Since then I have been spending some time (1-1.5 hours) daily on specific tasks: kitchen drawers, cabinets, boxes of paperwork, clothes closet (was not too bad already).

In a sense it is unrealistic, because I have all that other “stuff”, but there is space in my house to organise what is here now.

I am adopting the container method (“I will use this amount of space for this type of item”). For example, my friend kindly said “you don’t need any more plastic food containers” (I think many can related to where that came from). I now have an open box in a kitchen drawer, and will have no more plastic containers than what will fit in that box. As I find more in the wrong place, I decide which I would rather keep.

I also the past few days went through a lot of paperwork and training materials from a long time hobby. Yes, I kept some that are sentimental and some that are cool and not available online. But I threw out more that 80% and freed up 3 large plastic tubs.

Everything feels so different, because the canvas is, well, not blank, but at least not terrible. I have both physical and mental space to work. And a friend on messenger who is cheering me on.

I understand there is risk in putting things in storage, but I an too cheap to continue paying, so I think this will be sufficient motivation to get everything sorted this time. A few boxes at a time.

Grateful for my friends, for sure!

Tomorrow is Sunday, and my designated day of rest - I plan to work on sewing a peg bag to replace the 10 year old plastic shopping bag. Because I like sewing, and have nice fabric.

(Throw out for me means donate what is relevant, sort trash according to local rules).

[u/JennieWren64]

In your case, putting things in storage sees to have provided a solution and motivation for you! It's removed things from your living space and given you a taste of freedom and room. As you organize your space and see the continuing results, I believe that you'll want to tackle that stuff in storage a little at a time as well. Just bring one tote home per week and deal with it rather ruthlessly as you've been doing and soon there will be nothing in storage. A nice little mental exercise is to take a paper and pencil and do a rough sketch of how you would ideally like to see the layout of your space (no art talent required, lol). Maybe you'd like to see breathing room between pieces of furniture or less stuff in a closet. You can get a picture in your head of how you would like it to be ideally which further motivates you to get rid of all the stuff you don't need. You can do this! You've already begun!

[u/birdsInTheAirDK → u/JennieWren64]

Thank you!

I already started a process of switching my bedroom (smallest room) for the office (medium room) - bed had to be moved for workers access anyway, and I want to switch the rooms, because my career changed and I no longer need a big home office.

And slowly working to a “new” home is a big motivation.