Our new voter registration cards came in the mail last week. I knew exactly where I should put them.
That’s a big deal, y’all.
The key? Where I should put them.
I. Not someone.
Definitely not the best place to keep voter registration cards.
I answered my seriously-it’s-too-simple decluttering question: Where would I look for it first?
I know exactly where I’d look first. I’d look in the Junk Drawer. If they weren’t there, I’d probably look on my bathroom counter (don’t ask) or my dresser, in my underwear drawer, on the desk in the gameroom, and finally (while muttering rude things about myself under my breath), I would look in our filing “system” which is in disarray at the moment (and many past moments).
I love that question. I use it when I declutter and in moments like these when I need to decide where to put something. I love how the question eliminates all those steps in the last paragraph and the feelings of self-loathing I’ve experienced so many times as I drag my feet through the house, searching for something.
Where I would look for something is where I should put it.
Who cares where something should go if that’s the last place where I’d look?
Oh. And because I took a picture, I saw the things that were invisible that could totally go straight into the trashcan.
A lightswitch. (Don’t ask. I have no idea.)
An empty earbuds case for earbuds that have probably already been lost.
And a couple pieces of trash.
Not a decluttering project, but totally a decluttering win because there’s less. I like less.
Oh. And this would be an even better win if I also “replaced” the old cards with the new ones. But the old ones weren’t there. Maybe I’ll find them when I declutter my underwear drawer.
--Nony
Oh, my goodness… I laughed out loud. Not because of your ‘odd’ filing system, but because it is almost identical to mine! My first step involves a stack of ‘important’ papers on the kitchen table, or the nearby chair, until they begin to wobble, then realize I have to get this under control. Then I usually go for the junk drawer.
I totally understand the ‘muttering rude things about myself”.
My husband’s technique has been ‘put it in a box, take it to the basement, and then you (wife) will go to basement and go through each box’. Well, we just had a water leak in our basement, multiple boxes have gotten wet, and we are all suffering for our put-off techniques.
I find your blog helpful… and I do keep trying, but I am close to a break-down mode. I had boxes ready to go to donation, but my husband decided we should have a garage sale in DECEMBER! I keep taking an occasional box out when he’s not around, but slow is not accomplishing much in our situation.
Thank you for your writings, I do find encouragement in reading them.
A week ago I was going through some clear plastic shoeboxes that I use to store small categories of things out in the garage (“tape” has packaging tape, electrical tape, and duct tape all in one spot, “painting” has paint brushes, paint key, small rollers, etc. Essentially these boxes are the homes for all the random odds and ends in the garage). I came to my tubes of silicone caulking (that I couldn’t find recently) and debated, does it go back in the “plumbing” box because it’s generally used around sinks and bathtubs? Or does it go in the “sticky products” box with the wood glue, liquid nails, and earthquake putty, because it’s sticky (I guess?) ? I hummed and hawed and decided on the “sticky products” box because that’s where I looked and didn’t find it when I needed it awhile back (apparently logical me had put it in the plumbing box where normal me never thought to look…). I’m a huge fan of rule #1.
I have lots of boxes in my garage, all labeled. I can find things easily!