Dear FlyLady,

Around here, I would wait for rummage-sale donation to hit to declutter. My own church has a rummage sale every OTHER summer; another takes drop-offs starting in mid-August for their September sale. What to do in the meantime? Amvets every so often would pick up. But finally we just got a Goodwill store closer than 20 miles away, and it’s only 2 blocks from my hair stylist!

So every 7 weeks I drop off, and since my youngest is in his adolescent growth spurt, there are jeans and shoes every 7 weeks!

The other thing that changed for me is, I no longer care who gets my donations. I used to agonize, should a book go to the library sale, rummage, or a local children’s literacy campaign? Multiply that by, oh, lots of books, and you get “inaction by indecision”. Who gets the china? The clothes? Is this cashmere sweater “too good” for Goodwill?

Yikes! THAT was a bad attitude! Besides, it’s not a will, for goodness sake! So now, just like collecting the stuff was about “me”, dispersing it is about “me”: what’s convenient? I can drop off books when I go to the library, kids’ books at the school. Goodwill when I get my hair cut. Rummage when I’m working the rummage sale. And when we haul yard waste to our municipal compost-and-recycling center, I can also bring household items to dispose of; besides broken stuff, depending on who’s working, they’ll even take my working but old and rattly dryer.

So now, I don’t have bags labeled “Donation” cluttering up my space for months at a time. Funny how even donating created its own clutter!

Now it’s gone, gone, gone.

Thanks, FlyLady!

Barb
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FlyLady here: Are you ready to fling the clutter that fills up your home? The habit for February is Decluttering for 15 minutes a day

Please share what you have learned about decluttering, your stories, your tips, and advice!
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