Click to enlarge
I started my Drawer-A-Day pruning in the logical place – my dresser drawers and night stand.
Here are the stats:
- 5 days
- 8 drawers (2 of which I skipped – after emptying these drawers I chose to remove nothing.)
I used the process described on Ash Wednesday – Empty the drawer and divide the contents into 4 piles:
- Keep
- Give Away
- Throw Away
- Wait
RESULTS/LEARNINGS:
- Easiest things to give away:
- Stockings in good condition. (Thanks to the enlightened female fashion trend that favors bare legs in the summer I seldom wear stockings anymore. I saved a few for when I’m invited to a wedding or the White House.)
- Fingernail and toenail clippers, tweezers. Yes these are helpful gadgets to have but do I really need 6 toenail clippers? I saved two – one for me and one for potential visitors.
- A battery powered tweezer that never worked that efficiently. After all, I did keep two human powered tweezers.
- Mini travel alarm. I love miniaturized things for travel but when I tried to replace the battery to see if it worked, I found that it didn’t run on a battery. Where it got its power is a mystery. It certainly couldn’t run on solar power while stashed in my drawer.
- Hardest to give away:
- T-shirts with political or spiritual sayings. These are more like wearable bumper stickers, but is it really worth saving a campaign shirt from a 2012 or 2008 election – even for a novelty party?
- I did save one T-shirt showing the Last Supper with all women apostles. The best day to wear this is Holy Thursday and it was hard to justify a once a year wearing, but maybe I’ll just have to wear it more often.
- Throwaways
- Stockings that had seen better days and peds that I would never wear even though they’re in good condition.
- Things I kept:
- The two skipped drawers contained 16 winter tops and sweaters that I wear regularly.
- Distinguishing Give-Aways from Throw-Aways
- Jim said that probably some of my give-aways should really be throw-aways. This applied to my “good condition” stockings and several slightly used lipsticks. As usual, he’s probably right.
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Click to show whole dresser
No Outward Difference.
- My dresser and night stand don’t look any different from the outside but I have a pleasant feeling when I look inside and see space that is no longer crammed.
- Even though I cleared out a fair amount of stuff, I was surprised that I couldn’t actually consolidate items enough to gain an empty drawer. There are still too many items in the “I don’t use or wear this much, but I might want it someday” category. I still have room to grow – or maybe I mean diminish.
Since we’re talking about clothes, perhaps this would be a good time to acquaint you with Project 333. This is the invention of Courtney Carver who challenges us to wear only 33 items of clothing for 3 months (one season). You don’t have to count your wedding ring, underwear, sleep wear, in-home lounge wear, and workout clothing. I haven’t officially tried it yet but am intrigued to see what I’d be left with after my 16 winter tops.
A question to ponder: What would be your hardest or easiest dresser items to part with?
