Peace of Mind Organizing

It's amazing what you can do in a half hour (or less)

27 April 2009

As part of the preparations for Declutter Happy Hour, the four-week teleclass I started offering with Shannon Wilkinson last month, I’ve been doing a lot of small decluttering projects around the house.

In our teleclass, we offer students 30 minutes of decluttering time right in the middle of class. Lest that seem like too little time to actually accomplish anything, I took on some 15-minute projects to reassure myself. I took before-and-after photos, so I could share then with potential participants. If I can do this much in 15 minutes, think of what you can do in 30 minutes! (For a look at a couple of sets of 15-minute before-and-after pictures, as well as some 30-minutes projects done by class participants, see the Cheers page on our Declutter Happy Hour website.)

We didn’t want to litter our Cheers page with my projects, so I thought I’d share some more of my photos here. Because who doesn’t like before and after photos?

I have a desk I call the “household desk” that’s a landing place for random paper, primarily. Our, cat, Joe eats on the household desk. Things can get ugly pretty quickly if I don’t stay on top of it.

In fifteen minutes I went through all the paper, threw away some and put the rest of the stuff away:

The top right-hand drawer of that same desk holds random office-supply items, return address labels, stamps, etc. It needed some serious cleaning out, as indicated by the fact it wasn’t easy to open and close. Here’s the before shot:

In only fifteen minutes it was transformed into a much more usable drawer.

During the 30-minute decluttering portion of Declutter Happy Hour, Shannon and I stay on the line in case any participants have any questions. During that time in the third session, I decided to tackle this crazy messy area of my office.

Cleaning it up took only 25 minutes and I was chatting with Shannon while I was doing it.

If it takes so little time to clear up a mess like that, why do I let it get that way? It’s a question for the ages.

The beauty of Declutter Happy Hour is that it prompts you to set aside two full hours (a half hour in each class) for hands-on decluttering. Prior to the decluttering, you get tips and advice from me and some awesome emotion-clearing exercises from Shannon. Ready to give it a try? Get more information and sign up here. The May session starts May 7.

Tagged with: 15 minutes, clutter, declutter happy hour, decluttering, shannon wilkinson

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