A quick way to reduce decluttering mental drain

Added bonus: I earned burrito money on eBay!

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The weekend following Labor Day I felt like the preliminary back-to-school dust was settling and turned my eye towards decluttering. I wanted to make a plan for the basement because I was pretty sure there was some low hanging fruit there, and also because I have had it on my mind to do a basement micro goals mini edit for my podcast.

I was right about the low hanging fruit. In about 20 minutes I took care of a couple of quick organizational steps that cleared a shocking amount of floor space. I also got rid of three stacks of games and puzzles through my city’s Everything is Free Facebook page. It was all so satisfying so this past weekend I was fired up to make some more progress. 

It didn’t take long to find items I wanted to get rid of, and as soon as I started listing items and responses started popping, my brain was swimming trying to keep track of details per item, as well as future actions. And so, today I want to share how I am using my to-do app Todoist to reduce decluttering mental drain. You could of course create a similar version of this in a Google doc or paper notebook. (If you want to hear more about how I use Todoist, listen to this quick episode.) Here are the three quick steps I took:

1. Create a project list

I started by setting up a project in Todoist called ♻️🧹 DECLUTTERING ♻️🧹 (thematic emojis bring me joy; you can see another example of this in my planning optimization post). Inside that project list I set up three sections: 1) Pending, 2) Fall/Winter, and 3) Spring/Summer.

2. Set up a section to keep track of active decluttering items

My Pending section keeps track of items that I am actively working on getting rid of. On Sunday I listed the first 5 list items below on my city’s Everything is Free page. I originally was just going to list the two American Girl dolls on Everything is Free because, well, LESS EFFORT, but then I decided to check to see if people on eBay were interested in used American Girl dolls. They are, and since I have an eBay account, I decided to take two minutes to list the dolls and one sold within a couple of hours for $50 (yay, burrito fund!). The last item is something I texted a friend about.

This system is helpful for two reasons: First, I can keep on top of the status and due date for each transaction. Second, it’s helpful to add a link to the original Facebook listings in the task comments so I can revert back in case someone flakes on pick up and I need to go to the next person in line, or indicate when an item has been claimed (which is one of the rules of the group).

3. Add eventual items to be decluttered to seasonal lists

When I was assessing my basement I noticed both items that would be good to pass along in the fall/winter (e.g., winter clothing, ski helmets my kids have grown out of), as well as spring/summer (e.g., swim floaties, a child-sized picnic table). I set up the two seasonal sections so I can add ideas as they come to me. This is a level up because, for example, I have looked at that picnic table around this time every year for the past few years and thought about decluttering it, but then I forget to do it by the time spring rolls around. I also added preliminary dates to the spring/summer section as a reminder. 

I’m super pumped about this system and I hope the concept is helpful for you. It’s simple, easy to use, and now I have a centralized reference point on an app I already use all day long. Yay for less brain drain!