DAY 1: Set Up Your 3 Outboxes Before Starting Any Decluttering Project
Community Manager
Welcome to the first day of Apartment Therapy's Decluttering Cure! This free 14-day program will guide you on how to start decluttering your home, and by the end you’ll achieve a tidier space in just two weeks. (Sign up now if you haven't already to get each assignment delivered straight to your inbox.)
Whether it’s your first time joining us or you’re a seasoned pro, we're so happy you’re here. Let's introduce Stephanie Nguyen, Apartment Therapy’s senior editor of cleaning & organizing. As the person in charge of the program, Stephanie is so excited about all the decluttering we’ll do together.
If you have any questions about the program, today's assignment, or decluttering in general, Stephanie is here in this forum thread answering them today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. Drop your questions below!
And without further ado, here's today's task: set up your three outboxes — and tell us below what you used as your outboxes!
Comments
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I have an unbelievable amount of baby clothes and maternity clothes in my closet, so I cannot wait to get started on this assignment to help me get ready for our baby who is coming in March. I live in a NYC apartment with less than luxurious closets to say the least, so keeping my clothes decluttered is a must. Any suggestions on the best places to donate baby clothes?
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Hi @Rebecca ! Congratulations!! I recommend dropping off baby clothes to a donation center, charity, or non-profit organization. Little Essentials in Brooklyn accepts new and gently used children’s items.
Larger non-profit organizations, like Goodwill and The Salvation Army, can get overwhelmed with donations, so it always good to call and check if they need baby clothes first.
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Hi!
Do you have any suggestions on getting the family "on board"? So much of our clutter is generated by my family members, and quite frankly, they have no wish to declutter any of it. If it's in their bedrooms, I'm OK with that—it's their space, after all—but it's bleeding out into the rest of the house. I feel like it's "me vs. them." This may be a no-win situation. Maybe it needs to be shoved back into their room, and the bedroom doors closed. I KNOW if I de-clutter it by myself, World War III will start.
Thanks!
Travis
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Hi everyone, my kitchen counters and my dining table seems to multiply with paper and small stuff and I just don't know how to get a hold of it. I haven't found the perfect method yet! It's so frustrating 😫
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Hi @travis9403 . It's definitely hard to get other people in your home onboard with your decluttering efforts. I have a few tips that you can try! It's best to lead by example and also explain why decluttering is so important for the whole family. Set a realistic goal and timeline to get things done. And once you've reached the finish line, celebrate or have a reward in mind for you all to enjoy.
If you have young children, making decluttering into a game can boost their interest in it. It also helps to implement rules or methods that can make decluttering more bite-sized and manageable. The "10 Things" rule is so simple and easy, and this writer swears by it: https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/10-things-clutter-rule-36945730
I hope this helps you!
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Hi @meleena6625 ! Paper clutter is so tricky because it can be everywhere. (We dedicate a whole day to paper clutter on day six of the cure.)
I recommend decluttering first, sorting through piles based on what needs to be kept or tossed immediately. For the ones you're keeping, you can sort them into things you need to address now or need to file away for later.
For additional steps, it can be helpful to take a look at the clutter that you've accumulated and see if anything can be minimized in the future. For instance, if you are still getting paper bills, can you switch to online only?
And, once you've decluttered, consider implementing an organizational tool to keep clutter at bay, like a mail holder.
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Just signed up for the 14 Day Challenge to declutter. I have an Amazon Box labeled Donate, a storage container for my Maybes and another cardboard box for Sell. I have put them in the spare room, so I can easily get to them. Looking forward to getting back some peace of mind with declutterring.
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We have a room full of so called inherited stuff. I need to call museums and other museums and get the hutch inside and out the garage and in to the living room. I need to clean it, paint part of it. All seems overwhelming. I also have a bag of clothes donations and the donation place I used for years does not take clothes anymore and directed me to to a place I have never been to. Procrastnation ugh.
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@lindsay5391 thanks for joining us and excited for all the decluttering we'll be doing. Great outboxes!
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Thanks for the Trash & Recycle reminder. I find that much of my decluttering involves more complicated Recycling: worn-out clothing, old sneakers, etc. Living in NYC, I hate to put these into the trash, but it's tough to find places that accept these. Would you have a reliable, up-to-date source on this kind of recycling?
Nike doesn't accept shoes in most NYC locations (just north Bronx).
Greenmarket rules have changed since the pandemic, and many locations have closed.0 -
Hi RIJ! Decluttering inherited items is soo hard. We dedicate a whole day to addressing clutter with sentimental value in our Decluttering Cure, but even that isn't enough to get through it all. I recommend breaking down each thing you have to do into bite-sized manageable steps. Sounds like you have a few already in mind, but include "calling museums" and "bringing the hutch inside" as individual tasks will be so helpful in checking off items on your to-do list.
We also go over decluttering clothes and where to donate all the things you decluttered during our program. Setting aside a day on my calendar to get donations out the door has been helpful for me. If the place you haven't been to is too far away, I definitely recommend looking for lesser-known organizations that are closer to you, as some of the larger-known organizations (like Goodwill) can get overwhelmed with stuff.
I hope you join us!
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Hi @akinnyc3405 ! That's a great question. For anything lightly used, but still good, I definitely recommend donating as much as possible. But for the worn-out/old products you mentioned: for shoes, you can check out Soles4Souls, and for clothing, For Days, has a Take Back Bag program, and Madewell, in partnership with Cotton’s Blue Jeans Go Green™ program, will take any denim jeans you own and recycle them.
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Hey there. I'm taking my kid to college in about 10 days and then I'm moving from the apartment we've been in for the past year back to my bungalow. I did a tremendous amount of decluttering before we moved (I'd been in that house for 2+ decades), and I'll do it again before I move back. My life is really different now so I use fewer things in my kitchen, for example, than I used to, so I'll make some decisions about what will be in our everyday life back at the house and what will get put in the basement storage for Thanksgiving and label the moving boxes accordingly. I'm also entering a new phase of life on my own so I'll let go of a lot of clothes that I don't love (so many blah clothes uninspired by WFH life) to make room for new ones as I fill in my new look. Overall, I need this move back to the house to continue the momentum I've built up going into a really good time for myself and not feel like a step back in time.
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Starting a kitchen remodel. Will have thrown out two bags of trash. Boxed up the not needed frequently items. And recycled a bunch of bottles. Biggest culprit, take out containers. Also need as many tips as possible on paper clutter. Looking forward to this decluttering journey. Day 1 was a success!
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Hi @WonderKat! Way to go on all of your decluttering efforts thus far. Decluttering to downsize and move can be a lot and utilizing basement or temporary storage with labeled boxes is such a great idea. Tomorrow, we go over some basic ground rules for decluttering that I think can be so helpful when decluttering clothes (which we'll also get to on day 5!) — like asking yourself: "Would I buy this again today?" or "Will I use it in the year ahead?
I hope by joining our Decluttering Cure, you'll be able to keep up the decluttering momentum you have going.
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@Needclutterhelp Awesome job so far and congrats on finishing up day one! We tackle paper clutter on day six of the cure — so happy to have you join us on your decluttering journey.
You can see the full calendar here too:
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@travis9403 For getting other people on board: my experience is that it's best to start with my own stuff. When I declutter my own stuff, my partner often starts decluttering his stuff too. But when I try to declutter/organize communal stuff in the kitchen, living room, storage closet, or other shared areas, thinking I'm making things better, I inevitably change some arrangement he's come to rely on (that looks to me like random mess) and provoke a lot of resistance. So my advice would be to declutter YOUR stuff first (your clothes, books, papers, hobby stuff, whatever), and then innocently comment afterwards how great your X looks now that it's all cleaned out and neat, and how good you feel now that you can find everything easily and don't have a lot of useless junk, etc. And stop there!
You can also make rules about not keeping personal items in public rooms. Let the kids do whatever they want in their rooms, but the public rooms have to adhere to a certain standard because they belong to everyone. Maybe discuss with everyone what the rules should be? I've learned to ask my partner questions before I change things — find out what he's using, what works for him, and then try to find a mutually satisfactory compromise that works for both of us.
Good luck!
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This is also how I've approached decluttering and other new habits. If you lead by example, you'd be surprised how much you can inspire others over time 😊
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I love utilizing my neighborhood "Buy Nothing" group on Facebook. I'd bet your specific neighborhood has one too. It can be a little more time consuming to snap pics and post then arrange pickup etc, but it's also a cool way to connect with your neighbors.
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I definitely have this problem too, and then it feels too overwhelming to begin. I have found a method that helps me—it’s Dana White’s tidying method which you can find on YouTube. Hard to describe here but she has a lot of videos demonstrating. It just seems to help to have a set of steps laid out to take you from messy to clean. Then once it’s tidy, I’d suggest repeating the method every week or so just to keep it that way.
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