• Home
  • Get Started!
  • Speaking
  • Blog
    • Cleaning
    • decluttering
    • organization
    • All posts
  • Podcast
  • Books
    • Jesus Doesn't Care About Your Messy House
      • Get a Discussion Guide
    • Organizing for the Rest of Us
    • Decluttering at the Speed of Life
    • How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind
  • Video
  • Shortcut Solutions
    • 14 Days to Opening Your Front Door to Guests e-book
    • Make Dinner Happen
    • The 5 Day Clutter Shakedown Video Course
    • Printable Checklists E-Book from A Slob Comes Clean
    • Teaching Kids to Clean e-book
    • Giving God the Worst of Me - free e-book
    • My Book Publishing Journey
    • Take Your House Back
  • Decluttering Coaches

Dana K. White

A SLOB COMES CLEAN

Reality-Based Cleaning, Decluttering, & Organizing

 

  • About
  • Contact
  • TV & Media

  • Home
  • Get Started!
  • Speaking
  • Blog
    • Cleaning
    • decluttering
    • organization
    • All posts
  • Podcast
  • Books
    • Jesus Doesn't Care About Your Messy House
      • Get a Discussion Guide
    • Organizing for the Rest of Us
    • Decluttering at the Speed of Life
    • How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind
  • Video
  • Shortcut Solutions
    • 14 Days to Opening Your Front Door to Guests e-book
    • Make Dinner Happen
    • The 5 Day Clutter Shakedown Video Course
    • Printable Checklists E-Book from A Slob Comes Clean
    • Teaching Kids to Clean e-book
    • Giving God the Worst of Me - free e-book
    • My Book Publishing Journey
    • Take Your House Back
  • Decluttering Coaches
Videos
Blog
Podcast
Products & Courses
Books
About
Decluttering Coaches

Three Strikes? You’re Donated!

October 10, 2013 By Dana White | 9 Comments

  • 163shares
  • 159
  • 0
  • 4

Three Strikes You're Donated! at ASlobComesClean.com

This shirt.

This shirt.

Do you hear the contempt?

This shirt has been in my laundry pile THREE WEEKS IN A ROW.

Clean.

Ooo-hoo-hoo. I can not properly express the loathing I feel toward clean clothes found in my dirty clothes pile.

It is one of my Mommy Pet Peeves.

I know that I used to do it to my own mother, but really . . . it is the worst.

Little else makes me feel so unappreciated.

I purchased that boys’ tank in a 3-pack last Christmas when my kids needed to make a modest costume change for our church play. It was the cheapest way to go.

But my boys don’t wear those kinds of shirts. Somehow, the gray one ended up in the dirty clothes three Mondays ago. I washed it.I put it away.

Then the next Monday, it was back in the pile.

I grumbled. I put it back in the drawer.

But when I found it BACK in the pile of dirty clothes this week . . . I’d had enough. Anything that is unloved enough to end up on the floor UNworn three weeks in a row needs to go.

So it’s gone.

Three strikes? You’re donated!

--Nony

Related Posts:

Read Newer Post 007 – Containers and Limits and How They’ll Change Your Life!
Read Older Post One for One: A Concept that Used to Boggle My Slob Brain

Filed Under: decluttering | 9 Comments

Comments

  1. Barbara says

    October 10, 2013 at 12:13 pm

    Hi Nony! I do the same with the toys that always end on the floor, or just the things that are moved from one spot to another. They go in the donation box or on Freecycle. Bye bye mess!

    Reply
  2. Jen says

    October 10, 2013 at 12:34 pm

    I sold our Thomas the Tank Engine sets when they kept getting dumped out of the toy bins and spread around the room and never actually PLAYED with (or picked up). One day, in a rage, I scooped all the train sets up into some big bins, put them in the garage and waited for them to be missed. Months passed and no one asked where the trains went. I just sold them and bought my boy a new snowsuit with the proceeds.

    I haven’t told the kids the trains are gone yet and they haven’t asked.

    Reply
    • nikki says

      July 9, 2015 at 2:11 pm

      I have a three year old boy and at this point the trains would be missed before the next potty break. LOL. The stacking cups on the other had need to go!

      Reply
      • Rayne of Terror says

        August 6, 2015 at 10:59 am

        I donated our large Thomas collection to my sons’ preK teacher. The oldest played with them so much, but the next son just didn’t care about them. They were barely missed at home and got a lot more use at school. (I asked the preK teacher for her wish list and wooden train stuff was on there.)

        Reply
  3. Kristy K. James says

    October 10, 2013 at 1:11 pm

    I don’t even want to think about how many clean clothes I’ve rewashed, most of them….gulp…mine. While I don’t have anywhere near as many as my daughter, I have too many to fit in my closet (which is EXTREMELY tiny) and my dresser. So I fold them and set them in piles on my dresser. But I have a cat who likes to sleep on those clothes, and who sometimes knocks them off. I’ve accepted the sleeping part, and cover the clothes with a towel…but when they get knocked off, into the washer they go. I seriously need to get rid of stuff in the drawers.

    As for the three strikes rule…definitely need to put that into effect around here. Of course if I’d just do what Jen does…get rid of things that are unused and won’t be missed, the vast majority of the clutter in my house would be gone. I seriously haven’t seen the contents of some of the moving day boxes…for almost six years.

    Reply
  4. Phoebe @ GettingFreedom says

    October 10, 2013 at 1:57 pm

    Oh how I needed this post today! I feel the same as you–clean clothes in the laundry basket makes me feel like my work goes unappreciated. I spent time, money and resources on cleaning/folding laundry–and it ends up thrown back in the dirty basket with no thought. Ugh! Frustrating.

    My 8 year old has thrown the same couple of pieces of laundry back in the dirty basket many weeks in a row now and I had no idea how I was going to address the situation, although I knew something had to be done. Now I know–its gone!

    Reply
  5. Heather H. says

    October 10, 2013 at 2:58 pm

    Thank you for a fantastic idea of one more way to eliminate clutter in our home! I will begin implementing this rule immediately and enforce it hardcore this weekend during household clean up!!!!

    Reply
  6. Michaela says

    October 10, 2013 at 11:40 pm

    My son is a Marine, and when he left home he left his room a huge mess (think, clothing tornado). I washed everything, hung it, put it in the drawers, etc. (and quietly purged LOL) because I was using his room for guests so it needed to be clean. When my son came home after basic training, he immediately took what wanted out and took it with him. Not to mention he bought a ton of clothes, and then left another clothing tornado of what he had thrown out of the closet and drawers. In a fit of rage, I took everything on the floor and in his dresser drawers and donated them.

    Maybe that sounds mean, but he was home over the last weekend and asked where his stuff was. I told him straight up, you left it and I got rid of it. Oddly enough he said nothing, and this time when he left he cleaned his room and put a pile in front of his door of things – that he wanted me to donate! I think that perhaps me getting rid of his unwanted clothes was a relief for both of us.

    I also notice that the more I implement the one in, one out rule – it gets easier. I used to have my dressers and closet stuffed with things I never wore. Now giving myself permission to rid myself of what doesn’t work – its a relief.

    Reply
    • Dana White says

      October 11, 2013 at 12:00 pm

      What a great story! And I love how he got into the spirit of donating!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Want solutions to your biggest decluttering problems?

Get my newsletter and we'll start by teaching you how to declutter without making a bigger mess.
* = required field

Popular Posts

Why-I-Have-To-Run-My-Dishwasher-Every-Single-Night-at-ASlobComesClean.com sidebar
Five Truths about a Clean Kitchen even without a dishwasher at ASlobComesClean.com sidebar
How to Clean a Messy House at ASlobComesClean.com sidebar

Topics:

blogcast Cleaning daily checklist decluttering failures figuring myself out kitchen laundry Menu Plan Monday organization parenting podcasts progress random stories reader stories recipes sponsored posts Uncategorized

  • PR/Advertising
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Website Terms and Conditions
Search

  • About
  • Contact
  • TV & Media

© Dana K. White | Site by Little Leaf Design