Putting off the evil hour - tidying at home

[duotone]

It's going to be a busy Saturday for me and I am dreading the thought of tidying up and rearranging our backroom. We don't have a garage so it's our equivalent, full up with stuff that's built up over the years.

So what's your tactics and tips for successful clearing and room rearranging? I keep envisioning about how good it COULD look!

My plan is to have a good breakfast and start early doors with the radio/music playing in the background in an effort to motivate me.

 

[jtb]

When my wife wants to do the garage, I try to tell myself 75% of the stuff cen go to goodwill.

 

[Commander Quan]

I watch an episode of Hoarders to get me in the right frame of mind, and then proceed to throw away anything that hasn't been used since the last purging.

 

[superbleu]

set up four boxes or piles

One for trash
One for donation
one to keep for sure
and one for temporary, as in not sure if you want to keep (fill this up and box it up if you don't need anything in it in 6 months, you don't really need it.)

 

[dklaiman]

I'm with superbleu. Also, I take out everything that isn't bolted to the floor or the wall. It gives me the opportunity to re-arrange any shelving units or other storage units that are in there.

 

[Miles]

Think divide and conquer. Also it helps to go from high to low, if that's relevant to your current pile-room arrangement. Definitely be prepared to drag a lot of things out of the room so you can start with a clean slate.

I find that it helps to have only 2-4 beers on hand, as a beer break every so often is great for morale, but too many beers and the mess starts looking not-so-bad

Good luck, and keep a positive attitude about it. Think of how great it'll be when it's all squared away.

 

[duotone]

Especially like the boxing up and clearing room to reposition ideas.

Cheers chaps for the helpful advice!

 

[roklein]

I remind myself when faced with this when I had to clean out my parents' house when it was put up for sale after my dad died. I loved my dad but for goodness sakes, how many coffee cans full of nuts and bolts do you need? He was a product of the depression and nothing was ever thrown out without good reason. Times have changed and the way I think now is, "if I haven't used it in a year, I never will."

Have fun and I believe beer helps the process too!

 

[Patman27]

I once barricaded myself into a room I was cleaning with all the spare boxes. I had a thermos of coffee and a thermos of water. Made it real easy to discard/donate after a few hours. Only suggestion would be to take a restroom break before using the barricade method.

 

[Jim]

Proceed just like eating an elephant- one bite at a time.