I was reading some very old threads and saw a discussion about how to make uncluttering fun. I've known for a while that I respond well to "challenges" or "games" to help me towards various goals. For example, I quit smoking by gradually cutting down how many cigarettes per day I smoked. In uncluttering, I suppose this is the intent behind things like Flylady's "27 fling boogie." It's an arbitrary number but helps give a structure to the task.
Here are a few of mine:
- Read a page (or 2 or 3) of a unclutter forum thread, then go find something to toss, recycle, sell or donate. Lather, rinse, repeat. Great for days when you are completely unproductively surfing the web. :-)
- Find one thing per room to get rid of
- Find 3 things to get rid of - one to toss, one to recycle, one to donate
- Find 10 things (or 5, or 15, or 20) in one "area" (i.e. craft supplies, clothing, my desk, etc)
- Group a certain type of thing together and challenge myself to get rid of a percentage of them (depending on how excessive the pile is, the percentage might be as much as 50%)
I thought it would be neat to gather all kinds of decluttering games into one thread, so that when someone (me!) is stuck, they can come and pick a technique. What kind of tricks, challenges, or games do you play to motivate yourself to declutter?
