Good suggestions, Frankie! As a matter of fact this morning I lay in bed and looked at the top of my DH's dresser. Decided to just take everything off there and put back only what belongs. Everything else will be thrown away or put away.

Seems like sometimes we have to see results quickly and then can go ahead and finish the job!!?

My darling husband seems to be under the impression that I deliberately hide valuable papers from him hoping to drive him over the edge. We love the old movie "Gaslight". So I never do anything to his papers except put them in a nice basket. Then when he is claiming I have hidden insurance papers/winning lottery ticket/scratch paper with a nobel prize winning theory --we go through the basket. Before I discovered this method--it meant looking all over the house, in waste baskets,etc.

Good idea Frankie. I sometimes wish I had a big pocket in everything I wear round the house for that sort of thing. Sometimes I've just looked at a little pile of things like that and been tempted to just dump it, because it takes just as long to put away a bobbypin, a button, a coin, a , as it does to change the sheets on the bed and vacuum the room. It's improved greatly since I've trained myself to put things away in their place straight away, but I do believe my family *sheds* stuff like this. It just falls out of space sometimes too.
A few weeks back when I was out to lunch with friends, I was concerned about an irritating kind of pain in my ahem.. chest area. With a bit of discreet investigation, I found a sachet of aspro and a drill tip in my bra! I remembered then that I'd found them in DH's pocket while I was sorting the wash. Not having my hands free, and being rushed, I'd stashed them there to put away on my way out of the laundry and then forgotten about them. It made for some hilarity over lunch, but I think I do need either pockets or one of your "I give up" bins, Frankie.

Winning lottery tickets should always be kept on the refrigerator with a magnet. I thought everyone knew that. :)

Marge-that is so funny. My DH also thinks I hide things on purpose to "Gaslight" him, too. Last night it was a booklet from Home Depot showing types of storm doors they sell. Usually it's the TV remote. He keeps four remotes by the bed-TV, DVD player, VHS recorder and for thr TV satellite. I am constantly "hiding" them, according to him.

in it I can toss anything I just don't know what to do with

I like this!

True, you do have to do something w/ it eventually, but as long as you DO something w/ it eventually, I think this is a great idea.

It would keep me from stalling.

I have one section of my home that is allowed to be messy, even when I'm being neat. That helps me a lot w/ the other areas. I'm just not able to be 100% most of the time, and I refuse to beat myself up over it.

Also, that's an interesting observation about finding it *easier* to deal w/ stuff when it's gathered together in a box. Corralled, so to speak. I've found that to be the case, esp. w/ DS. I'll challenge him to clean his room by "doing a dozen," and he and I together will grab 12 things off the floor, and put them in a laundry basket. Then, I set a timer and see if he can put those 12 things away in under 3 minutes. Then repeat, until the room is done.

I had this "give up" box fail on me, though--because I didn't completely empty it (in fact, eventually I wen tweeks w/o looking in there).

in our house, stuff ends up on the DR table, esp. mail; then DH scoops it all off to clear the table for supper, and instead of making the kids put away everythign they can, and him too, he just would set the whole day's stash "somewhere," always in a different place. By the time I got home, it was invisible. I put a laundry basket in the DR and insisted they put stuff in there. It kept all the mail in one place, but I wasn't disciplined enough to go through it frequently enough, so I had to eliminate it.

Lilydilly, I agree w/ you, sometimes that stuff just falls out of space. And I *will* throw those stupid little things away, sometimes--paperclips, etc. (I'm chuckling over your "chest pocket" discovery)

Glad you found something that works for you!

Doesn't work for me though.... out of sight = out of mind to me. Fortunately, I learned over the years to just put it away or toss it.

Great idea! I do something similar.

I got two plastic bins. Two different colors.

I told my hubby that if I find something of his just lying around the house, and it gets in my way, I'll throw it into his bin. His bin is often full to overflowing, but at least he knows where to look. Once in a while, he actually looks in there, and puts things away, or tells me to Freecycle them.

I told him he is free to throw anything of mine into my plastic bin. He rarely does that, but I use it when I don't know what I'll do. It's a kind of purgatory. That way, my "junk" is out of the way, and I can dig through and find it if it turns out I need it. Then I can easily get it out of the house when I'm sure that's where it needs to go.

It is certainly true that out-of-sight can quickly become out of mind. I have used the bin plan to complete the cleaning up of my study-guest room before in-laws visit, and once had the unhappy discovery of the full "bin" from the previous visit. So I can tell when evolution is taking place by there being much less stuff to ever sweep under the carpet this way, or at least different stuff (so, is not churning, but temporarily putting away a current project--something you sometimes have to do in a dual-purpose room.

So another concept that is similar, but not exactly the same is that I've tried to create a "project box" for any such project, and that also means keeping some "free" space for the project box. For example, I keep photo album and framing supplies in a desk/cabinet. But I keep a kind of box/tray that will hold parts of a current project--maybe the album-on-the-go and the most recent sets of photos I'm trying to file, or photos I've selected to frame--so that if I need to use the table surface for something else, I can put the project away but keep my place in what I was doing and not have to collect it all again.

The key thing is to also keep the available cabinet space. That means not filling every shelf in every cabinet, but leaving some "breathing space" for temporary expansion. This is where de-cluttering really helps me. Sometimes you can feel quite organized if everything is in its little place, but there is just no "extra" room, it only takes one little thing to get out of place and the whole system can collapse, whereas, extra space helps encourage putting things back properly.

So another concept that is similar, but not exactly the same is that I've tried to create a "project box" for any such project, and that also means keeping some "free" space for the project box.

I have a need for this--a huge need for it! I'm going to think on what you've said.

I guess I have a box that is not quite a "project box", but a bit more than an "I give up" box -- a fold up fabric box with handles, that I grab for those days when DH and I are just "mooching" about the house, and using things off and on. Things like a pair of house socks that I'll pull off and on through the day, DH's paper that he reads intermittently when we have a cuppa, a crossword that I do while he has the paper, a book I pick up in any spare interval, DH's reading glasses, my knitting, a doodad I've found that I want to ask DS when he gets home what it might be, just the odds and ends of whatever we're doing around the house for that day. We don't want them put officially away each time we put these things down, but they add up to a mess when left lying around, so I just corral all that stuff, stick it in the Leftover Box, and it looks neat, and saves looking all over the house for my glasses, the book I was half way through. Lazy day box might be a better description for it.
I guess if we were spending the day away from the house, I'd take a tote bag for our odds and ends, so this is a kind of At Home tote box?!