9 Things I Learned From Doing A Declutter Challenge

My personal thoughts on my own declutter challenge and a peek at what I discarded.

In honor of National Get Organized Month or GO Month as we Professional Organizers like to say, I decided to conduct a 30-Day Facebook Declutter Challenge.  

Popsugar put out a list of tasks and I followed them each day.  I posted the master list on Facebook on January 1st and each day posted the assigned task with a picture of the item(s) I declutterd from my own home.  

Here's what I learned:

1.  No matter what the area or task, I was always able to find something I could part with.  I even declutterd some pet supplies! 

2.  Clothing was easy for me to let go, shoes not so much.

3.  Just like the majority of my clients, I had one too many vases.  Why do we collect so many of these?!

4.  Digital clutter is a tough one to tackle as you don't see it and often forget about it.  This is a task that needs to be broken down into smaller chunks as it can be time consuming.

5.  As Jerry Seinfeld would say, I truly am a "thrower-outer!"  This Challenge really highlighted this for me.  It also highlighted that my husband struggles with the decluttering process.  He could frequently be heard saying, "We're going to have nothing left in the house!"

6.  I continued to feel lighter and less stressed the more stuff I parted with.

7.  The folks at my local Goodwill are so friendly and polite.  I appreciated their good manners even when they "Ma'am'd" me to death.  I guess I look too old to be a "Miss" anymore.  

8.  I was happy I had our guest room to act as a holding area during the Challenge.  I did end up changing my mind about only 1 item and taking it back out of the heap.  I completely understand when my clients ask to have things put in a "maybe pile" to think on later, because it helped me. 

9.  This Challenge was a great way to start off a new year and helped me put the focus back on what's important to me - family, friends and good health - NOT my stuff.

And here is the pile of my cast-offs.  As you can see, it covered the entire guest bed, not including the bulky items.  

Have you ever done a Declutter Challenge? How did you do?