Every Day May 2013: Clearing the Clutter

So, over Spring Break Bryce and I undertook our (fairly) regular task of cleaning out and organizing our garage.  This go around was probably the largest undertaking since we'd first moved into the house, but we were able to accomplish it and can successfully park our new van inside, with room to spare!  Since throwing away piles of stuff and donating 3+ car fulls more, I've felt a liberating feeling.  I've been very guilty of saying (or thinking) "Maybe I'll need that someday, we might as well keep it!"  That thought had turned into piles and boxes and tubs of STUFF that we didn't need, I didn't know we even had still and probably would never actually use.  It felt so good clearing the clutter and passing that stuff along to people who might actually need it!

About a month had passed after finishing the garage and I started to get an itching feeling to unload some more of our stuff.  Everything came to a head two nights ago when, after finally getting the kids to bed, Bryce and I flopped onto the couches in the family room and looked around in utter disbelief.  It looked like a tornado had swept through and we'd just cleaned up the night before, so the damage had been done in just ONE day!  (I'm only a little sad I didn't take a picture as a "before", but I'm sure you all can imagine or have experienced this yourself.)

Bryce sighed and said "remember, before we had kids, when I said I wanted our kids to only have one toy?" (yes, this was a real conversation we had numerous times before having kids.)  I chuckled and said, "yes, and I remember telling you good luck with that."  We looked around, too exhausted to even think about picking up the madness that surrounded us at the moment.  He said "I think it's time to clean out the toys again" and I agreed.

"Cleaning out the toys" was something I did periodically, sorting through and taking out what I thought the kids didn't play with or had outgrown.  The toys that were outgrown went into a box for future children and what they didn't play with went into a box to be donated.  It was a good system, except I was too lenient in choosing what I thought they played with.  In my mind, if it had to be put away at anytime in the recent past, that obviously meant it had been played with, right?  Sadly, I learned this was not the case.

As I inspected the disaster-zone of our family room I realized something.  The vast majority of the toys on the floor were always guilty of causing a mess, but were almost never actually played with!  So I made a decision, the next day I retrieved a large box from our garage and put probably 95% of the kids toys in it.  I left out the few things I knew with a certainty they played with (like Transformers, toy cameras and microphones and puzzles) and everything else went into the garage.

I decided that when something was requested (ie. Mr. Potato Head or Lincoln Logs, etc.) I would get it from the garage, it would be played with and then put away.  Whatever hadn't been requested in, say, a month will be donated (or saved for a future child, possibly.)

It's interesting that in the 24 hours that has passed since clearing the clutter in our family room, the kids haven't seemed to notice the missing toys and the family room has stayed clean!  The only comment to indicate something was different came from Breckin this morning when he came downstairs, looked around the family room and said "wow, it's clean" - what a sad commentary on the recent state of my house.  But, I have to agree, and it feels good.  We'll see how long it takes to acquire more stuff that will eventually need to be cleared out... but for now this is what we're enjoying:

So, how do you guys clear the clutter in your homes?