My January Decluttering Plan

Last year in January, I dedicated the entire month to purging paper from our home. It was long month, but VERY productive! So much paper that we had been hanging on for far too long left our home. I can see there is still some work to do in the paper category. I have paper items that I would like to keep, but get scanned into our computer so I can let go of the hard copies, which will reduce our paper files even further. But I'm not going to be doing that in January. Right now, I think I'll save that for February!

My goal for the month of January 2016, is to work on culling through keepsakes and memorabilia. It's another hard category for me. And probably a lot of you too. I figure having blog readers to be accountable to will help keep me motivated. And I really want to see fewer bins of keepsakes. I expect seeing the physical reduction these items take up will be very satisfying as well.

I've actually already started!! I believe it was a few days before the new year that I pulled out a scrapbook I put together in high school and college. It's a big book. And it was about 2/3 full. Before starting I knew that I didn't want to keep the book at all. So I lifted everything off as best I could. If I knew I didn't want to keep at that first moment I touched it, I dropped it into the recycle bin. There were some really odd things I kept. One was a matchbook (with matches) from my best friends wedding in 1992!! I don't smoke. And what an fire hazard to have matches mixed in with so much paper.

The pages that were blank are left. I'm donating the book.

I estimate I let go of 80% of what was in the book. I have a small stack of items that I think I'm saving, but I do need to go back through those items before my January Keepsake Purge ends. The best part is how much more space I have in my bin without that large book! And I found some money tucked in the book as well.

Silver Eagle is probably worth $20-$25 now. 

I don't expect I will work EVERYDAY of January on this project. Because it is an emotional category I feel I will dig in to a small stack of items every few days. If I attack these keepsakes differently I will sure let you know.

Do you have a planned category of items you are decluttering this month? What do you think of me tossing keepsakes? Is this a difficult or easy category for you?

Since I didn't track the actual items decluttered from my scrapbook, I'm only going to count the book itself. I'm also recycling a magazine from our home today. Items decluttered year to date: 20