30 Bags in 30 Days Announcement and List

Hi everyone,

Yes, it is back and by popular demand too!

This year, during the month of July, I invite you to participate in a 30 Bags in 30 Days Challenge.
What does it mean?

We are going to spend the month of July decluttering our home, one bag at a time!

The goal:

Getting rid of unnecessary items we thought we wanted but no longer like, broken stuff, ugly stuff, useless stuff, expired stuff. All those things we burden ourselves with (like that horrendous sweater gift from Aunt Jenny  or the coffee mug with a chip that can no longer go in the microwave).

The outcome:

Keeping those things we really, really like (and yes sometimes those things we are not ready to part with) and streamlining our home. Overall it will make the cleaning routines much easier (that's coming up in August).

The rules:

1. Any bag size as long as it is large enough to contain a few items (a ziploc bag does not count). So most grocery shopping bags or larger ones would do. A box is fine too.
2. Item is too large for a bag? Any furniture item or bulky item will count as one bag. Say it's day 4 and you get rid of a sofa. Done!
3. To the best of your ability try to collect all items first for one bag, then separate them into donate, trash and recycle. 
4. Don't stress it - There is absolutely no pressure to declutter anything you feel uncomfortable with. For instance, if you are not ready for books (ahem) move on to another task or revisit a previous task. 
5. We are decluttering, not reorganizing. In other words, let's not spend time rearranging stuff, we are here to get rid of stuff, not trying to make the rest of the house pretty, at least not yet. 
7. You do not have to fill the bag. If you are done, well, that's it for the day.
8. If you want to fill more bags, go ahead. You can fill up more than one bag in one day.
6. Spend no more than one hour per day.

So we can all work together, here is a list of items we will declutter, one day at a time :

Instructions for printing from this calendar:

Right Click on the image below
Chose Open Image in a new tab
Right Click and Chose Save Image As (chose location, it will save as a jpeg)
Find the image on your computer, Open and Print

Instructions for printing from my Facebook Page:

Go to My Great Challenge Facebook (Click HERE)
Locate the post where I have inserted the JPeg version of the calendar
Click on the picture
Right Click and Save as
Open the picture and Print

So what happens if you only have one bathroom, or one bedroom? No worries, under each room I give you a list of things to declutter, so you can focus on those items rather than the actual room. I am also providing bonus ideas in case my categories do not apply.

At one point or another, you will find an item that does not belong where you find it. No problem, take this opportunity to relocate it. You may want to bring a basket along to gather such items. 

Because I am filming, editing and posting (it takes time) , and in the interest of saving my sanity, I probably will film more than one video per day in order to have videos posted daily without too much strain on myself and the family. But, videos will be posted daily starting July 1.

I hope you can join me in this challenge. It is going to be hard for a lot of us, but in the end, oh so worthy!

Good luck and see you on July 1!

Cheers,

Here are some of my favorite books on home management: