The 2000 Things challenge: part 1

In the beginning of April, I interviewed TC from the blog, The 2000 Things. She has a yearly goal to purge 2000 things from her home. I was inspired by her quest and figured, despite my strides to live a simplified life, I could probably find a good number of things to get rid of too. Since I live by myself and just moved into a small one bedroom apartment (and got rid of a number of things before I moved), I doubt I can reach 2000 things, but that won't stop me from seeing how many things I can find.

Since my dad passed away in April, I've just kind of been throwing my mail and a random assortment of papers on top of my bookshelf to deal with later. This is how it looked before I cleaned it off:

Yikes

I figured this was the perfect place to start my 2000 things challenge. I had been putting off going through these papers because there were a lot of sympathy cards and paperwork related to my father's passing mixed in and I just didn't want to pick at that healing wound. My dislike for clutter won out though and I hunkered down to sort it all out.

I have a general problem controlling paper clutter, so unfortunately, my bookshelf starts to resemble a more toned down version of this pretty often. I need to find a better system to deal with paper in the near future and am open to suggestions.

After I finished going through the items on top of my bookshelf, I went through some of the cubbies in my bookshelf, another little stand I have in my living room, and a pile of things I had gotten from the conference I went to recently. Since this was my first time doing this challenge and I didn't want to spend all day at it, I wasn't looking for much beyond what I could easily throw away or recycle. The next time I pass through my living room, I'll be more focused on items I can donate or sell. Despite my focus on toss-ables, I did manage to find a few items to donate, most of which came from my car before I sold it and which are pictured here:

I highly doubt I'll need an ice scraper in the Bay Area, don't you agree?

I also found some colored pencils I no longer use and plan to give them to a friend or coworker's kids. 

So, how did I do? Here's the pile of junk I decided to throw away or recycle (plus those colored pencils):

Not too shabby for only about 2 hours of work

As part of the challenge, TC tallies up her efforts, so I did the same and came up with, drumroll please:

!

189 items! 

Can't wait to continue the challenge to see how many more things I can find to get rid of.

Have you ever kept track of how many things you intentionally get rid of to declutter and simplify your home?