Declutter Challenge: Day 1

 It's Day 1 of our Declutter Challenge and we are starting with you, not your partner, not your kids, not your housemates.
If you want to see your whole house decluttered, and you want your family to join in, you must lead by example. You must tackle the process of decluttering in a way that you will feel the immediate results and develop a system that you will stick with without rebounding. Starting in your space with your things will have the most effect on how you start your day, how you end your day, and how well you sleep at night. And because it will effect your mood in such a positive way, you will be more likely to keep going with the rest of your house. 
We're going to start with your clothes. Why? From my experience cleaning houses and helping others organize, clothing seems to be the biggest eyesore of clutter in most people's bedrooms. Its on the bed, sometimes baskets full of it, its draped over the end of the bed, it's hanging on over the door hooks, it's laying on top of nightstands, dressers, chairs and ottomans. There's clothing on the floor, and it's oozing out of your dresser drawers and the closet door won't close. Clothing is the main source of clutter in adult bedrooms. Clearing that clutter, along with making your bed everyday will have the most visual and energetic impact on your life. We're gonna start with socks and underwear. 
Why? Again when I walk into my client's homes to clean them, inevitably I will tuck socks and underwear into drawers, so that I can close them. Those drawers are always open or have something peeking out of them, even if the other drawers are closed. 
We're going to use the Konmari Method for going through and folding our clothes this week. So let's begin.
Step 1: Collect and Wash 
Go around your house and collect your socks from everywhere they may be stashed, even the lonely orphan socks. Again, not children's socks and not your partner's socks, just yours. Collect your underwear while you are at it. If you have dirty socks and underwear, wash and dry them.
Step 2: Dump Them Out
Dump all of them out onto your bed or your dining room table and sort them into pairs. 

Step 3: Decide What to Keep
Pick up each pair of socks, hold them in your hands, and ask yourself three questions: 1) Do these fit right? 2) Are they comfortable to wear? 3) Are they worn thin or do they have wholes in them? If the answer to one and two is yes, put them in the keep pile, if the answer is no, discard them. If the answer to number three is yes, discard them.
Step 4: Create a Bag for Recycled Clothes
You will use this bag or bags over the course of this week for more than your socks. No one wants old hole filled or uncomfortable socks. So to lesson your carbon foot print recycle them! I don't mean into another use in your house though. Old stained and torn clothes can be recycled and reused for their fibers in the creation of many different products. Here in Asheville, we have a antique furniture market, The Regeneration Station that has a dumpster for recycled clothes that they send off. Call around in your city or town to see if you have a business that does this. IF you don't, just toss those socks now and forget the recycled clothes bag. 

Step 5: Fold the Socks You are Keeping
You are going to use the Konmari Method to fold your socks. Check out my video recorded this morning on my Facebook page, www.facebook.com/theneatfreaks . The folding tutorial starts at about 6:20, if you don't want to watch the whole video. 
Step 6: Find Shallow Boxes or Storage Baskets 
Look around your house. Do you have an old iPad box? Do you have other small shallow boxes that would fit nicely in your drawer, grab them. You will use them to separate ankle socks from mid-length socks and knee-high or ski length socks. 
Step 6: Place the Socks Back in Your Drawer

Step 7: The Lonely Sock Basket
If you didn't do this when you went through all your paired socks, now is time to dump your lonely sock basket on the table or bed. I bet you will find more than lonely socks in it, if you do, put those things where they go. Lay them all out and look through them to find any pairs. All the socks that don't pair up, go in the clothing recycle bag with the socks that no longer serve you. The ones that do go in your newly remodeled sock drawer. 

Here^, you see that I still have socks in the lonely sock basket? These are my daughter's socks. I know, I said do you, not your children. But, I did this to my socks sometime ago, so I couldn't take pictures of the process for the blog. Today is laundry day in our house, and I know that the few socks in our left in our lonely sock basket have matches that I will find in her wash. I found three pairs of socks that matched, and the pile on the right is all the socks and tights we are discarding. 
Tonight, I want you to do this to your socks, and then I want you to go through your underwear and bra drawers. There are lots of videos on YouTube on how to fold clothes the Konmari way. Just search "Konmari underwear" or "Konmari boxers," etc, and you will find a video that suits you. 
Happy Purging and Folding! I'll see you all tomorrow for Day 2 of our Declutter Challenge.