Tag: clothing donation pickup

Use March to Declutter Like a Lion

Posted on by Jordank

March: It comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, or so they say. Whether or not there’s any truth to the old saying weather-wise in your part of the country, you can take a cue from it as you begin #decluttering for the spring season ahead.

Instead of approaching decluttering slowly this season, roar through your house to make the first crucial dent in what needs to be done. Every little bit you can accomplish can help make your home more organized and comfortable, so attack the trouble spots as fast as you can.

Pick a room and “start by tossing the obvious trash,” More Than Organized says. “Look for packaging and the broken bits first. Get them out of the way. Expired coupons, empty used envelopes, bottles and dried-up glue can also go.”

As you get rid of the trash, you’ll reduce the overall volume of stuff and likely uncover lots of other items that are out of place, unnecessary or unwanted. And just as quickly as you trashed the unusable stuff, you can reshelve or remove these things.

Other things you can declutter quickly include duplicate items, decorative items you don’t love enough to display, clothing that doesn’t fit, inactive files and paperwork, and basically any practical item you haven’t used in a year, Home Storage Solutions says.

Deciding what to keep and what to trash or donate isn’t easy, we know. Given enough time, you can probably find some sentimental attachment or dream up some future plan for every little thing that’s cluttering up your space.

That’s why you have attack task fiercely, like a lion. “Be as ruthless as possible with your decluttering decisions,” says the Simple Lionheart Life blog. “The more you get rid of during each decluttering session, the quicker you’ll clear the clutter.”

If you find any still-useful items such as clothing, toys, books and household items that you no longer need or want, bag them up and contact ClothingDonations.org for a free donation pickup. This will get that extra junk out of your sight fast.

Decluttering isn’t really “done” until the clutter has left your home completely. Once it has, you’ll breathe a sigh of relief — and March can go out like a lamb.

Sort and Declutter Winter Clothing Before You Store It

Posted on by Jordank

Winter clothing tends to accumulate over the years. If your closet needs a thorough #decluttering, says organization guru Ashley Joy Orfe, start by taking everything out of it. Sort it into “keep,” “donate” and “maybe” piles quickly, she says, “without second-guessing yourself.” Ask yourself a few hard questions such as “Do these even fit?” to eliminate all of the maybes, reorganize the keepers and put them back in your (now-spacious) closet. Anything that winds up in the “donate” pile can go into boxes and bags — and be picked up from your doorstep as part of a #donation to ClothingDonations.org.

Store the Holidays Away Sensibly

Posted on by Jordank

Even the most diehard #holiday celebrators will admit that it’s finally time to take down the tree, wind up the lights and box up the tchotchkes for most of the year ahead. They’ve communicated your holiday cheer dutifully for several weeks, and it’s time to give them a rest.

A little ingenuity will help you pack away and preserve those holiday items for next Christmas. And a little judicious weeding out will save you some space so that holiday clutter can’t get the best of you next season.

First, of course, is the weeding out. As you take down the lights, toss any strings that no longer work and can’t be fixed with a simple swap of bulbs. And throw away damaged ornaments and other decorative items — the only place to stores trash is in the circular file.

You’ll want to preserve what you keep to create that winter wonderland again quickly, so take time to sort, organize and store decorations carefully. Good Housekeeping offers a number of clever ways to keep thing safe and organized for the months they’ll spend in the attic, garage or basement.

Wrap string lights around squares of notched cardboard so they can’t tangle when stored, for example, and put fragile ornaments in plastic cups or egg containers to keep them from getting crushed. Bag any artificial wreaths to keep them dust-free, and consider shrink-wrapping the tree.

Remember to label all bins and boxes with their contents, even if you opt for clear-plastic containers. If you really want to streamline 2020 decorating, The Spruce says, you can number your bins to know which ones should be reopened first.

After all, the biggest benefit of getting decorations organized as you put them away for the season is that you’ll be able to locate and use them easily next fall! The holidays are hectic enough without your having to hunt down every item or buy it again.

If there are still-useful items you just don’t want to store or display next year, bag them and contact ClothingDonations.org for a pickup. They will be resold to benefit veterans’ initiatives, and other families will be able to use them to create holiday cheer.

It can be bittersweet to take down and shelve your holiday decorations, but that’s what makes the season so special. Get #organized, and this year’s holiday season will be better — and more stress-free — than ever.

Resolve to Cut the Crap in the New Year

Posted on by Jordank

One of LifeHacker’s favorite easy-to-keep #resolutions is to keep one’s home cleaner. “Cleaning is one of the first chores we start to neglect when we start to get busy, but it doesn’t need to be difficult. Start by de-crapifying your home” to eliminate unwanted #clutter, it says, then schedule 15-minute cleaning sessions to keep everything neat and spotless. And while you’re de-crapifying, resolve to contact ClothingDonations.org to have all of that unnecessary junk whisked away with a free donation pickup. You’ll not only help yourself own the New Year, but help veterans, too!

The Scariest Stuff

Posted on by Jordank

At #Halloween time, people love to have a little fun with the phobias that scare them. Houses get bedecked with #spectres and #spiderwebs, and children dress up in #ghoulish, #gory costumes to roam the neighborhoods’ front porches in search of free candy.

But the really #scary stuff may be INSIDE THE HOUSE. Overstuffed closets that don’t shut. Heaping toy bins. Stacks of books and papers that list under their own weight. Shelves jammed with boxes of rejects and extras. That’s right: Your house is #haunted by #clutter.

Many of the things creating the clutter may be uncomfortable to look at — clothing that no longer fits or has gone out of style, for example. It’s embarrassing to look at, so you shove it to the back of the closet and try to forget about it.

Or those extra knickknacks that didn’t find a place in your new home (and never will). Isn’t it best, you might think, to just box them up and put them on a shelf in hopes that someday they will fit in to your decor?

No! Get rid of them now, and you’ll say goodbye to those embarrassments while creating new space in your home for the things you use and love. Along the way, you’ll reduce the anxiety that having a cramped, disorganized and cluttered home can produce.

Scary Mommy says that clutter produces an ominous dread in her that’s worse than any installment of the Friday the 13th franchise. “Cleaning up clutter is not just another thing on the to-do list like packing my kids’ lunches. It’s a full-on ragey kind of panic.

“It’s the feeling that I literally can’t breathe with all the clutter that’s filling our house,” she says. “It’s a feeling that the world is a chaotic place that I can’t control, and all of that chaos is represented by the loud, unruly, angsty wreck that is my living room.”

Chaos is scary. But the #decluttering process is also scary, because it demands that you go through all of that broken, disused and extra stuff and make snap decisions about what can stay and what should go.

In the spirit of the season, resolve to face those fears. Pick a disorganized, overstuffed shelf, closet or room and begin. It may be uncomfortable, embarrassing or frightening at first, but as your space slowly gets more organized, you’ll feel the anxiety lift.

If you find anything that may still be useful to other people as you declutter, bag it up and contact ClothingDonations.org for a donation pickup. Like giving out candy, you’ll be cheered to donate something knowing that it will assist veterans year-round.

And that may just make decluttering feel like a trick and a treat. Happy Halloween!