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How To Have Fun Decluttering Your House

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how to have fun decluttering your house

When I’m not busy singing with Pop Chorus or making films for my YouTube channel – I spend my days racing against time to get my house decluttered ready to have it altered so my mum can come and live comfortably with us.

I’m really not good at decluttering though! I’m terrible because I get so sidetracked by every tiny thing and so stuff goes backwards and forwards between the keep or get rid of boxes about a million times!

So I wrote this after my first real day of decluttering when I spent so long messing around with stuff I was finding, I really didn’t get very far. I wonder how many people can relate!

I’d love you to tell me but no matter what I do, I can’t get my comment section to work since I disabled it when I didn’t have time to deal with comments.

I’ll try again – but if it doesn’t work, you can always contact me via the contact form and I’ll try to find a way to publish your comments. Yay – it works!

I hadn’t checked the discussion box at the top of the page!

Shout out to Melinda of Purple Slob In Recovery who is the Queen of Clean and Jen at The Hidden Hoarder who also knows the decluttering struggle really well!

Fun Tip No 1

  • Even though you are on a mission to get rid of junk – make sure you find small insignificant things, such as those miniature screw drivers you bought in a charity shop 15 years ago (because they would ‘come in handy’), but never used and spend an hour obsessing over whether you should keep them for another 15 years…or not. Make a game of it! Keep moving them from the ‘Keep’ box to the ‘Charity’ box while singing the chorus of the Hokey Cokey – not forgetting to ‘shake it all about’ at the appropriate moment.
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Keep. No no wait…throw. No – keep! Throw. Keep. Throw. Oh…put them in the Don’t Know box.

How To Have Fun Decluttering Your House – 

Fun Tip No. 2

  • Have two separate containers for any batteries you find during your cupboard and drawer clearing project. And be sure to remove any new batteries from their packaging. Place them in one container for new batteries  and place any old batteries you find in the other one.  But here’s the catch – don’t mark the containers ‘old’ and ‘new’! The fun begins once you forget which box is which – usually straight away. It’s huge fun. Really. Oh how you’ll laugh when you come to use them!

How To Have Fun Decluttering Your House –

Fun Tip No. 3

  • If you decide to keep the small insignificant things you find (like the screw driver set for example) and the batteries, ramp up the fun factor by immediately forgetting where you put them! This will ensure a really hilarious game of hide and seek if you ever need them (see the next item!).

How To Have Fun Decluttering Your House –

Fun Tip No. 4

  • Look for broken stuff and try to fix it, even though you are on a tight deadline to get crap cleared in a hurry. Live on the edge by emptying the cupboards all over the floors and then deciding it’s imperative you fix the Halloween novelty cat that stopped working in 2010,

even though it’s only March and you have seven months to fix it. Do it !NOW! and anyway – it’ll be fun! You only need a small screwdriver and three AAA batteries! Oh what joy! WTF did you put them?

WTF? Out of 22 drawers – I’ve NO idea!

How To Have Fun Decluttering Your House –

Fun Tip No. 5

  • Play hide and seek with the miniature screw drivers and bag of batteries. This can provide you with at least 3 hours of house cleaning fun but if you find yourself almost in tears screaming, ‘For the love of God, WHERE TF did I put those screwdrivers and batteries?’ – this is a sign that it  isn’t fun any more. This is called stress and you need to make it stop by drinking tea or coffee. Tea is well known for making us remember where we put our crap when we moved it from one box to another while ‘cleaning’.
If you aren’t an old hippy, you may need something more substantial than nettle and peppermint tea.

How To Have Fun Decluttering Your House –

Fun Tip No. 6

  • And now that you’ve revived yourself with a cup of tea and an hour long chat with a supportive friend, you should be able to recall where you put that shit only 90 minutes ago. If you still can’t remember, it may to be time to give your kids Power of Attorney over your financial affairs while you can still write your own name. This isn’t so much a tip as a friendly suggestion. Just saying.

How To Have Fun Decluttering Your House –

Fun Tip No. 7

  • Take pictures of crap you forgot you had (ie the Halloween cat) and amuse your friends on Facebook by making pointless videos the world doesn’t need. It will make other crazy people feel better about themselves.

How To Have Fun Decluttering Your House –

Fun Tip No.8

If you decide to buy any more useless crap – make sure it’s fun crap – like this Bat Cat – or curvy lady ornament, so in years to come, when you have another declutter, you can waste a few hours obsessing over whether to keep them or send them to the charity shop – the jury is still out on Bat Cat but I’m keeping Curvy Lady – she looks so happy and pleased with life!

Hope you’ve enjoyed How To Have Fun Decluttering your house – if I can possibly get the comments section to work (it’s working now – just scroll down to the end of the post until you see the box) – let me know how you have fun decluttering!

6 thoughts on “How To Have Fun Decluttering Your House”

  1. This is so funny, Gilly. I can relate. When I change batteries I get them mixed up. I take out the old ones and lay them down beside the news ones, and they roll all around jeering at me as I try an infinite number of combinations to find the ones that work. Finally I throw them all away and start over. I would definitely keep the screwdrivers! And the Bat Cat is a classic. Good luck!!

    1. Hi Molly – yes! Me too with the battery change thing! And I always swear that THIS time I WON’T muddle them up Thank you for reading – am heading over to you now – intrigued by the cows

  2. Oh yes, Gilly!! Thanks so much for the shout out!! I appreciate it! And I love Jen’s blog too!
    When did someone sneak over, and make a statue of me?! Glad you’re keeping me! er- her!
    Bat cat lives- 8 seconds of my life I’ll never recover! LOL!! 😉
    So glad your comment box is working!! Your borders are so pretty!
    All your tip sound so fun!! Especially the POA one! Working on that right now!!
    Love, Me

    1. Hi you! Thanks for your visit here Melinda – I couldn’t write about decluttering and not mention you and Jen – I think you guys invented it! I’m glad you like my curvy lady – I love her attitude and the way she struts her stuff! I’m keeping Bat Cat too – how can I let him go! I just need to tackle my massive collection of paper now – it’s hard trying to fit all the stuff that used to be in my workroom into the rest of the house! We need my workroom to make a kitchenette and wet room for my mum so she can come and live here without having to go upstairs. So I’m getting rid of as much ‘stuff’ as I can. Hope all is well with you and your new place – thanks again! xox

    2. Oh yes, this is so *me*! I spent the better part of a Friday afternoon a week ago, sorting out one closet. I actually just went in there to find a packing box. But then I had to move a box full of photos. And the box of photos had a notebook of my dad’s from 1988 on top of it, so I started flipping through that. Which resulted in a whole long text conversation with my daughter. Then I didn’t have anywhere to put the box of photos away, because it wasn’t supposed to be in that closet in the first place,so I had to sort out the rest of the closet to make room to put it back. During that, I found several other things I forgot we owned, and some artwork from my children from 10 years ago. I DID manage to find a shipping box, but I missed the mail lady for the day. Basically a pretty productive day, haha. And don’t even get me started about the one or possibly two…) junk drawers in our laundry, room which have things in them dating back to the Stone age, I think. I’m saving that mess for sometime when I really really have nothing else to do, like: never.

      1. You have no idea how it warms my heart to hear this! It made me laugh out loud because I can SO relate to it. I am supposed to be working on revenue generating stuff because it is still the middle of the working day here (well, nearly the end of it now!) and since I got back from having a long lunch, I’ve been messing around making creepy film clips with a toy clown I found in a drawer! If I wasn’t self-employed I would have been fired years ago! Thanks so much for sharing this Stef – I know our worlds are thousands of miles apart but I do think of you and I love it when you pop up again!

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