Decluttering Trello

Trello is a fantastic online (which means it takes up no physical space – minimalist bonus) and free (yas!) tool used to help organise work across teams or individual to-do lists.

I’ve used it for life planning (keeping notes, bucket list ideas, plans), managing my personal blogs (scheduling, post ideas) and also in my professional life (managing workload, planning an editorial blog calendar across multiple team members).

It can be great, but you’ve got to use it or you get out of practice.

Still not conquered the book mountain?

It’s been a while since I tackled my book shelves. Those of you with OCD might want to look away now. Hell, even I might want to avert my eyes.

I am ashamed by the state of my books – these are old books, they are meant to be cherished, these are new books, waiting to be read. And look what I did…

Reducing Facebook noise: one step ahead of Mark Zuckerberg

I’d say I’m a pretty active user of Facebook. I admit to accessing it far too much. It’s always there open in a tab on my laptop or pushing notifications to me via the app on my phone.

I hit a point over my New Year break where I was scrolling through updates from local cafes, events I wasn’t even going to, organisations I’d liked to get free Wi-Fi, places I’d followed because I was visiting the town or country. Then I realised I didn’t need to see this shit.

Moving office clutter

I work in a digital team. You ‘d think we would have nailed the paperless office thing by now.

We’ve moved locations maybe four times – each time I’m proud to say that we get rid of more stuff.

24 crates, 11 people – this doesn’t add up

Our latest move was last week. We moved 11 people and it took 24 crates. There were at least four shared crates and the rest matched up to an individual. I managed with one. It doesn’t take a maths genius to work out that some of my colleagues used more than this!

I threw away loads of paper. I filled at least one recycling bag.

As a team loads of files and stuff from as far back as 2001 was bagged and binned.

Still decluttering

I’m in my new space now – and after a week I’ve thrown out an old make up bag. I shouldn’t have moved it in the first place.

The comb was a freebie for Just Seventeen magazine. I dread to think how long I’ve had that.

The ties that bind

There’s someone in my team who is holding on to some ‘just in case‘ ties.

When questioned,  it’s clear that he has no intention of ever wearing them. They are university-branded for a start. And let us not forget, he’s keeping two.  This is partly because one is in a display box and “it’d be a shame to just throw it out”.

He’s even said he would never ever wear one of them. Why won’t he throw them away???

This reminds me of the Minimalists’ approach to just in case. They invite you to try the 20 dollars/20 minutes rule. The idea is that if you have something that’s could be ‘just in case’,  ask yourself:

“Can I replace this for less than $20 (if I need to) and will it take under 20 minutes to do so?”

The answer for these ties is a resounding YES on both counts.

I’m going to steal them from the desk drawer under cover of darkness – be warned!!

Feeling inspired

It’s almost two years since I started my decluttering journey.

The office move and some recent conversations with friends who also do this (usually because of moving house) have inspired me to do some more.

Like I did back at Easter 2014, I’m going to use Easter 2016 (that’d be this weekend then) to throw out more stuff that I don’t need!

Wish me luck.

I’m not doing another month clear out….

Thought I’d check in as things are starting to light the touch-paper of decluttering again.

The minimalist group for Newcastle has a leader – checkout the Facebook page: Newcastle Minimalists.

I just got a new phone so I backed up and deleted 800 images. Sadly, most were already backed up to OneDrive but I’d just been keeping them on my phone too…. At least they are GONE now. I now have to sort out my OneDrive….

Easter weekend two years ago was the start of my minimalist journey – I might use this Easter to do more!

 

 

Day 17: digital declutter

This is not a cheat. I repeat, this is not a cheat. Digital declutter counts.

How often have you looked at your in-box and almost cried at the amount of emails in there?

Well, today I decided I’d get my email down to a single screen worth of messages.

So, I:

• deleted
• moved to project folders
• forwarded to others for action (then deleted)

Before 357

After 35

Proof!

Even though this is way more than 17 things, I’m counting it as day 17…

153 down, 312 to go!

Not sure what I’m doing? Check out my post about the Minimalist game.