Process

—Here's what I wrote in the final turn-in about my process. Some of this may be helpful to anyone in a similar situation. 

I started with the kitchen, getting it as close to a finish as could be done in a day. The effect of having a clean portion of the house quickly spread and before I knew it I was cleaning both of the livingrooms. I removed everything from the floor and packed all of the extra things on my desktop into a box (it actually took 3 boxes). Once I had a clean workspace, it made doing my other work easier. But it was only temporary.

— Gradually, I grabbed things I needed out of the boxes and brought them back onto my desk. After I had a good idea of what I was actually using, it was easy to go through the boxes and get rid of some of the excess, and find a new place for the other stuff to go. I quickly narrowed it down to one box of things that need to be organized.

—To help keep the floor clear of dog toys, I took a wooden crate and filled it with toys. Then any time we find one that’s not being used, we know where it belongs. It wasn’t difficult for the dogs to figure out where we kept the toys.

—The new shoe rack also helps in maintaining a clean floor.

—Once I removed some of the extra storage boxes, we could get to our coat rack, so that helped to keep our coats off the couch. It only takes a minute to clean the livingroom now, since everything has a proper place that’s easily accessible.

—Most of the semester, I had been focusing on the house and what is visible, with the pile of boxes safely out of sight and out of mind.

—Occasionally, when I had a presentation, I would go to storage, and pick out a box full of items to give away. As a result, it was a lot of the more obvious stuff that was easy to get rid of. 

—But now with the house clean, I turned my attention to storage.

—I went box by box and started by throwing away whatever wasn’t worth keeping or giving away. I threw away a full garbage bag.

—Then I went through each box in turn and emptied it onto the floor. I decided the fate of each item, whether I kept it or it went away.

—When all the boxes were sorted, I had a stack of boxes of things to keep (to be organized and put away later) and 6 boxes of stuff to give away.

—I then sorted through the give-away and selected the best things to bring to the final presentation. Of the 6 boxes, I had 4 boxes worth that was good enough. The other two went straight to GoodWill.

—Out of all of that, there was ONE item that I felt was too valuable to give away. I asked $20 for my slim Playstation 2 I don’t use anymore. In the end though, I gave it to someone who really wanted it, and had helped me a lot throughout the semester. I feel good about sending it off, versus feeling bad about seeing it sitting in a box forever. 

—It was hard to start giving things away, but if you start with the easy stuff the other stuff will get easier. 

It’s especially easier when you see that the person it’s going to is happy about it. Giving away things in class helped with this.