40 Bags in 40 Days

I’ve seen this challenge throughout the blogosphere and pinterest.  The idea is simple, each day tackle one area of clutter and fill bags to discard.  At the end of the 40 days, the entire house should be free of extra “stuff” as well as much cleaner.  I am going to do this challenge and then at the end of 40 days have a garage sale! 

I made my list of 40 places and tried to somewhat group them together, I might end up tweaking the days a bit so that the more timely activities take place on the weekends.  The area that I think will take the most time is going through all the bins downstairs, so I gave the basement two days.  Although now that I went through and put dates by the areas, I noticed that the basement got put on a Tuesday and Wednesday so most likely those will swap with a couple other areas.  The basement doesn’t have the most stuff in it, but it’s going to take longer to sort through since it’s a bunch of Rubbermaid containers with holiday décor and childhood memories. 

My organizing goal for the next 40 days

I started the challenge over the weekend starting with my utensil drawers.  There were a few items that I don’t use often but still want to keep for parties, so I put them in a mini Rubbermaid and then into a shelf in the garage with all the other party dishes.  This evening’s activity will be the fridge; at least we just got back from vacation so it’s not that bad right now, just needs some reorganizing and wiping down.

At the beginning of the year, I mentioned that one of my goals for 2012 was to simplify life.  I’m hoping that through this venture my rooms will be more organized and thus simplified.

If you want to join me in this venture, I’ve included a couple printables to make your own list of 40 places to de-clutter.  Let me know how it goes for you!

40days_pink
40days_green
40days_blue

Update: 3/30 linked up to the Organizing home tour. Check it out below: