Where's the time lapse vid? I can't see it.

seanyboy: should be at the very bottom of the comments thread. if not I'll go link the youtube direct...

... and I'm back. it's a small thumbnail on a large-ish comment, maybe easy to miss.

here's the direct link.

it's a little long, but it's definitely inspiring. Note how incredible the mess/clutter is about midway through. This, I think is the thing that discourages a lot of people from these sorts of tasks - the "it's going to get WAY worse before it gets better" issue. It's a challenge to work through that, but rewarding at the end (as you'll see).

an excellent way to combat this discouragement, that's covered in the LH article, is to attack a project like this in small (15 minute) "bites" every day. Note: this takes too much discipline for me, personally. I'm a one-fell-swoop kind of person.

also remember: perfect is the enemy of good.

Mrs Slack and I are both compulsive hoarders, so we have more than our fair share of clutter. After years of failed "clean everything and deal with the clutter" event days, we're finally taming the beast with the small chunk of time bites. The one-fell-swoop doesn't work for me - it's way to discouraging. Without knowing it had a name, I've been a fan of the bin method.

The bin method, or variants, are always how those "life organizer" folks on Oprah and cable work a family out of its clutter.

My parents really need this. My dad actually goes around bragging to people that they have enough stuff to fill two extra houses (well, half a duplex, and a small house, both of which should be rented out) and a barn. My mom still works, and she's always exhausted/depressed on the weekends. My nieces (developmentally disabled) are probably capable of much more but when they were younger my dad was happy as long as they didn't bug him at the computer, so they got spoiled about doing chores. They still make a big deal to us about doing the simplest things that are expected of them, once in a long while without being asked. "I took down the laundry!" Yes, but did you fold it? Anyway, the net effect is that I'm the only one in the family who's trying to get some decluttering going and it's one step up and two steps back many days.

Because of my dad's increasing dementia and physical illness earlier this year my mom and I have finally been forcing him to get his office organized so that bills are being paid and stuff that isn't/won't be used gets thrown out. He used to be very organized but in recent years never even takes bills out of the envelope (assuming he cuts the envelope open at all), and has everything in piles instead of folders, so finding last month's power bill means looking in six places if you're lucky.

*sigh*