40 Days - 40 Bags to Declutter Your House

I've gotten the organizing bug again.  Slowly I have been tackling my basement - since the kids are adults now, I figure it's time I go through all their toys and stuff.  I find this task to be the most difficult.  How do you go through 20 something years of memories and decide what to keep and what to get rid of?  I've kept school papers dating back to pre-school, awards, concert programs, newspaper clippings, and sports mementos are all in boxes. I decided to give each child one of those plastic bins to keep moments from their childhood.  It's sort of a time-capsule of the 90's.  I am keeping some of their artwork in a filing bin for now, some of it I just can't part with.

I've been off of school this week for winter break.  It's been too cold and snowy here in upstate New York to do much of anything.  So while on Facebook I saw the "40 Day - 40 Bag Challenge." For those of you who might not be familiar with the challenge, you have 40 days to remove 40 bags of stuff.  This can be donated, trash, recycling, and/or free-cycling.  Now the bags can be anything from a grocery bag to a full trash bag, you decide.  You make a list and once a day clean out something from your list for the next 40 days, giving yourself a day off each week.  These do not have to be huge organizing tasks, it can be a junk drawer to a closet or cleaning out your email to cleaning out a filing cabinet.  You decide what you would like to accomplish.  I've taken a break from the basement and I've made my list and started on this challenge. I put together a cute printable list you can fill out and hang on your fridge. To get your free printable click here

Here is my list I am working on: