Month: January 2015

Stuff & Clutter: Week 3 Recap

I had my birthday this last week which was pretty great. Brunch with the fam and got a handful of gifts (stuff on the “in” side of the equation). I got a new game (Pandemic: The Cure), a much-needed fairway wood, a great shirt, and a workbook to work on my cursive handwriting. All things considered it was a reasonable collection of things coming in. In fact, I had planned for more stuff to be coming in this week.

On the flip side, this fueled a big push this week to get rid of even more stuff. We blew away our number by over three times the shed we targeted. I’m quite surprised at how easy it’s been to find this quantity of stuff to lose. Still it goes a long way to validate the entire effort.

In fact we had enough stuff to warrant another trip to Goodwill. A shorter line this week, but we waited first in line for quite a while. We got a decent little show while the unloading crew played a game of Tetris with six chairs that didn’t really want to fit into THIS woman’s SUV.

Grade This Week: A

Despite a busy week filled with travel and demos, we still found some time to dig in and find a ton of stuff.

Overall Grade: B

We’re ahead of pace right now. More has come in than anticipated, but the overall in/out is tipped well in the right direction.

Thoughts on the metrics

No new thoughts this week.

Looking Forward

No work travel scheduled. The gross and net shed are moving north this week.

Gross Shed Net Shed
Week 3 Target 14 7
Week 3 Actual 48 40
Week 4 Target 20 15

Stuff & Clutter: Week 2 Recap

So the work travel I expected last week didn’t happen, though this doesn’t mean I got to spend a lot of time looking for extra stuff. I did, however, go through some of my closet to weed out some accessories I rarely (or never) used. We also thinned out a couple of travel versions of games that are easily played on an iPad if we’re on the go. Not all of our travel games went though: we focused on the ones that we don’t play a standard version of either. We’re just as likely to bring a smaller “regular” game (like Boss Monster or Moby Dick).

On another note, we made our first run to Goodwill (first for this project anyway) to donate the stuff we’re not keeping. It was a gorgeous day for a Minnesota Sunday in mid-January. While we were in line there were 10 other cars in line to make donations. It’s a tight wraparound driveway to the donation station and we laughed when we saw the tire tracks from someone had gotten impatient, hopped the curb, and drove across the snow-covered grass to another road. Too impatient to wait for the 3 vehicles ahead to unload their donations.

Grade This Week: C

Fell a bit shy on the net shed because of the extra books that I got from my Dad. Week 1 was a knockout, this one was fine but nothing to give a high grade to.

Overall Grade: B

Still on track and ahead of the pace I set.

Thoughts on the metrics

Shed ratio is still wonky for planning purposes. Dropping it from the planning numbers for now. I’ll still report actuals moving forward.

Looking Forward

This will be a tougher week. My birthday means I have some stuff coming in, so the gross shed is going up to keep the same net shed. I have three days of travel this week for work so again I won’t be able to focus on finding stuff to shed this week.

Gross Shed Net Shed Shed Ratio
Week 2 Target 9 7 3:2
Week 2 Actual 10 6 5:2
Week 3 Target 14 7

Stuff & Clutter: Week 1 Recap

Grade This Week: A+

Going into the week I figured we’d be able to meet the targets. In short, we crushed it. I’m giving the “A+” instead of an “A” because Jess also made a big contribution to this week’s shed (and getting things moving).

Overall Grade: B

We’ve made more than enough progress so far, but we may have started too fast or I may have set the targets too low. These next few weeks are going to be busy so I expected to start a little fast but this week’s results were surprisingly high

As mentioned before, I’ll be making adjustments to the targets once we’ve hit a few weeks and have a better sense for what to change them to. No need to

Thoughts on the metrics

Overall, I feel pretty good about the metrics I mentioned last week. That said, the shed ratio itself is causing a bit of heartache. The core concept of the shed ratio is solid, how much more should go out than come in. That said, it’s a little too nebulous as a weekly metric. As we progress through this project it still should serve well as a long-term guide, but for now I won’t be focusing on it much when I talk with folks about how things are going.

Looking Forward

The plan is still to stick with the initial targets I planned. Based on the travel schedule for work I don’t expect to have quite as big of a shed this week.

Gross Shed Net Shed Shed Ratio
Week 1 Target 9 7 3:2
Week 1 Actual 35 28 5:1
Week 2 Target 9 7 3:2