January Cure: Set Up An Outbox

Today's task was to set up an "outbox", a physical storage space for items that you no longer need before deciding their ultimate destination - and put at least one item in the outbox.

OUTBOX RULES
1. Anything can go in the Outbox 
2. The Outbox is allowed to get messy 
3. Everything must stay in the Outbox for at least one week 
4. After that time you have several choices 
    a. Take anything back out 
    b. Leave anything you are undecided about for one more week 
     c. Dispose of the rest by moving to the garbage, recycling bin, selling, or giveaway pile. Once you get used to separating first and disposing of later, you'll find that clearing clutter gets easier and easier.

I have always had an unofficial "outbox" in my closet - a Target bag that I fill over time with clothes to be donated that don't fit well or that I rarely wear - and I really do find that if I am on the fence about a particular piece, if it sits in the "outbox" for awhile, I really do later feel that it's worth donating rather than keeping. So I am sticking with that system for clothing, and decided to create a new little zone for the rest of the house - I reused and labeled an empty storage box and placed it by the front door for miscellaneous household goods. Since moving out of our four bedroom house in Massachusetts into a much smaller one bedroom apartment in Washington, we have been pretty good at keeping up with the policy of donating/recycling/selling something if we bring a new "something" into the apartment - when we first moved across the country, our PODS container was already filled to the brim, so there is no room for more stuff for a future move! A bookcase I thought would be great that we brought from Mass. just couldn't fit anywhere in our new apartment and was Craigslisted instead, and several small things that either just didn't fit or were rarely used were donated instead.

I put the first objects in the outbox - several dead lightbulbs that had been stashed in miscellaneous drawers, awaiting a future recycle trip to Home Depot. An old laptop and computer base that are too big to fit in the outbox are also awaiting a recycle trip to Staples. And we are lucky to have a clothing and household goods donation bin in our apartment complex, and an eyeglasses and book/dvd/game donation box in our nearby library, making future donations a breeze.