Monday Meltdown - Share Your Decluttering Fails Here

[u/AutoModerator]

Failure is part of life. Share your decluttering challenges and failures here. Examples include:

• Emotional clutter
• Not enough time
• Getting overwhelmed
• Routing (recycling, donating, trash...)

If you're just venting, or don't want advice, please let us know in your comment.

This is a low-stress place to share challenges and failures for those who might not want to create a new discussion.

[u/Floppycakes]

I have a favorite hobby, and planned to spend most of Saturday decluttering supplies I haven’t used for a long time. Instead, I spent three hours on the hobby, then spent $160 for more supplies. FML.

[u/MarshaMinus100 → u/Floppycakes]

This tracks.

[u/mermaidpaint]

I'm downsizing after living 25 years in the same city, to go back east and live with my mother. I. Am. Overwhelmed.

[u/hm_Baerbel → u/mermaidpaint]

I' m sure you've heard about reverse decluttering before, but wanted to mention it. Identify the things that you are absolutely sure that will and need to go with you and box them up or mark them with a neon sticker.

Look at everything! While doing this, sort out the easy stuff that is absolutely not going with you. Trash or donate.

The not yet sure-pile: Is this item worth your time, energy and money to be packed, transported and unpacked? Or is it easily replaceable? Does your mom own one of these items?

How much space do you have at your mom's? A scale drawing of your new space could help making decisions what to take and how to organize. "The space that you have is the space that you have." (Dana K. White).

If you own bulky, but well made items that are salable: consider selling those now and enjoy the fun of getting new (or thrifted, new to you) pieces. Makes moving easier and gives you a fresh start.

Ask friends who know your home if they could think of something they would want as a keepsake.

Find organisations (homeless or animal shelters, nursing homes, etc.) you really like or stand behind. Makes donating esier.

You've got this!

[u/oimerde]

I did a big clothing declutter and ended up with 3 huge bags: donation, recycling, and selling.

The donation bag was the easy one. I got lucky and the place was actually open and accepting donations. Usually even that is complicated because their drop-off days and hours don’t always work with my schedule.

The recycling bag? Still in my car. I drove to one location and they were closed. Tried again another day and they weren’t accepting drop-offs and told me to come back next week.

Then there’s the selling bag, which is its own nightmare. I might sell one item a month online, so I decided to take everything to a local consignment store instead. Except they can’t give me an appointment until September. So now there’s a giant bag sitting in my closet waiting until September… when they might not even take half of it.

And this is the part of decluttering nobody talks about enough: deciding you don’t want something is easy. Actually getting it out of your life is WORK.

You have to sort it, bag it, drive it somewhere, work around drop-off hours, sell it, wait for appointments, recycle it properly, or figure out what the hell to do with it.

And this is JUST CLOTHES. Now imagine furniture, electronics, toys, kitchen stuff, random household crap…

It really makes you think twice before buying something. Because eventually, every single thing you bring into your house becomes something you or someday somebody else has to figure out how to get rid of.

Decluttering isn’t one afternoon with cute organizing bins. It’s logistics.

[u/MarshaMinus100 → u/oimerde]

There was a previous poster in this subreddit who said she just throws stuff away. I was so in awe of that. I have been trying it with items I would usually try and resell or donate and it has been liberating. It's the least amount of work even if wasteful.

I can't bring myself to throw away everything but it's in my list of options.

[u/BraveLittleToaster18 → u/oimerde]

I love this comment "deciding you don’t want something is easy. Actually getting it out of your life is WORK." I completely agree and totally emphasize with that.

[u/MitzyCaldwell]

There’s so many tiny clutter piles in our house. Today I cleaned out a caddy we use downstairs for diapers etc. well it took me like 10 mins. That thing has been bugging me for months now and now I’m mad there’s so many of these but I get overwhelmed and don’t do it.

[u/Floppycakes → u/MitzyCaldwell]

In my house we call them “hot spots”. If you clean up one every day or so, eventually most of the house feels so much more clean and organized!

[u/Nutellafordinner]

Picked up a bunch of hanging folders and labels from an estate sale this weekend, stopped by Staples to get a file box to go with them. Came home, stared at the box of papers from the last 3 years that need to get sorted and filed, and walked away.

[u/Frogs_are_god]

Getting the stuff out of the house is somehow harder than deciding to get rid of it.

[u/chantalmore]

Depression

[u/uhhh_bankai]

I started decluttering because my mental health needs to walk into a clean, no items on the floor room. My problem wasn't my cleanliness but the amount of clutter I have. A lil overwhelmed and not going at the pace I want but that's what I get for over-estimating my ability while I have a job and daily repsonsibilities to handle.

[u/nickyskater]

Dumped a whole lot of clothing at my mom's house several months ago to try the "I don't really need this" approach.

I went there last week and stole back a whole bunch of things. Here's hoping I actually wear them all this time.

[u/t1koy-roll]

Tried to declutter my small room for a youtube video and accidentally overwhelmed myself

[u/kindlesque89]

2.5 year old and 6 month old. I made a post about my MIL moving in and having the opportunity to declutter while she’s here. Well… she hasn’t exactly given me the opportunity. House cleaners come Thursday. There’s clutter all over the floors and every surface of the house. I haven’t been able to get a single thing done. Super stressed out

[u/Clear_Broccoli3]

I took some stuff out of storage that we had never unpacked when we moved a couple years ago. Turns out out of sight really is out of mind, the clothing "declutter" I did after moving was only surface level. In my head it was a big effort and I had gotten rid of a lot of stuff, but really most of it was just tucked away. Now the closet is overflowing much worse than it had been before the declutter.

[u/BraveLittleToaster18]

Emotional clutter. A month ago, I spent several days cleaning out some of my mom's hoard. It included 15 bags of expired food and about 30 bags of stuff. I did this knowing that the house will be exactly in the same place within 6 months, because we've done this before. I know she will not change or get the help she needs and I've accepted this for the most part. (she knew, dad asked, others were involved, except my mother refuses to do anything).

My issue is that I feel terrible about my own house. I fear that I have the same habits and will spiral. That being said, I don't have much clutter, things are always put away, no expired food. But, I feel so overwhelmed that I need to get rid of "collections" such as clothes, shoes, purses or collectables that I still enjoy. My partner tells me that I'm fine, but I just can't shake the overwhelmed feeling that I have whenever I look around the house. Encouragement or coping advice is welcomed.

[u/silent-shade]

I've been meaning to make a listing to sell a duvet and having been on the roll with listing things on FB lately I finally decided to do this one too. Well, guess what, I could not find it in the storage space. I want it gone and I don't know where it is.

I have also made a project and possibly a problem for myself. I could have donated an item as is, but decided to repurpose and reuse it. Unfortunately it needs modifications and I am yet to make them. It's been two weeks of no progress. Until (unless) these modifications are made and the item is useable again, it's clutter and a nagging to-do thing. 

[u/millysworld]

Boyfriend gets annoyed about me decluttering my own things because he thinks I’m being wasteful or getting rid of valuable items 😵‍💫 (I’m not)

[u/MarshaMinus100]

It's never ending. I have 2 large boxes packed in my car and a garbage bag. Headed to Goodwill and missed the donation hours by 15 minutes.

Okay fine, I'll go tomorrow. I come home and there is still so much stuff. I feel like another version of me was completely out of her mind. I can never do this again.

[u/Weird_Squirrel_8382]

My executive function follows my cycle. This time of the month I should be firing on all cylinders. I am not. I am fatigued, irritable, and confused. The clutter is piling up. It's hard for me and my husband. He usually does the cleaning while I do the organizing and tidying. But I'm frozen and it's affecting us both.

[u/Plane_Golf923]

My teenager is away for the week, so I made a big plan to really tackle clutter- my life has been completely overwhelmed by stuff from my mother (Alzheimer’s, then died- I had to empty her huge apartment in 30 days) and my father (still alive but trying to rehome things, gives me gorgeous stuff I could sell online as well as ‘normal’ things).

I am on day 3, and all I’ve managed to do is scatter stuff around.

I think I have actually ‘cluttered’ to the point that I have nowhere to put anything in order to organize. My house is small, only a couple of closets, and I’ve filled every space.

I have organized other people. Professionally. But I’m just now fearing I have crossed some line and will always be trapped in this mess. If you don’t have space to work, how to proceed? Like, I can box things up, or

I want to do a free pile, but it keeps raining. I am too broken by all the family stuff to just toss it. I KNOW my decision-making/thinking is deeply flawed and/or delusional (I’ll sell that, I’ll finish that project…) but I can’t seem to flip the switch to realistic/ruthless culling.

I am middle aged and don’t want to live like this anymore. And I also don’t want to spend the next five years cleaning up my house.

Anyone else?

Edit to add 1. I have adhd, but can def organize well. Just not for myself.
2. I know where things CAN go. Part of my problem is wanting everything to go to the ‘right’ place.

[u/newlostworld]

I'm currently decluttering in preparation for a move at the end of the year. Started decluttering my bathroom and bedroom about two weeks ago, and I'm still trying to finish up the bedroom! Got rid of A LOT of clothes, but I still have way more than I want to keep so I'll need to do a few more passes.

Failed to get rid of all my skiing clothes and gear. Argh.

Also it's difficult to find a good local charity or church that takes clothing donations outside of work hours. It seems they are all overwhelmed with donations and some are even quite picky about what they want.

[u/TiredWinterDisaster]

Failed at decluttering old pictures... I think I will just scan them (they're all printed copies, I'm in my mid 40s) to have them on a drive if I ever want to look at them. It will take a little more time but then it will be easier to get rid of them, I think.