Seven Minute Declutter Challenge – Update, zone 5, bedroom

The last time I posted about my Seven Minute Declutter Challenge, I was going ‘gung ho’ in my office. That was at the end of January.  I had a blog break for the Danish school winter week, so it’s high time to bring you up to date and – sniff – bring this particular challenge to a close… 🙂

Every day in January I did (at least one, usually they snowballed…) a 7 minute stint of decluttering – focusing each week on a different area in the house, according theFlylady zones. The final zone for the month was zone 5, the Master Bedroom. If you follow the Flylady, you’ll know that she also did a ‘Clean out the Closet’ challenge – so the two things tied in nicely together.

First of all, perhaps I should point out that, here in Denmark, we don’t physically have closets. You store your clothes in a wardrobe and maybe a chest of drawers. So I only have clothes in my bedroom. No bowling balls, luggage or old books. But I still have a lot of clutter! 😀

I started off by sorting through one shelf at a time. Seven minutes at a time. This Flylady lark must be working because one shelf used to take me a whole fifteen minutes… Seems like I’ve also become more ruthless – I was able to toss out grotty t-shirts without blinking. And if I found anything that wasn’t quite the right colour or fit – bing – into a bag for the charity shop or my friend’s teenage daughter! ;D

I did the same thing with my ‘hanging’ wardrobe. My blouses, dresses, skirts and trousers are already all on hangers, sorted by colour. I only needed to go through them, from left to right, and get rid of stuff I really hadn’t worn in a while because – surprise, surprise – I didn’t actually like it!

So the bedroom declutter was – dare I say it – pretty easy. Spurred on by this, I decided to grab the bull by the horns and tackle a job that I’ve been avoiding for months. Okay, years. Downstairs in our basement we have some more wardrobes. When we first moved to Copenhagen, I discovered that I wouldn’t have much use for my business suits and formalwear. So I kept them in the basement. It was good stuff, right? Expensive and classic. And there it has been. For over 10 years! Occasionally I’ve actually worn one of those skirts or dresses to a formal do or wedding – so I’d convinced myself that it was necessary to hang on to everything… Eek! I didn’t use my timer this time. I opened the cupboard, pulled out seven items, and tried them on in front of a full mirror…

I managed to throw about half of the things away because the colour wasn’t right or the style didn’t suit me. But the funny thing was discovering that I can actually still wear a lot of the items. I found several pairs of classic black trousers (some bootleg, some with a slight flare) that I had completely forgotten about. (Note to self: do not buy black trousers ever again!). And the incredible thing? That all of the clothes still fit – even after two kids! (Once a skinny minnie, always a skinny minnie?)

I also found a couple of items that I liked but wasn’t wearing. Why? Because the length wasn’t right. So they’re on top of the sewing machine, waiting patiently for next ‘Anti-Procrastination’ Wednesday…

So that’s it. The end of this Seven Minute Declutter Challenge. But – bien sûr – the decluttering continues!

Have a fantastic Friday! 🙂