The 2024 Declutter Checklist

7.5 MAJOR PROJECTS TO COMPLETE

The counter will make sense in a moment.

Above you see the most recent version of the Clutter Projects list. It too me so long to get back to it that I needed the dry ease cleaner to get the board cleaned. The brush alone wasn’t going to remove all this because it was stuck on. While I won’t say I haven’t taken this decluttering project seriously in 2023 I don’t think I was serious enough. I did get things done (there’s a couple more things I could have checked off) and that’s on topic of project I never got to both physically and virtually when it comes to organizing and removing the clutter from my life.

So for 2024 I decided to put together a refreshed checklist of all the decluttering projects I want done by the end of the year. In addition to writing them on the dry ease board for immediate reference I’m going to sticky this post to the homepage as another checklist. I’ll erase them from the board and cross them out on the page as they get done. At the end of the year I’ll do a follow-up in December and see how far I got. Crossing them off here will show I’m doing them, even if there isn’t a full article going over the project. I’ll drop a few conditions in at the end, but these are my physical and virtual decluttering goals.

Quick Report> Dusting And Decluttering

This week my dad and I both decided we were long overdue to dust, and now that neither of us was sick or getting over some medical test for once, this weekend was as good as any. For me, I did the studio today. I was just going to post a filler for you guys and focus on the dusting. Then I started doing it. It’s a big room, but it was so much me being tired as me fighting my sinuses to get the dust out of my nose and stop sneezing my brains out! I also did the stairs leading up to my living space, while my dad did the living room and his office as well as the kitchen.

I did stop to do some reorganizing, a bit of minor clutter removal, and dusting including a bunch of decorative stuff I have around the studio and cleaning out my keyboards. I redid the computer desk layout but I didn’t take pictures but I haven’t decided if I’m keeping it this way and it showed me a bunch of papers I have to go through, which will be a project on its own.  I also found some stuff to toss out. I still have the bedroom and bathroom to do, but my nose is a bit plugged writing this on a Friday night, so I’m wondering if I’ll be able to. Maybe if I wore a mask> At least the studio is dusted nicely. What I really need to do is vacuum up here before I really need the air conditions to use all the extra electric up here, but I don’t want to do that until the bedroom is done. The house is old and the electricity is…the stairway light switch at the bottom of the stairs works the light and shuts off one of the electrical outlets upstairs while the same switch upstairs just works the light. Someone really messed that one up. i don’t want to run the air conditioners and the vacuum cleaner along with the computer or TV. At least my computer set-up is on a different breaker.

So I did some dusting and some decluttering, which was at least worthy of a quick report. I’ll edit this if I risk my sinuses to do more cleaning. Dusting and allergy season are a bad combination.

Comic Report> Fraggle Rock Classics

The following article is a retool of a previous review I wrote for my other website, with added links and thoughts put in to pad out the article and after having done a reread for that other website. Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day, and I didn’t go because I was too tired from shopping the day before, don’t have the money to buy a comic (I always feel bad because the comic store has to pay for those comics that are free to the customer so buying a not-free comic feels like the right thing to do given the current situation with comic stores), and partly because of that whole decluttering thing with bags worth of comics I’m trying to sell off. (Check the Clutter For Sale section.) At any rate, if this was going up by post time, I had to get something out and I forgot I did this review years ago. I just reworked it so you got more than another castoff and I had more to say. With that, the retooled review with added thoughts:

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“Look, the Incredible Hulk!” “No, that’s just you Wembley.”

Fraggle Rock Classics volume 1

Archaia (November, 2011)

collects issues 1-4 of Star Comics‘ Fraggle Rock

WRITER: Stan Kay

ARTIST: Marie Severin

RESTORATION/COLORS: Brian Newman & Joanna Estep

COVER ART: Jake Myler

LETTERER: Grace Dremer

EDITOR: Sid Jacobson

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Tom DeFalco

In the 1980s, HBO hosted a series called Fraggle Rock. The show followed a group of furry humanoids with tails called Fraggles, who lived in the underground world of Fraggle Rock. On one side were the Gorgs, who grew their favored food supply of radishes, and on the other our world. One of the Fraggles, Travelling Matt, decided to explore our world, “outer space”, while the show focused on four characters. Gobo is an explorer like his uncle Matt, Red is what we would call a tomboy in humans (or “silly creatures” as they refer to us), Boober is into washing clothes and being depressed, Wembley has trouble making his own mind up and is also on the fire brigade, and Mokey is the artist complete with semi-hippie stereotype. Also in this network of caves are the Doozers, who make their constructions edible so the Fraggles will eat them and they can build again. They love building.

The Gorgs are a father, mother, and dimwitted son who believe they are the rulers of the universe, but the only other creatures they see are Fraggles, and the mother is scared of the “rodents”. Dad seems ready for retirement, and Junior just wants to dance and garden while getting himself a pet. On the other side of the garden is a sentient trash heap who usually offers the Fraggles advice. That’s basically the show.

In 2011 Arcana obtained the rights to do a new comic series based on the Fraggles. This included two volumes of Fraggle Rock Classics, containing the eight issue run from the original comics by Star Comics, a Marvel imprint that focused on kids comics and was mostly licenses, with only a handful of original comics. If the four issues of the Star Comics run in this first volume are any indication, the comic version of the then hit HBO children’s series takes visual cues and character models from the NBC Saturday Morning animated spinoff. I suppose that makes turning the 3-D Muppets into 2-D comic drawings easier when someone else did the work. Doc’s face is never seen, much like the animated version. Actually, I just looked into the show and comic, and it’s possible the comic came before the show. I only have this collection because a co-worker of mine was a fan of the show but didn’t otherwise collect comics, so I would pick them up for her. Then she ended up leaving unexpectedly (I still don’t know what happened) while this trade was coming, so I got stuck with it. I’ll be adding it to the comics for sale section, but first I thought I’d properly review the original comics, which I’ll link to in this retooled article.

Clearing My Way To The Pinball Machine

You’ve seen this before. It’s my pinball machine, which I picked up cheap at a closing K-Mart many years ago. It’s not a high-end machine. It’s one of a series of pinball machines that were mass produced by the same company with the same layout and sounds that would slap a label on and call it a day. No multiball, no special targets, just a very simple pinball machine. I’m okay with that given what I paid for it, and a full-sized pinball machine wouldn’t fit in my living space. There’s even some debate as to whether it fits now.

Here’s the state of the machine going into this week’s project. I can’t play a game that I can’t even get to and is covered with things blocking the playfield. So this week I went ahead and tried to clean up around the space. so I can play the thing again. It would make for a nice diversion to get my eyes off of the screen for a while and I found a good enough spot for it. It’s just that junk kind of collected around it, making the whole corner look cluttered and ugly. So let’s solve both of those problems.

Why Do We Watch Other Declutterers

No project of my own this week. On Tuesday I had to have a liver biopsy because my last blood work had some concerning markers and my gastrologist wanted it checked out. As of this writing I don’t have the results yet, but I’m hoping it’s nothing I have to worry about. At any rate, I had a restriction on heavy labor for the next three days, which would take me up to Saturday. I could do work this week but I want to finish the week off just to be sure. So this week it’s more email decluttering and I’m not sure what else I can write about when it comes to that project. It’s just a repeat of what I’ve already written.

So I thought I’d break out another video, and this one was rather interesting to me. I started The Clutter Reports as an excuse to get me to do at least a little decluttering each week. “I have a deadline, I must clean something” is kind of a running gag with me. That was the goal, to use my writing desires to get me to declutter. It’s been a longer project that most, and I still have areas that need work, but I am better off than I was when I started, though this year and last have been rather disappointing. Like this week, I’ve had to resort to videos by other declutterers just to have something, playing to the site’s secondary goal of inspiring others. Am I, though?

The following video comes from the YouTube channel The New Retired Me, a channel that’s not necessarily devoted to decluttering but has done a few videos on the topic at the request of his viewers after reporting on past declutter efforts. This led him to try to understand why people watch decluttering videos, and that can apply to decluttering blogs like this one as well, I think. He lists his theories, but how does that apply to The Clutter Reports, I wonder?

My Dad’s Decluttering Projects

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Today’s project for me is doing some more digital work. Yes, I wanted to get some of the physical decluttering in this week but I was just drawn to do some more cleaning up of the backup drive. It should allow me to work on cutting through more of my YouTube backlog as I work at least. My dad has one computer now, and I thought it was a good time to take the various files from both previous computers and combine into one, more easily searchable, listing. Luckily he also provided a good article topic accidentally in the physical declutter realm, so that makes up for it.

Essentially he had three projects in addition to turning the wood deck into a screened-in deck to avoid the bugs and not have to clean snow during winter. So with some good weather this week he worked towards that goal. However, he also did a few projects that are worth bringing up on this site. If you can’t be inspired by what I’m doing this week, let my dad inspire you. He’s done that for me because I have a good dad.

Finished Organizing My Artputer…Mostly

This should be the final report involving re-organizing my art computer laptop, the “Artputer”. Not a big report, though.

I finished moving all the files over I wanted last week after all, but that all took up a lot of space on the hard drive. So, as part of Operation: A Use For Everything, I had this flash drive a friend of mine gave me with 256 GB of storage space on it. It’s almost a removable hard drive. So I put most of my project files on that and took it off the laptop. As a benefit, if I want to bring this to my other computer or any other computer for any reason it should be easy. I don’t have to send it to the cloud, switch computers, download it, and then get back to work. Just a simple USB swap.

I do have more I need to do, but that will need to be done as I use it, to fine tune the file organization. I also want to play with all the features of my other art programs and see if brushes, textures, and other files can be put on them, and what the easiest method is for adding all this stuff to my programs now and in the future, especially Clip Studio Paint and Paint Shop Pro. For the most part, and for the purposes of this site, the project is complete and hopefully next week’s project will be more interesting to more readers.

Still Organizing The “Artputer”

I’m doing this one quick report style because most of this site’s readers aren’t that interested in my artistic endeavors. I’ll go into detail if asked in the comments, but most of you are here for the organizing, and while that’s what I continue to do, it’s not the type most of you come here for. Still, it has to be done and I did get further in my goal of setting up the laptop as my art computer (artputer). It’s not complete, but I did push further ahead.

I even got to check off “transfer test pencils and photos”, so now I have all most of the images I need. I’m actually considering moving all the actual projects, strips, and et cetera to a USB flash drive my friend gave me. This will not only free up room on the artputer but allow me to move to a different computer if the laptop goes down or I want to do something on a different computer, like my main. Only the images I need for textures and other image editing features will be on the artputer at that point.

Speaking of which I did transfer textures for Paint Shop Pro that came with earlier versions into the current version. Also picture tubes, images that can easily be manipulated in Paint Shop Photo Pro. I’ve actually made pictures with nothing but picture tubes and gradients for the background. I wanted that back. The question is how much of these I can also use in Clip Studio Paint. I didn’t get that far today.

I also put all of my fonts on the artputer, but I didn’t install them, except for one I needed. Fonts take up a lot of space so I want to go over them and see what I really need currently. I have every font I own on the back-up drive so it’s not a problem provided nothing happens to the back-up drive. My friend usually only installs what he needs, and will remove ones he only needed temporarily or doesn’t use anymore. There’s more space on hard drives now, but I’m going to follow that pattern. I’ll probably also put the others on the art project drive in case I need them in the future.

So that’s today’s part of the project. I still have some more to do and I already know where I want to deal with the next set of physical clutter when this is done. These are projects that have been incomplete for too long and I’m taking the time to get to it for better productivity, the same as the usual declutter and organizing projects. Just a little bit at a time, more if I can spare it (and hopefully this week won’t be as busy as the last two), and it will finally be done. Then move to the next one. That’s what works for me.

Have a happy Easter, everyone. If you don’t celebrate, I still hope it’s a good day for you.

Organizing The “Artputer”

I don’t know how many of you are going to find this interesting, but part of my declutter and organizing is making use of the various electronics and other items at my disposal. Plus I don’t have an art blog right now, so even though it barely qualifies I don’t have another option. Hope you can follow along and find it interesting. If not, today’s a good day to do your own project or check out some of my old ones. Yesterday was about the art space. While I’ve organized my physical art space more than once the digital side has not gotten much love. This week I started working on that.

In the corner where my art stuff setup is there isn’t much in the way of electric plugs. So I have a laptop with extension cord that fits nicely into the art desk that serves as the digital side of my artistic setup. I use the Parblo A610 seen above because I prefer it to the tablet monitor. I’m not one of the people who has a disconnect between monitor and drawing hand, possibly because of all the digital coloring and image editing I already did prior. The laptop is fine for my needs (except it can’t run 3D, including the virtual drawing mannequins in Clip Studio Paint) but I haven’t maximised the software with all the tools I need. Yesterday I decided to work on that…and got one and a half things out of five done. Still worth discussing.

Video Report> A Minimalist Reclaims Physical Media

Today’s project is more e-mail decluttering and that’s a boring article. So I’m going back to the “decluttering and organizing” search on YouTube, and this time it’s another new method of decluttering. It’s almost the opposite.

I’ve written numerous times before on this site that physical media seems to be dying off and why that’s a bad thing. The studios are thrilled because that means every time you watch it on TV or a rental, ad-sponsored, or subscription streaming service, they make money. That’s why they don’t want you to own anything, and this is true for television, movies, music, video games, and even comics are trying to dip into this. The problem is, if a show or game disappears you lose it. Recently, Sony got in trouble for pulling their Discovery content, which they had no choice about as the license ended and they opted not to renew, but didn’t refund the money to everyone who “bought” something there but would now not be able to watch it, which they totally did have a choice over and went with “screw over our customers who were dumb enough to think they actually owned those copies of Mythbusters they gave Playstation money for.

Now there are video game publishers who want to you not own a game so they can continue to make money off of you by “streaming” or “subscribing” to a game rather than a physical copy or a digital download that is still yours. That’s if you don’t need server access to supposedly avoid video game piracy, only for you to not be able to play the game if the server is down. There are videos on YouTube all about games that can no longer be played even if you have the proper hardware and operating system because the server you need to play or approve the game is no longer supported.

In my capacity as a storytelling critique I’m also hearing about Disney+ altering classic movies from their own library and the recently acquired 20th Century Fox library because it didn’t meet with the current standards of certain group. I won’t get into that discussion outside of to say if you wanted the original lines and visuals from the movie as you knew them for years, sucks to be you. The “outdated depictions” tag apparently isn’t enough anymore. That’s also a problem and why physical media you own and can’t be taken away from you is better than streaming in the long run.

In the following video by Teresa’s Chaotic Corner, our hostess discusses her own journey to reclaim her movie library after learning that minimalist has a downside when it comes to your media library.

Figuring Out My Cluttered Schedule

You wouldn’t think someone who is out of work would have an issue with a cluttered schedule. Well, thanks to the medical issues I’ve had combined with poor planning (and I’ll totally and sadly admit more of the latter than the former as responsible), that’s the situation I’m in, and one of the things I really want to work on this year. Not having a proper work flow in the projects I’m working on, including this one and the stuff I want to turn into making me money, is probably my biggest problem not only creatively but personally. This is what’s on my mind at the moment.

Now I’m going to try to stay light on details only because I know many, if not most, of you out there probably don’t run a blog, make comics, and want to produce videos while decluttering your living space, taking care of your health, and getting the daily chores done while still needing to sleep, eat, and various other projects you want done. This will give you some insight as to what goes into making a daily blog and this weekly project, but the goal here is that I know others have cluttered schedules as well, and you probably haven’t stop to think about it between work, raising a family, you’re own medical issues, and whatever your life goals are. I haven’t really invested in any of my longer term hobbies in years. Look how long it took me to finally build half a Zoid model. I haven’t sat down to play a video game longer than Solitaire in I can’t remember how long. I’ve only gotten reading in because my regular website, BW Media Spotlight, kind of require it, and I still haven’t just sat down to watch a movie either for run or a deeper review in either article or video form. Going out for fun or anything besides doctors or shopping? I don’t think I’ve done that since the surgery, if not sooner.

I’m trying to rethink a few things and I have some unique opportunities this month to make things easier on myself if I’m able to take advantage of them. Maybe what I’m doing will help someone reassess their schedule and creating openings, or if you’re better at this than I am, I’d love some advice. Note that this is one area where charts are not going to help me.