I did this a few years ago and it felt GOOD. So. much. STUFF comes into our homes during the month of December and it’s nice to get rid of a few things at the same time so we don’t get to January and feel overwhelmed by the clutter. This declutter challenge is enough to be effective but not enough to be an overwhelming task during the holidays.
The December Declutter
Just randomly trying to declutter through the month won’t help you be accountable, so we need a goal. The goal is to get rid of 100 items! That should be enough to offset all the extra holiday decorations, goodies, and gifts that are coming into the house this month. Don’t let 100 items scare you – it’s only 5 items or less a day for the rest of the month. And I’m super nice about what counts as items. A pen that has run out of ink totally counts as one item or even an old magazine can be one. Sounding simpler all the time, isn’t it? You can do this! We can do it together and offset all the STUFF.
So the December Declutter challenge is simple:
1 – Find about 5 items per day to either throw away or donate. Anything in your house, garage, shed, yard, purse, etc. counts.
2 – Items that are to be thrown away should be tossed out immediately. Items to be donated can be collected in boxes or bags.
3 – Share pics of your daily declutter finds and share on social media with #decemberdeclutter to help with accountabiity and making it fun!
4 – At the end of the month, zip on over to your favorite charity with your donation items and get a receipt for a tax write-off.
That’s it! Don’t spend more than 5-10 minutes a day to keep this from being too much to handle. This is not the time to completely reorganize the closet. Hit the easy spots to find your items to donate. Remember that the items don’t have to be large – any item heading out is offsetting something coming in. Here are a few declutter spots that always work for me to find items quickly:
- Junk drawer
- Silverware or utensil drawer
- DVD, CD, or video game collections
- My clothes closet
- My purse
Start now! Take 5 minutes and find 5 things to get rid of. Who’s with me?!
I think this is great! I need to try to do this for part of the month at least. I am constantly battling clutter. 😛
I think we all battle it constantly! That’s why I figure it’s easier to take small steps part of the time to get rid of a few things rather than making it a huge overwhelming task to get rid of everything all at once. I like baby steps that keep building into something significant. 🙂