What counts as clutter?

[Springshowers]

Thomas I can give away are obvious. Does each piece of paper I get rid if count? Kids art on the fridge? Random weird craft pieces under the couch?

What do you count as clutter? I am doing the 2013 in 2013 and don't want too cheat myself of the full count!

Thank you!

[mkksmom]

Everyone counts differently, based on their needs. Some even change mid-year. In 2011, I counted individual items more carefully toward the beginning and then once I saw I would make the cut by June, I started rounding down. I gave up counting completely in 2012. In November, I got rid of tons of old Christmas decor (pre kids stuff) from my attic and I knew it would put me over, so I decluttered the task of keeping count.

[IsaFrench]

i think it's a rather efficient psychological trick .... now that i'm commited to counting, i focus on the counting .... and sometimes (not all the time, i still have plastic bags i've moved INSTEAD of sorthing through them) well, the focus is taken away from the pain i have at parting from stuff (anxiety about loss ? fear of failing to do "the right choice" ? etc ....)

and i'm even going on with my daily life and suddently think "when i'm coming back home, i could take this item from that place and put it in the trash/put it in the donation bag/ ...")

so, keeping a count of the stuff i part with has helped me start the process of "stopping to keep everything by inertia" ....

[Springshowers]

So true... It has become like a game for me. I am up over 200 in a few days. Imagine I was having to organize and clean those 200 things. Life will be so much simpler with those things gone. I even gave away the give away box in my foyer that had been there for two years!

[Momsteader]

I'm doing the 2013 in 2013 too.  I tend to count bigger things as one, but if it's a group of the same thing--say piles of paper from my desk--I'll count as one point. But...luckily...there is no one way to do it! 

[journeymom]

Originally Posted by HappyMonkey 

Does each piece of paper I get rid if count? Kids art on the fridge?
 

That would simply be impossible in our case.  We recently finally sorted through legal documents from dh's old business, plus two law suits. This was tens of thousands of pieces of paper. But I want credit for that in my 2013-in-2013 effort, dammit! :D  So I counted how many boxes of paper we took to be shredded.  It still ended up being 11 boxes, a pretty good addition to my total. 

Same with my kids' arts and crafts, when they were little. My kids are teens now.  When I was sorting recently I kept a few of their pieces tucked away, I know I'll enjoy looking at them 10 years from now.  But the rest of them had been piling up in under-bed-bins and I had no problem just tossing them all in the recycle bin. And I counted each kid's stack of art as one on in my 2013 count. 

If you don't have that many, or you don't mind counting, go ahead and count them all. 

Edited for clarity.

Edited by journeymom - 2/18/13 at 12:42pm

[Quinalla]

For most stuff, I tend to count it all. Sometimes I sort of go by how hard it was to part with. For DD's artwork, I count that individually because even though I have a ton of it, its still hard to throw away. For a stack of scrap paper/old coupons/etc. on my desk, I often forget to count that because to me, that's just something useful that became trash, but it really is still clutter too! So yeah, count it however it makes sense for you and however motivates you best as that is what it is about!

[rockingmomma3]

I'd say go for it. Each piece of paper is still considered clutter so don't cheat yourself! That is one less item that is not taking up space.