Ask Erin | Easy Fall / Winter Purge

Article by ERIN SHARPLIN LOVE

The holiday season is the perfect time to adopt the “out with the old and in with the new” mindset! The start of Christmas shopping serves as a reminder to get rid of any excess clutter around the house. As we all know too well, excess clutter causes unneeded stress. Let’s preempt it now! Below is a list of items that you probably have laying around the house but just haven’t found the time to discard them. The list below is of what should be unsentimental items that are easy to discard quickly. Have fun!

• Puzzles with missing pieces
• Games with missing pieces
• Hotel key cards from past vacations
• Cookbooks you never use
• Vacuum cleaner attachments that you have no idea what they go to or what they are used for
• Wire hangers
• Stretched out hair ties
• Old remote controls that you don’t know what they go to
• Prescription glasses that are no longer your correct prescription
• Incomplete decks of playing cards
• Allen wrenches from old purchases
• Free promotional items you will not use
• Chargers and cords for things you no longer own
• Chopsticks and sauce packets
• Unmatched socks
• Dried up nail polish
• Duplicate or bad photos
• Books you’ve read and will not read again
• Flower vases from deliveries
• Boxes for your cell phones or computers
• Expired sunscreen
• Excess pens and pencils
• Old cleaning supplies
• Old phone cases that don’t fit your new phone
• Travel mugs that leak or that you never use
• Extra buttons because you don’t know how to sew
• Worn out underwear
• Random packages of screws that you don’t know what they go to
• Wrapping paper scraps
• Store reward cards (all online now)
• Old sheets that are threadbare
• Hotel soaps that you’ve collected over the years
• Tupperware with lost lids or vice versa
• Product samples that you won’t use
• Over-loved pet toys
• Orphan earrings that you can’t find the match to
• Old calendars and personal planners
• Old paint
• Socks with holes
• Paycheck stubs
• Wedding favors from long ago
• Unidentified frozen objects
• Shoe boxes
• Candy from last Halloween
• Lanyards and nametags from previous conferences
• Old catalogs and magazines
• Instruction manuals (all online now)

I love a good list! You may not be able to complete this whole list in a day, so be sure to keep it so you can refer back to it when you have time. Remember that if you see this list often it will remain at the top of your mind!