Sunday 11th January
Find out about GoodGym TaskForce
Report written by Kash
Ms C was no stranger to Sevan and Kash. In fact, the GoodGymers had met each other for Sevan's first mission at Ms C's. Today, rather than working in her garden, the team was helping with decluttering. Ms C needed to free up some room in her kitchen and was hoping to put some items in the storage behind two fridges that were blocking access to it.
With the bulky appliances out of the way, Sevan and Kash opened the storage door and faced a wall of stuff. There was no more room to use there. Ms C wanted to see everything out and decide what she could part with. It was not an easy task. The GoodGymers quickly ran out of space on the kitchen floor, rarely able to move the items into the corridor, where they meant to be donated or disposed of. In the overwhelming majority of cases, Ms C's verdict was:
"Oh, that's good. I'll keep that."
Ms C wasn't convinced that challenging the need for multiple similar items that served the same purpose could be a good starting point to downsize.
"Another steamer. Do you need two of them?" - Sevan.
"I have four steamers!" - Ms C.
Sevan and Kash weren't sure where all the other steamers were, but the two they had taken out of the storage eventually went back in - just like two cleaning mops, two garden hoses, two mirrors (one with a crack) and three rolls of gift wrapping paper. Some other things that ended up returning to the storage felt like a no-win scenario: not destined to be removed (because reading health data was important), nor meant to be used (because the monitoring results were too unsettling to uncover).
Removing the largest box - a CRT-type TV - was the big win, yet Ms C advised putting it in the corridor for the time being, hoping that she could arrange a charity shop collection. Fingers crossed that one way or another, she will be able to get rid of it soon.
Ms C was cautious of the time, so Sevan and Kash managed to go through everything in the storage, then put back all the belongings worth keeping. They put away some items from the kitchen not needed immediately, left out other things Ms C thought she'd start using, and created extra room in the storage for future use. The GoodGym duo and Ms C made worthwhile decluttering progress - one storage space at a time!
Sun 11th Jan at 9:34pm
In case it's not obvious, the cover photo is of the floor half way through the mission with my feet at the bottom right. I couldn't move from that spot as there were boxes everywhere.
Ealing
Help spreading woodchip in Blondin Park
