Re-Organizing The Christmas Decorations

Well, it’s the beginning of the new year. That means the Christmas decorations are coming down and the studio will be back to normal (or what passes for it). This year I thought I’d revisit the organizing of the decorations. I think I talked about it before, the image above coming from a previous article, but new people come along storing their old decorations so why not look at some new techniques involving the process?

This is the blue box where I store my decorations. Usually I put the stuff in the smaller boxes that they’ll fit in and call it a year. Some boxes were dedicated to a particular set of decorations but not really officially, meaning I didn’t always remember where they go. This year I opted to bring Operation: A Place For Everything into my decoration organization. (Hey, that rhymes!) I also made sure that this year I actually remembered to put everything away, as a couple of items skipped out and I had to place them somewhere else rather than having to dig the thing out for two items. This year they all (looks around room) are put away. Here’s some things I decided to try this year to make it easier to find what I want next year.

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Rambling About My 2023 Plans

While it’s mostly BW Media Spotlight stuff there is talk about my decluttering plans and the next couple of projects since it ties in to what I’m doing there, so I’m posting this here as well. Have a clutter-busting 2023 and we’re back in business next Sunday. Barring the annoying stuff I’ve been dealing with getting in my way again, of course.

Decorating The Studio For Christmas 2022

I also did some decluttering on my computer desk, getting rid of unnecessary papers and reorganizing everything on it and in the cabinet so it looks like less of a mess. I did have an issue finding a place to put the tree this year. I have a big lamp where I’ve been putting it, so I swapped with the manger and put it on the TV. That meant not having room for the Transformers around the Christmas tree this year sadly. I do have a bunch of more decluttering to do, and setting up these decorations showed me a few spots that really need it.

By the way, if you’re looking for Christmas presents, check out the Clutter For Sale page. I’ve got comics, Transformers, and other action figures for sale at the moment. I could use the space and the money. Otherwise I don’t know what I’ll be able to do with the Christmas decorations in the way, but if I do something I’ll make a post. Barring that, have a Merry Christmas.

Leaving My House…yes it counts as a project

I know, this post is incredibly late, but worth it. I have been stuck in this house for years, only getting out for medical reasons or going shopping. I’d include family events but the…recent viral scare…shut most of those up. With no money to go anywhere, health concerns both mine and international, and no place to go if those weren’t issues I really haven’t gone much of anywhere lately.

Well Saturday was the first time since the aforementioned scare that we had a Christmas block party and I went to it. And boy did I need it. Right now I’m still really tired and I stubbed by toe because in an area near where I parked by car the brush hid the lack of road in one corner, I needed to get out of the house and be around people, even if I didn’t interact with anyone. I just needed the reminder that people still exist outside of my dad, the occasional visitor, the doctors and nurses, and those pixel-formed images on my screen. I didn’t go shopping or need my insides examined…I just went out and enjoyed myself.

So if nothing got done with my clutter this week, fine. I enjoyed myself for the first time in a long time and the only thing I really need is a good masseuse. My massage cushion will have to do but at least I feel relaxed. Ready to go to sleep, but relaxed. I so needed it.

So Many Cables To Organize

My projects come in waves, and reassessment has become part of the “game” for me. For this week’s project…yes, I’m actually doing an intense project this week in case you missed those…it was time to go back through the cables and other stuff because the way I had them organized just wasn’t working.

The drawer above is in my studio, and it’s where I keep the cables and a few other electronic stuff. These are items I don’t expect to access that often because after this I put a small table in there. This corner is also my art corner, you see, and now every time I go in there I have to take the stuff off the table, move the table, knock over a CD rack of CD-Roms I still need to go over and forget they’re there (my computer situation is a bit annoying at the moment but that’s for another discussion), and then go through bag after bag to see if I can find what I’m looking for. Over the past few weeks I’ve had to go in there trying to find this or that. Well this week I wanted to make this task easier.

The goal: go through and better organize the cables so I can find them easier and reorganize this drawer with my regular electronic drawer to make it easier to find what I need.

What The Heck Is “Swedish Death Cleaning”?

This article is going to be a bit unusual compared to what you usually see here at The Clutter Reports. Usually this is about me decluttering my living space and occasionally I’ll post a video of someone else cleaning if I don’t have anything to report but want to have something interesting since I have subscribers to the site and want to reward them for adding me to their emails, RSS feeds, and WordPress reader. Plus if they help inspire you and me with our decluttering, so much the better. That was the intent this week after a non-report last week and getting over a brief bout of sickness this week meaning I didn’t get anything done. So as I’m looking for a video for decluttering inspiration I came across a video by YouTube channel But First, Coffee with the title “I Finally Tried Swedish Death Cleaning (and it actually works)”. I have never heard of this before but color me intrigued.

So we’re going to watch this 12+ minute video and I’ll give my thoughts on it, stream of consciousness style. That’s something I usually do over at the media reviewing site, so I’m putting those skills to use here. Have any of you heard about or tried this? As I write this intro I have yet to watch the video so I have no idea what I’m about to walk into here. I’m assuming this is an expression and no Swedes were harmed in the decluttering of this space. Otherwise, I’m going in blind. Let’s see what this is.

No report this week

I think the only reason I’m doing a report on both my sites is I want to make sure my readers know I didn’t forget or haven’t gone back to the hospital or something. So there’s no regular article here today. We had to replace the TV that had the sound dropping so we could hear what we’re watching and that took up some of my time as I had to set up. It didn’t help that I had sleeping issues two nights in a row and spent the whole weekend in a funk. This would be the same weekend my friend had to go through and fix my project drive, which I still need to go over to see what happened and if anything got lost in the glitch or the transfer to a new removable drive. So add that to the electronics issues I’ve been having. I also got a nosebleed out of nowhere tonight. Fun.

Don’t worry, because there will be a new decluttering project next weekend unless something else happens. Sorry for the post-by-definition-only and hopefully there will be something worth coming to the site for, even if I have to do another video or something. Happy decluttering!

Quick Report> Tech Was Kinder This Week

Since I didn’t take photos this is going to be another quick report of the various mini projects I did yesterday. Most of them were successful.

• So, remember that TV that started working after Dad bought a new one? It turned back into a radio so rather than mess with it we just put up the new one and took the old one to be recycled. I spent much of this week getting the settings the way we want. Yesterday I tried to put in an old soundbar but for some reason the bar itself didn’t want to stay connected. Luckily the TV already has really good sound so it’s just a question of what to do with that. At some point my dad would like to get surround sound speakers but that’s hardly a priority in this economy.
• I did however actually show him how to use one of the smart TV features and he figured it out. If you knew my dad you would know this is a huge victory. He doesn’t even use all the features on his tablet.
• Another thing I worked on this week was preparing for a mini-podcasting event I do on the other site every year. That mean going through and setting up programs and various bits of hardware. While I didn’t succeed at everything I succeeded at everything that’s important to this project…though I do need to check one more arrangement before the month is out. I can start and that’s what matters.
• My project drive, where I host my video content and finished shows as back-up is all messed up. I have a friend working on it.

So a mostly successful week of projects. I’ll take that victory after last week.

Cleaning Out The Humidifier

Well, so much for the exciting category. Yes, this week’s project is something other than what I’ve been working on, but it’s not very exciting…though that won’t stop me from trying because at least there is something to work with. I have to choose which humidifier is going to be the one I’m using from here out. See, my dad didn’t like the one I was using because he thought it was too much trouble. It didn’t bother me at the time but he got me one similar to the one he uses in his bedroom for me to use in mine.

Quite honestly I think it is the better one.

I’ll go into why but there’s also something else I had to do with both of them because I made a mistake and this week I had to correct it. As autumn is now going and winter is close behind the humidity is going down. I’ve been noticing my skin is getting a bit drier and as someone who already has to deal with dry skin and staying hydrated because of the Crohn’s and it’s related issues as well as my various sinus issues this week it was time to start using the humidifier again. Although maybe I should have drained the water out before I stopped using them.

The Back-Up Drive Is Organized!

Well, it’s taken a few weeks but I finally took all the files, dumped the duplicates and other files I didn’t need, and put them all in an order where I can find them. Along the way I figured out an directory system I can use in the actual backing up (which I probably won’t waste your time with) that works for me and I can find stuff in. I used techniques I learned from physical record and media organizing, and some things I learned here will work in future stages of those projects.

Now I just need to do the same with my project drive, but that’s for the future. Additionally I managed to get myself to work on something that may not be the most interesting articles, and I apologize for that, but decluttering isn’t just about doing the pretty projects, or the parts of your home/office that you can see. While you don’t have to drive yourself mad with compulsive organizing, which also ruins any spontaneity and would be hard for the less rigid-minded types, a good system is a good thing to have. Just know that as times change and things are both acquired and unacquired, as the paths of your life take a new course, a new system may have to be created. My problem was lacking a good starting point to build off of. Now I have that so if anything changes in the future, hopefully I’m ready to change with it.

Next time I may be ready to do a more interesting project to discuss, but this was something that needed doing. If you stuck it out with me then thank you and I hope you learned something from this project like I did.