Tis the season to declutter ...

January. New year, new beginning - and for many people, new self-promises that include words like "organised", "declutter" and "sort"!

I have traditionally become motivated in this way around January 6th, which is when we take down our Christmas decorations and remove our tree from the house. This day is usually preceded by increasing "twitchiness" to get started on that, which I distract by making a start in other parts of the house.

This year, I have been thwarted a little by a flare-up of fibromyalgia, leaving me fatigued and having to manage over-all joint pain - not generally ideal conditions for decluttering! However, I have made use of the short bursts I get each day and have made progress in the scrapbooking room and our bedroom, plus the lounge room - which all sounds quite grand,, except I only did these rooms in the last few months of 2010, so I have really just been Equalising them!

My real targets are the annual "turn out" of the hall cupboard and linen cupboard, the kitchen cupboards and the shelves in our family room. (These shelves used to be my ABA hub when I was tethered by a desktop computer and folders of paper files - these days they have been quietly taken over as a sort of gaming/video hub for my 19yo son, so I may as well remove the last of my stuff and admit defeat!)

But the biggest target of all will be this Sunday, when the family have been ORDERED to turn up for a working bee at our storage unit! The newly-wed daughter has a three-bedroom house, a garage AND a shed, so the time has come for her boxed childhood to leave home! That will free up space for the stuff we do need to store off-site: our home has no garage, three occupied bedrooms and a well-filled scrapbooking room, no roof space or usable under-house storage and two sheds filled with tools and bike stuff belonging to my husband. So, seasonal stuff like the Christmas decorations as well as other items go to the storage unit. Unfortunately, it is also a bit of a half-way house for stuff that we might be ready to let go, odds and ends from my workplace that need storage and a heap of other stuff including my late fathers electronic organ, which my eldest daughter will take when she finally moves out!

So, come Sunday, I expect them all to rock up ready to get dusty and dirty! There will be rubbish, recycling and rehousing until I can sweep the floor clean and only put back "that which I love or need." (from the book The Accidental Organiser, borrowed from the library this week)

Which should be a good beginning to my various organising challenges for the year!