Day One of My Organizing Challenge — DVDs and CDs

As you can imagine, my house is pretty organized.  There is a place for everything and everything fits somewhere.  And I keep on top of the maintenance and regularly reevaluate and purge what no longer fits into my life.  But a few months ago, I really started thinking about what I own and I decided I’m ready for change in my life, ready for something new and I’m done with so much of what I have.  I’m done thinking about how it used to fit into my life or that maybe it will again someday.  So as a challenge to myself, I decided to do this work and document it for you so you could see how even an organizer struggles with the same things you do!

Day One — DVDs and CDs:  I needed to start with something easy so I picked these two items (or I thought they’d be easy).

My CD Collection — I have hundreds and hundreds of CDs!  I love music!  But guess what?  I cannot remember the last time I listened to one!!!  All of my music is uploaded onto my computer and that music is backed up on an external hard drive and in the cloud (I love Carbonite; ask me about it!).  Why was I saving all of these, for so many years?  They were in books so I had at least eliminated the bulk of the plastic cases, but they were still a lot to store.  And they had no function anymore, no purpose to me.  That said and all the valid reasons for getting rid of them…it wasn’t easy.  But I did it!!!  They are gone and have been donated!

The DVDs — How many of you watch your DVD’s?  I don’t really watch mine often.  With having cable, some premium channels, Netflix streaming, Amazon Prime and the occasional Netflix DVD plan, who has time for DVDs?  But as I stared at them and started to sort and put them into my donate pile, I had so many second thoughts.  Mainly, “I LOVE THIS MOVIE!”  So I compromised.  I got rid of a bag of them and I put the rest in a book like the CDs were in.  I have save my absolute favorites and donated ones that were impulse buys or not the type of movie you’d watch over and over.  Note, this photo already has movies removed from it….I get so excited and I forget to take pictures.  Here is the after:

I also want to mention that I had three VHS tapes that were family videos and other keepsakes.  Because the tape quality degrades over time, they take a lot more space and who wants to still keep a VHS player around? (I have one that is DVD and VHS combo and now I will be parting with it!), I sent them to Scan Digital to be digitized.  For a local option in Santa Barbara, check out DAC Video.  (I’ve worked with both, ask me about it!)  Part of the organizing process is the purging and the reworking of your storage systems, but another big part is the follow-through of all the little projects and to-do list items that pop up along the way.  All segments of the process produce positive benefits and feelings, but it’s completing those projects that really seal the deal!

Stay tuned and Happy Organizing!