Clearing The Clutter

Bedside Clutter

2010-11-10T09:51:00.001-05:00

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it. ~ Sidney J. Harris

I love walking through furniture stores. There is something about envisioning entire rooms that creates a giddy feeling in me...almost as if I can picture a whole new life that could be lived in these imagined spaces. Each new room makes me wonder who I would be, and more importantly, how I would if only I was lucky enough to dwell within a house that contained that perfectly crafted design. From the rugs on the floor to the art on the walls, having the new area done 'just right' makes feel as if all would be right in the world. I realize that walking through Pottery Barn, Z Gallerie, Macy's Home Department or another lovely home store would bore the dickens out of most people. Additionally, I understand that my more creative friends and family would dismiss these 'set designs' as 'too canned' and 'not personal enough'. However, I delight in that very sense of perfection and lack of clutter.

Nothing is more true in feeding my daydreams in furniture stores than looking at bedrooms. I love to lie down on the beds in these completely devised faux rooms and wonder how much I'd sleep if this was my room, rather than my one at home. The perfectly made beds (with unstained, dog hair free, coordinating bedding), the lack of clutter and the simplicity of it all makes me wonder if I could move into one...and just not let the staff of the store know. Much like Natalie Portman's character in "Where the Heart Is", I could tip toe around during the day, and curl up in my dream room at night. Of course, my day dreams lie more in the realm of Crate & Barrel, rather than Wal-mart.

I began to look critically at what was making me so envious of these perfectly constructed rooms. I have to admit, as the Human Mom to two Enormous Dogs, my house reflects my desire to protect everything from them...and a bit of protecting them from everything, too. So....I have a lot of brown sheets covering up my sofa, my good chairs and even my bed. Brown isn't exactly meant to be chic in the 'brown and turquoise' stylish combination sense. It's meant to stave off the signs of muddy paws. I also began to realize how much 'living' we tend to do in the bedroom. No longer is our room just for sleeping. It's for bill paying, working on the computer, TV watching, reading (book, magazines and newspapers), the occasional dinner, changing clothes and again, entertaining Massive Beasts with tennis balls, often wet stuffed animals and the occasional missing sock. I have files, documents, photos, bills, invitations and commitment related paraphernalia strewn about. My room no longer (if ever) reflected a place of rest and tranquility. Rather, it took on the same vibe as the rest of the house: overworked, stressed out and multi-purpose. Hence, my bedroom is now a source of disquiet.

I can't change the layout of my house, nor can I afford to go out and buy all new furniture. Even if I could do either of these actions, I'm not sure I'd want to. After all, would the result be the same after a few weeks anyway? So, I've made it a promise to myself to try to make sure that my bedroom is less anxiety-inducing than it has been. I have a new basket on my desk in which all bills will go. I will pay them (using pay ahead option) every few days. I will change my sheets frequently, thus minimizing finding Murphy's (my half-Newfoundland, half-Golden Retriever) drool covered"Bobo" in my back in the middle of the night. Most of all, I'm going to keep my bedside table CLEAR. Unfortunately, this has been my worst trouble spot: I end up with a half dozen books, a water botttle, four kinds of hand lotion, two phones (house and cell), an array of magazines and catalogs, my son's latest hockey stats, my daughter's report card, correspondence I need to answer, my reading glasses, 2 Kleenex boxes (one with Aloe, one without), more miscellaneous junk than I can't account for, and a copy of "Goodnight Moon" that I haven't read to my kids in 14 years. No wonder I can't sleep!

My goal from now on? Keeping that bedside table clear! Emptying out the drawers in the nightstand of further unused clutter (two of them haven't been opened in 5 years) and storing things I might need there. The rest, I've determined, doesn't need a place next to me. It'll find me soon enough in other spaces. In the meantime, I hope I can finally get some sleep.

Photographs, Memories and the Easily Distracted

2010-09-30T07:23:00.004-04:00

You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it. ~ Alma Ruth Lavenson

My children have both left the nest, and are happily ensconced in Florida and Massachusetts respectively. For the past month, I've been working diligently to clear the clutter from various spaces in the house...particularly those that were impossible to tackle with two teenagers undoing my work. I've made tremendous progress in the storage room, the children's bedrooms, the play room, the laundry room and even have begun to embrace the massive project of my own closet. I feel accomplished and proud as each room begins to look the way I had always known was possible. These spaces have transformed from being buried under hockey gear, sweatshirts and DVD cases (usually empty, with the DVD in a parallel universe) to being tidy and complete. As I've sorted each room into my regular piles of "Keep", "Give" and "Toss", I've unearthed scads of photographs. A little stack here, a giant hill there...and before I knew it, I'd built the Mt. Everest of memories.

It is completely overwhelming. Despite my brief flirtation and obsession with scrap-booking, back in the early years of the new millennium, I'm still left with a plethora of pictures. With regards to other areas of my clutter free mission, I've managed to become ruthless. If it doesn't have a purpose, if I haven't used it in a year, if it's no longer practical, I've purged myself of these space suckers. Yet, when it comes to photographs, I just don't have the heart to pitch them. Each one represents a moment captured in time that can never be rekindled. Every picture, no matter how unflattering, brings with it an avalanche of emotions and reminders. Since I have neither the time, nor the money, to scrap book every single one of them, I save them. And now, I have a cupboard of overflowing cardboard boxes.

It isn't that I've chosen to be a Photo Glutton. I'm not trying to hoard them. My issue is my own level of absolute distraction when I begin the sorting process. I have sat down, with the pure intention of, at the very least, filing these pictures by year...or even subject matter...but with each one I pick up, I am flooded with flashbacks. My childhood, my years in college, my wedding, our travels through Europe, the births of my children, and the milestones since then come rushing back. What strikes me the most poignantly, however, aren't even the photos of these momentous occasions: it is the day-to-day capturing of our lives. My mother cooking dinner, my dad taking a nap. My daughter curled up reading. My son riding his bike. My husband and me at a random moment. Our many wonderful dogs from over the years. I see these snapshots and I'm transported back to a simpler time...back to before I was a woman drowning under the weight of all these pictures.

I never seem to make any progress with sorting these photographs, let alone pitching the ones in which my Grandma's eyes are half closed or my son is in need of a haircut. I sincerely take out the boxes, or unearth the stacks, with the best of intentions. Yet, before I know it, two hours have passed while I relive what has been. My distant cousin, the famous photographer and student of Ansel Adams, Alma Lavenson wrote,"A good photograph stops a moment from running away." I think this sentiment is the heart of my problem: I am terrified that by tossing some of the truly rubbish photos out, I'll allow those moments from running away.

I have every confidence that I will, eventually, overcome my distraction and fear, when it comes to de-cluttering my photographs. For now, however, I'll remain confident that, at the very least, I've discovered a method that doesn't work.

Rebirth of clutter

2010-09-06T00:20:00.011-04:00

The latest IKEA Australia catalog landed in my mailbox last week, and as I leafed through it, I became aware of an undercurrent of evil in the pages. I'm not sure if this is a new tactic or what, but IKEA is--brace yourself--marketing clutter.

First I noticed that throughout the catalog, the photos contain rumpled, unfolded things, and also, piles of things. They're artful piles--not clutter like normal everyday people know it--but piles nonetheless, and I believe this is a departure for this catalog.

Next, I realised that IKEA is telling me that not only is it okay that I keep things from 5th grade, but that I should also make sure I have a place to keep them forever.

I even think they might be spying on me. How do they know what my bedside looks like? How did they know I wanted exactly this sort of little table to stash all my bedside reads? How did they know I even have that many bedside reads? They know how lazy I am! They're encouraging me!

That's when I got a little bit scared. Has it always been this way? Has IKEA just been enabling my clutter proclivities over the years? And all this time I thought they were going to save me!

Despite the odd run-in with a shonky DIY furniture pack or two over the years, I'd always considered the IKEA showroom and catalog a place of dreams: of prettily designed, accessible organisation; of sweet, clear Scandinavian light falling on dust-free surfaces; of drawers and cupboards where silverfish fear to tread. But apparently I was mistaken: they are merely clutter dealers, pushing me to keep all my crap. But keep it in tidily arranged folders and boxes on endlessly expandable modular shelving, thanks.

On the other hand, all of this could also mean that the wheel of fashion is turning: the "perfect" room is no longer an effective marketing tool. Perfection is boring. Turn the page. Flick! Oh, look: clutter! Now we're talking.

Could the revival of clutter be on the horizon? Goodbye to glossy, glassy, slick, sharp home design? Could the notion of having a "magazine-perfect house" finally be going the way of the thylacine? Actually, I'd welcome that.

Think small

2010-07-27T21:51:00.010-04:00

It thrills me that there are websites that celebrate the small space, and architects who do likewise.

Here in the land Down Under, newly built homes are, on average, the largest in the world.

Meanwhile, my family is living in the 1950s. We've got a classic double-brick 'austerity' home plopped on a big, flat block of suburban land, sans cellar and attic. If you search "classic Australian 1950s house", Google will find you an image not only from my city, but within several blocks of my house.

So while other Aussies may pore over the latest home deco mags and ponder ways to fill the vastness of their dream homes, I look at the late-Deco era ceiling rose in my living room and contemplate the true meaning of the word 'streamline'.

I love small spaces. I just need to learn to live in one.

Summer Clutter

2010-07-07T18:51:00.007-04:00

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. ~Sam Keen

I have to admit that, when I read Sam Keen's quote above, I felt completely vindicated in my summer bad habits. In the winter, when the snow is piling up, and Nor'easters hit the coast of Maine with bone chilling temperatures, it's actually easier to become, and remain, organized. The fact is, I am stuck inside. Why not clear out clutter from one area a day...or even one room a week? It's kind of fun, in a self-congratulatory sort of way, to make a cup of hot Chai, put on some B.B. King, and dance as I organize the pantry. I can have a fire lit in the fireplace, cinnamon-raisin bread baking in the oven, and tick off my project to do list, item by item. It's both edifying and uplifting to feel productive when it's 5 degrees outside. I can easily plug away for hours, and then pat myself on the back, with a 'cat who stole the cream' expression of smugness.

But, as the poet said, 'then came summer'. Just as it is easier for me to remain firm in my clutter clearing contemplations in February, it's nearly impossible to remember them in July. The beach calls my name. The ocean beckons me. Meals become whatever we can pack and bring with us, or eat easily on the deck. A sinful amount of takeout boxes spill over the rubbish bin. In short, I lose all motivation in summer to stay ahead of the curve. I want to be outside too much. Even if I'm doing nothing more productive than hanging in the hammock and watching the birds discuss world events in the trees above, I just can't be bothered to stay ahead of my laundry pile or sort my bills efficiently. And, then of course, I feel tremendous guilt for reading a book on a breezy afternoon, rather than make sure my children have actually thrown out empty cereal boxes, instead of replacing them on the shelf.

I've had a bit of an epiphany about my slovenly summer style: it's okay. It's okay that the dog toys have littered the back yard like pathetic Easter eggs. It's okay that my pantry contains as many empty containers as full ones. It's okay that the folded laundry remains nicely folded on the kitchen table...and each one of us seems to just take what we need from the pile, rather than putting it away. It's okay that I drive around with three beach chairs, towels and snacks in the back of my car, just in case we might sneak to the sand for an hour. It's okay that my summer reading pile has overflown my bedside table and is begging for its own zip code. It's all okay. Summer is special. With summer comes a release from all manner of 'have to' and 'need to' projects on my list. The warmer days mean I can walk barefoot all the time, and not worry about mopping more than once every couple of weeks. The hot evenings mean less bed linens to launder. I feel liberated from my binding routine.

Still, I don't want the house to be declared unsafe or unsanitary. As much as I would like daydream up "Rosie" from the "The Jestons" to come clean for me, I set aside one day per week to get all my chores done. I find that writing this on the calendar makes it 'a date' that I can't miss. So, rather than do work every day, I give one day over to get as much done as I can. I clean the bathrooms, do innumerable loads of laundry, cook meals ahead of time, vacuum, dust, mop, iron and do whatever small bit of organizing I can with the time left over. Is my house perfect right now? Absolutely not. Will I be turned in by the health inspector? No, on that count, as well. There are stacks of shoes by the door, scads of magazines on the tables and towels hanging to dry over my fence railing. But, it's all okay. It's summer.

I'll get to the rest of it this Fall.

A decluttered mind

2010-06-19T06:21:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I think a lot of my life's clutter is in my head! You know how it is: those nights when you lie awake, or half-awake, making to-do lists, or ruminating on a particularly nagging chore?

A friend calls this doing laps on the mental racetrack. Sound familiar? (No wonder we feel tired in the morning!)

What I wonder is whether those things that keep us from a good night's sleep are really all that necessary. Couldn't many cluttered thoughts, like all those pieces of actual clutter, simply be chucked out?

I recently found the site Zen Habits, and there's some good advice lurking in there. What about a few strategies for defeating the urge to do useless tasks?

Losing My Ambition

2010-06-08T10:10:00.002-04:00

One of the lessons I've learned over the years in my work life (and one I get to periodically relearn) is that it's far better to promise less and deliver more than to promise more and deliver less. Missing the mark is a quick way to lose the confidence of others, whereas exceeding expectations is a nice way to lift your standing and enhance trust.

But where I've been slower on the uptake than your average bear to catch on is that this wisdom is not just for the work world or for your general relations with others: it also applies to the promises you make to yourself. However, I think I'm finally getting it.

And so it is that instead of creating a foot-long list of all the projects and tasks I'd like to do this summer -- an ambitious and well-intentioned but entirely unrealistic list -- I'm just going to set two (count 'em, two) de-cluttering goals:

1. Keep the weeds from growing back in the small garden area I cleared this past weekend
2. Get my home office under control

Sure, I'd also like to paint the bathroom, paint the kitchen, stain the deck, clean out the attic, sort all my clothes, sort through all my kids' toys, catch up ten years worth of photos, weed the rest of the garden areas, set up a bird bath, etc. etc. And maybe I'll manage one or two of those, too.

But the only ones I'm now promising myself are the two above. Weekly (or thereabouts) updates to come as the summer rolls on.

In the meantime, how about you? Care to lose your ambition and downsize your goals? If you'd like, post one or two (but NO MORE THAN TWO) summer clutter-clearing goals in the comments.

Isn't Modern Life Fun?

2010-05-15T21:17:00.002-04:00

"A Place For Everything, And Everything In Its Place." This common phrase was the inspiration for our blog name, "A Place For Everything." The phrase's usage in print goes back to the 1800s, and it is generally believed to have been in use as far back as the 1600s. It has endured through the ages : if you Google "A Place For Everything," you'll get millions and millions of hits. Pithy, important advice, we would all do well to heed it.

But use it? Ah, there you must be careful!

Today I was contacted by someone who stated to be "the owner of the rights to the Trademark name, ' A Place For Everything' with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office. It has come to my attention that you are using without permission, the name, ' A Place For Everything' in the operation of your blog."

I was informed that "my attorney tells me that indeed the name you are using for your blog is an infringement to my trademark." The email went on, I think quoting the attorney, to say that "the worst part is that I thought it was your blog because of the square logo, so it's confusingly similar as well, and a false designation of origin. It's not intentional, because you picked a proverb for your trademark. Can you give them a sort of nice warning shot?" And so came to my inbox a "warning shot."

I have no idea what the reference to the square logo is; and moreover I'm pretty darn sure our use of "A Place For Everything" as our blog title is NOT any sort of trademark infringement.

But I'm too old, too tired, and way too busy to fuss over this. (Is it any wonder my closets aren't clean yet?????) So out with the old blog name, and in with a temporary one.

Because apparently there isn't really a place for everything.

Car Talk

2010-05-04T09:12:00.002-04:00

So there I was, stopped at a stop light. I was more than a little weary, but I was happy to be close to home after a daylong out-of-town book event. My eyes wandered over to the car next to me and couldn’t help but be drawn to the back seat of the car – or make that, the area of the car where I presume a backseat was.

For all I could see in the back half of the vehicle next to me was a giant mound of papers, books, garbage, and random objects of all sorts. It covered the entire backseat area and reached up to the middle of the window level.

My immediate reaction was: “Well, at least my car isn’t that bad!”

Then, in the next instant, came a mental THWAP: “Um, Debbie, hate to intrude here, but this is your conscience speaking. If you’re using a hoarder’s mound as a yardstick by which to console yourself, it’s probably time to clean out your car!”

Well, when you put it like that...

So I did. The very next day. And in my defense, my mess was not as awful as it could have been. Still, there were a full two boxes of “stuff” I removed, mostly from my trunk. (I’ll leave it to you to decide if these were small boxes or large boxes. A gal’s got to keep some dignity.)

After hauling out the clutter, I vacuumed (even the trunk!) and then dusted the dashboard. A little Febreze, and, voila! My car is now (at least temporarily) a tidy and pleasant place.

But of course, there was still the sorting-through-of-the-boxes to do. Which I did. Slowly. (It may have taken a few days, or even a week, but again we'll leave that part of the story to your imagination.)

As I sorted, I noticed that the clutter seemed to be mostly of two sorts:

1. 2% clutter

Picture this scenario. I get in the car to go somewhere, and have with me the items I need for the journey. Upon my return home, I take those items back out of the car.

Except perhaps I’m in a hurry, or thinking about something else, or maybe I'm tired, or feeling lazy, and I really only take 98% out, leaving 2% behind.

The 2% can be quite small (maybe a paperclip from a bank deposit; a set of mapquest directions; a granola bar wrapper) but over time, it adds up.

Solution? Heck if I know, but I’m going to try harder to notice if I’m 98%ing, and I’m also going to add to my schedule a once-a-week decluttering of my car to catch the 2% bits before they add up to a Big Mess.

2. Well-Intentioned Over Preparation

We’re all familiar with “Be prepared.” And we’re all (well, most of us) prone to the “More must be better!” impulse.

So in terms of what “emergency” supplies one should have in the car, if it’s good to have a couple of bandaids in your glove compartment for playground mishaps, it’s better to have five sizes of bandaids, antibiotic ointment, guaze, icepack, and splints, right? If a snowshovel, a bit of salt, and a blanket are important for winter travel, then two shovels, a whole bag of salt, and four blankets are better, right? And if it’s good to have an umbrella under your seat, it’s better to have an umbrella, a complete portable rainsuit, and five plastic bags, right?

Er, not so right.

Having a trunk that looks like a Red Cross Station does not really leave you any better equipped for the unexpected. Minor unexpected events don’t demand many supplies, and major ones are going to require outside help anyway. It’s nothing more than an ineffective mindgame to look for reassurance in the form of overpreparation clutter.

Solution? Worry less. Carry less.

And enjoy the ride.

To Label or Not Label...That is The Question...

2010-04-14T11:38:00.007-04:00

I've always done everything at my disposal to avoid labeling what I do, or to avoid being labeled myself. ~ Boyd Rice

I grew up in a house in which everything was labeled. My father was a labeling nut, and we used to joke that, if the dogs didn't move, he'd label them. Our light switches were labeled, as to which lamps they turned on. Our garage was filled with perfectly matched bins, that each had a precise label on the outside. Our boat had each hatch, each storage spot and each tool precisely labeled. There was never any question of which fuse, in the circuit breaker, went to which zone of the house. Even our key racks were labeled for each family members' set. Dad was organized like no one I had ever met before, or since. Decades before "organizational systems" and "organizational consultants" were in vogue, our lives fit exceptionally neatly into each of their labeled compartments. The style of label maker would change over the years...from the old tick-type to print out to digital. But, in the end, all of our possessions were labeled.

Perhaps it was my own ridiculous form of rebellion but I lost the labeling habit when I went away to school. My dorm rooms would be a cluttered nightmare, and I'd be forever searching for my soccer shorts, already late for practice. Had I created delineated spaces for each item, I am sure that life away from home would have been far less stressful. Even in my young adulthood, marriage and parenthood, I resisted the labeling technique, convinced that it would stifle my creative spirit and desensitize me to the spontaneous way I wanted to live my life. I felt that putting labels on everything I owned would somehow turn into robot, lacking in inventiveness and imagination.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Where I had daydreamed about resourcefulness and vision, I ended up with a big mess, an ability to find anything I needed, and a way of losing just about everything important. My friend, Deb, came over one day and was horrified to watch me getting ready for tax time. I pulled out one document from under my son's history book, another two that had been left in my car and three more than simply had landed in random spots around the house. Deb reminded me that gathering these vital documents should not resemble an Easter Egg hunt. Her gift to me was a file folder system. She even prelabeled each one for me. For tax time this year, I had everything under control. I was able to hand my husband the papers he needed, in a moment's notice, simply because I'd had them in a labeled folder in a specific spot at the desk. Labeling is one of these areas of organization that I did resist. Some small remaining rebellious residual teenager lurked inside me, until I turned 40. By then, the stress of chaos was taking its toll on me. Living without knowing exactly where everything was became too exhausting. Whereas labeling had seemed tedious and compulsive in my youth, it became a necessity for a comfortable mind...and a more organized home.

Of course, creating the labels themselves is only half the job; the "de-clutterer" needs to clear out the true rubbish, and then create spaces before labeling them. It's much easier, and much less stressful, if you're not trying to organize around the chaos. Once unneeded items are taken to the dump, Goodwill or sold at a yard sale, remove everything from a room. Then, choose your organizational method; Rubbermaid bins, wicker baskets, hat boxes, or any combination that fits your needs and area of the home. Labeling can be done discreetly or more openly...with photos of the contents rather than words. What used to take half an hour to hunt for, can now be grabbed in a matter of minutes. You can label your bookshelves for children's books, adult fiction and cookbooks. This way, it's just as easy to replace items as you need to. Finally, labeling can help you keep from running out of necessary items. On one labeled shelf in our house, we have batteries and light bulbs. In the past, we just had individual packages in various rooms. I'd end up walking from room to room, searching for AA's, when the remote control went out, only to find AAA's and C-cells. By centralizing where you keep these items, and by knowing just where they're supposed to be, you will be able to replenish when you run out.

Labeling is still not my favorite chore. At times it does seem prosaic and laborious. But, the end result is the same: the peace of mind in knowing exactly where everything's supposed to be.

And, you can even label the dog while he's sleeping...just for fun.

Rainy Day Clutter

2010-03-30T10:07:00.004-04:00

Into each life some rain must fall. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Here in Maine, we have four seasons. But, unlike our fellow global citizens, ours run a bit differently: we have Summer, Autumn, Winter and Mud. Spring doesn't exist, or if it does, it only appears in greeting cards, romantic movies or in the places we choose to travel to between March and June. Mud season isn't simply a joke amongst Mainiacs. It's a way of life. We have to plan our schedules, our lives and our homes around the influx of torrential rain, melting snow, and yards filled with gloppy, La Brea tar-pit style mud. Shoes have been known to have been sucked down by the Evil Mud Season monsters that lurk in lawns, never to be heard from again. The necessary gear to combat mud season clutters up most Maine homes: several pairs of boots per person (as one will always need to dry), umbrellas, foul weather jackets, hats, lighter weight spray jackets and water proof gloves. It's not uncommon to feel far more soaked to the skin and chilly in April, than it is in January. Mud Season is like that. It's raw.

Unfortunately, Mud Season also tends to leave the house a mess. All of the rain gear can quickly take over front halls and spill over into other areas of the house. My own home tends to look like a sporting goods department store...as each one of us 'shed' our accoutrement's as we enter. A house I've just cleaned can become trashed in a matter of minutes, as my teenagers and their friends come home from school. After years of frustration, I've learned some tricks of the Mud Season trade:

Everyone must hang up wet rain jackets in the laundry room. This keeps the dripping from getting the house soaked from random coats all over, as well as keeps dry coats dry by not sticking wet ones right next to them in the closet.
Bring inside an over sized (I have a 4x normal one) doormat. These can be as basic, or as artistic, as your heart desires. I went with function over style. These larger mats provide a place not just to wipe feet, but to store wet boots, and shoes, lined up. I try to keep a towel next to the mat to help wipe off boots before we put them back on. Rubber boots can be taken outside, once dry, and the dirt can be brushed off them easily.
Allow umbrellas to dry on the porch (or garage) before bringing them in. There's nothing quite as soaking as trying to close an umbrella after you take off your coat. Once dry, place them in an umbrella stand. Additionally, don't wait for Hurricane Alice to see if your umbrellas are still in good shape. Make certain they're in working order before you grab one and head to work. There's nothing quite so disheartening as running out into a storm, only to realize that your umbrella has a gaping tear, and has been overextended.
If you have dogs, as I do, just getting them in and out without ruining carpets can be a losing battle. A friend gave me a Mugoh Mat and I wanted to poo-poo it (pun fully intended!). I am thrilled...I have it just inside the door from which I let my two pets outside, and it really does soak up the worst of the rain and mud off their paws. While it doesn't help with my mud loving half-Newfoundland (who is a roller in mud lakes), it certainly takes up the worst of the wet wear and tear for other people's normal dogs.

Mud season is truly awful. It's no fun to deal with gray skies, chilly temps and wet feet. It's dreadful to clomp around in muck. But with some easy methods, surviving these rainy days can make life that much easier until the warmth of summer arrives.

Knowing What You've Got; Or, Hardrive Crashes Can Be Inspiring

2010-02-14T15:39:00.005-05:00

I'm experiencing computer woes. My harddrive went kerflooey on me, and my back-up is apparently kerflooey, too. I'm still hoping for a solution that retrieves my lost data, but if that doesn't work out, I'll be trying to piece things back together from some older back-ups, and I will have lost some recent files in the process, along with some older ones. All in all, the experience has been unpleasant.

Still, it's been enlightening. Because what has bothered me most hasn't been the potential whole-scale loss of years of files. I know most of what I've lost is no big deal. A lot of it was just digital clutter. What has bothered me is that I don't have a clear notion of what the key things I lost were.

This has lit a fire under me about working through my physical stuff, to identify the key stuff that's worth saving.

Today I spent a few hours in my basement, and got rid of a ton of stuff. Feels good.

The Sandpaper Approach, and More

2010-02-10T09:34:00.004-05:00

As mentioned previously, this is the year I plan to take the "Prepare To Move" approach to de-cluttering. Even though I don't plan to move anywhere, by year's end I hope to have our home de-cluttered to an extent that I would nonetheless be streamlined and "Move Ready."

I began in January with the bedroom, figuring that that relatively clutter-free room would be a good place to start. I'm happy to report, it's in much better shape than it was. Here's what I learned during the process:

Good intentions won't clean your closet for you. You have to make a commitment in your calendar to de-cluttering sessions. Otherwise, you'll always find something more pressing to attend to. Make it a small, doable commitment. Try a 10-minute daily slot, as part of your morning or evening routine. Or pick a half hour time pocket on the weekend.
Consider using the Sandpaper Approach to decluttering. In sanding wood, you start with a coarse grit, then a medium, then move to a fine. This outlook works well with sanding down your stuff, too. Start with the thought that you'll just take a quick look at that drawer/shelf/closet. Remove a few things. Plan to come back later and work a bit deeper into the layers. Hold off on fine-tuning choices about stuff until the last pass through. This makes the process less intimidating and eliminates the feeling of being overwhelmed that thwarts so many de-cluttering projects.
It's OK to ignore some of your clutter. There are some areas of your life that it's simply not in your best interest to attempt to de-clutter. Either it's an area that's too emotional, for whatever reason, or an area that you're not likely to reduce much stuff in even with great effort on your part. Consider the cost-benefit issue of your time. If you're "stuck" in a particular area, just move on. Come back to it another day (or another year).
Set standards. Before you tackle a particular clutter area, decide on your weeding standards. For clothing, your "get-rid-of-it" standards might be: get rid of anything 1) damaged, worn out, or stained; 2) that doesn't fit; 3) that hasn't been worn during the last year. Or approach it from the other direction: define narrow "keep it" standards, and then get rid of anything that doesn't measure up. Regardless of which type of standards you use, you'll occasionally want to make an exception; but having rules to work with make the reduction process a lot less painful.
Follow the trail. Sometimes clutter occurs because of something entirely unrelated. For instance, I discovered a bunch of framed photos gathering dust under my bed. Why are they there? They're there because I want to hang them in the stairwell, but I don't want to hang them until I remove the stairwell wallpaper and repaint; and I can't easily remove the wallpaper and then paint as the wall is too high to do without scaffolding; and even were I to have scaffolding handy, I have a profound fear of heights; so I either need to hire someone to do it, or forget about it. So what to do about the framed photos? Ultimately, there's no resolving the issue until I deal with the stairwell. But in the meantime, I can at least dust the photos and store them in a better place than under the bed.

That's what I've learned so far. What have you learned so far this year?

Food organization 101

2010-01-11T16:16:00.006-05:00

He hath eaten me out of house and home. ~ William Shakespeare, "King Henry IV, Part 2"

There have been a number of bumps in the road to my clutter free journey. I live with a lovely husband, but he happens to be a Yankee Thrifter...meaning, in this part of the country, that nothing that has the minimum of value is ever thrown out. I've given up arguing over the sweaters he hasn't worn since high school, or the dreadfully ugly lamps leftover from the mid-80's. My husband's philosophy has always been "If there is life left in it, we keep it." So, my basement might still have art from our college dorm walls, some really flimsy furniture from our first apartment and pants neither one of us will ever get into again, I've learned where to pick my battles. He's completely jumped on board with helping me keep our bedroom, our laundry room and the other common areas picked up. I've appreciated his help because it's hard to de-clutter when you are constantly digging out from your housemate's mess.

The one room in which Jeff took the initiative, rather than I, was our walk in pantry. We have been incredibly blessed with this space. It's a full walk in closet sized pantry with floor to ceiling shelves. Because it's cuts a corner in our contemporary style house, the pantry has three sides of shelves or hanging space. This room is larger than my first dorm room. And, I had a roommate. Nevertheless, it's been one of those areas of the house that has gotten away from us. When this house was built 18 years ago, it never occurred to me that we would accumulate food and household products for that entire time and never use them. The pantry had become a catch all, an 'open door, chuck it in' room, rather than a safe, efficient and healthy place to store our food. By the time Jeff chose to tackle this project, there was brand new cookie mix, stuck behind ten year old boxes of Mac N'Cheese, underneath a Sam's Club stack of plastic plates that we bought for a 4th of July party in 1999...and never used. We had twelve different jars of 12 different brands of mustard and 11 bags of unopened chips. Some of them dating from my first pregnancy. We found really wonderful Wolfgang Puck canned soups, that would have tasted delicious, had we realized we had them before the shelf life expired. Worst of all? Two unopened boxes of Bisquick that had been visited by tiny black bugs. Enough was enough.

We brought the trash can into the pantry and began pitching what we could. We took another bin out to recycle the items that could be recycled. This was my job. It was not pretty. But, it was worth it. I dumped out containers of spoiled, past due food, and then flattened the cardboard boxes and rinsed out glass and metal containers. It took the better part of a rainy Saturday just to get rid of the rubbish. But, when we were done, we were able to reshelve the items that were still very good. Before we put them back into the pantry, I designated one area for beverages, another for canned goods, yet another for rice and pasta, and a fourth for baking products. I washed off each of the shelves carefully, so I wasn't putting clean on top of dirty. I labeled the front of the shelves. Now, when I want to bake cookies, I can find the mix and the chips. When my son has had a late night at hockey practice, he can heat himself up a bowl of soup. We can easily grab snack foods, like granola bars or fruit leathers, from the baskets I've put in the bottom level of storage. When a space is empty, then (and only then) do I know it's time to restock. There is no reason to have a repeat of the great Mustard Muster again.

I have to admit, this was a huge project. But, it's also made life much easier. I no longer reach for a bottled water and come out with ketchup. I am also saving money at the grocery store, because I'm not buying items out of habit (even if I had them on the shelves). Rather, I'm buying out of replacement need.

Most of all, it's nice to be embarrassed anymore when people come over and want to grab a Pellegrino. I am now confident they won't be attacked in the process.

To a tidier 2010

2010-01-06T17:29:00.002-05:00

I think my house is marginally less cluttered than at the start of 2009.

The living room has two new couches and we now use the dining table nightly for actual eating instead of propping up clutter. (Radical, I know!)

The bedrooms haven't changed a bit: clutter out, clutter in.

The kitchen is tidier: I have gotten rid of unused gadgets and made room for only one: a food processor, which I love and use lots.

The office/studio space is in good nick, and has been on and off throughout the year. Basically: I get in there and make stuff (including a mess) and then have to clean it all up before I can make anything more. Simple!

But here's the rub: we're going to renovate this year—the house won't be larger but more cleverly arranged. Sounds great. And it will be nice, this time next year, to have a new laundry room and a larger living area (after moving the dining area to occupy the former laundry). But oh we will pay for it in the coming months: the dust, the tradies, the constant cleaning.

Did I mention I've fallen completely in love with miniscule houses? /end escapist clutter-free fantasy

Debbie's 2010 Clutter Strategy

2010-01-01T18:27:00.005-05:00

It is so tempting for me to make New Year's resolutions. There's nothing I enjoy more than coming up with a bulleted list of goals and aspirations. How I love the tidy resoluteness of resolutions.

But if I've learned anything in my 40-odd years, it's that New Year's Resolutions and I aren't really compatible in the long run. My success with resolutions is limited; in fact, I find them somewhat self-defeating.

But with the clean slate called 2010 now at hand, I have decided to do some strategizing. Specifically, as to clutter, I'd like to put some teeth into my previous proclamation of "I-really-do-want-to-reduce-the-clutter-in-my-life." My decision a year ago to "declutter my life" didn't magically lead to less clutter. Progress, yes. But substantive progress? I'm not convinced I can respond affirmatively on that count.

So this year, I'm all about strategy. And my clutter strategy is...

To prepare to move.

Set aside for the moment the fact that I have no plans to move this year. Nonetheless, my strategy for 2010 is to prepare to move anyway. To go through my house, room by room, and see my possessions through the "is this worth packing into a box and hauling across the country?" lens.

I'm going to tackle my bedroom first, as it's relatively uncluttered. Periodic progress reports to follow, once I have something to report out on.

In the meantime, how about you? What's your strategy for 2010?

The Christmas List

2009-12-17T07:50:00.008-05:00

Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons. ~Ruth Ann Schabacker

As I continue to grow and learn on the declutter journey, I have come to look back fondly on the one area in my life in which I was highly organized, precise and determined: my Christmas cards. I had a master list that I reviewed in January...double checking addresses in my book, making adjustments for people who'd moved and writing in names of new babies, as they would be born. I took photos in September. My laundry might have piled up to resemble Mount Everest, my family might be given take out for a few nights each November and my commitments might be forgotten, but I had all my cards written out, addressed, stamped and ready to go the day after Thanksgiving. I was so predictable in this endeavor that some of my friends teased me that my holiday cards were the unofficial start to the Christmas season. I took that as a compliment and continued to plug away at my one area of organizational success.

But, as they say, "A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum....": as I became more streamlined in my organization in other areas, my Christmas card military precision grew less accomplished. I didn't even take the photo on year, until the end of November. I'd forget when people moved and send cards to their old addresses. My address book remained un-updated, and eventually lost altogether. I simply forgot people with whom I'd always exchanged cards. I felt terribly guilty when I'd receive concerned phone calls and emails from dear friends, worried about me because they hadn't received my card yet. They believed that something catastrophic must have occurred for my card to be so late. It made me feel wonderful to have people care about me. But, it also highlighted my own shortcomings....that my one area of organizational pride had so fallen behind. My pantry looks like a well stocked market shelf system. My laundry room is updated and newly arranged to make washing easier. My bills are paid on time. My appointments are clearly written in my calendar. My closet looks like a small boutique....most of the time. Yet, my Christmas cards remain my trouble spot.

I did get some out this year, but not nearly as many as I have in the past. For one thing, the cost has gone up tremendously. For another, it's just harder for me to do, as life has gotten more chaotic. My friend, Susan, turned me onto an amazing website called "Smilebox". At this website, you can create scrapbook photo cards, set to music and beautiful animation. For those of us who have a harder time getting our older children to stay in one place for a photo opportunity, this site is helpful because you can use anywhere from 1 to 50 photos in hundreds of designs for cards. These beautiful creations are more than just a two dimensional greeting; they're mini movies to share your memories of the past year with those who are important to you. They not only come in Christmas cards, but for any possible occasion. I made a beautiful card, for which

I'm especially proud, in less than an hour, dragging and dropping my photos into the Silent Night template. You can upload your email address book right to Smilebox. I was able to email this card, which is far nicer than anything I've ever mailed, to everyone on my list. Two other advantages? It's "green friendly", in that it saves a tree and energy to mail all those cards snail mail. The other? Most peoples' email address change less frequently than their street addresses in this age of our mobile society.

While it *is* a lot of fun to receive holiday cards in the mail, I have to admit, I am very excited about this new chapter in my Christmas traditions. I'm also far prouder of this card than I have been of the ones I've squeaked out the past few years....in a rush, and without enough energy. Smilebox may never fully replace the Hallmark ones, but it does make life easier, from an organizational standpoint....and it is very entertaining.

Happy Holidays from my family to yours....

http://smilebox.com

On Not Giving In To Temptation

2009-12-01T14:20:00.003-05:00

Over the weekend, I cleaned out the big lazy-susan corner cabinet in our kitchen.

At one point during the clean out, I was tempted by the idea of purchasing new containers for the flour, sugar, etc. I envisioned how neat and tidy the ingredients would look in matching triangular-shaped storage containers (a shape that would make maximum use of storage space on the circular shelves). But I did not give in to this temptation.

At another point, I was tempted to get out my labeler and label the shelf edges, indicating where everything should go. But I did not give in to this temptation.

I was also tempted by the thought of making tags to go under each item, to indicate what should go where, to (theoretically) help guide my long-term tidy use of the cupboard. But I did not give in to this temptation.

Instead, I simply took everything off the shelves and wiped them down, then kept the things we use, and tossed (or set aside to give away) the things we don't. I got rid of some five-year-old marjoram and some half-used cake-decorating gel of unknown vintage. I consolidated three partially-used bags of confectioner's sugar into one. And so on. Then I tried to do a slightly better job of placing like things together when I put the baking supplies back into the cupboard.

The result? A better organized cupboard, that didn't cost a thing and has no complicated maintenance scheme. And it currently still looks as good as it did three days ago.

Given the fact that I have sometimes in the past given in to the temptations of "unnecessary container purchases" and/or "needlessly complex strategies," I consider my less-is-more cupboard clean-out a success!

Yankee Swap

2009-11-20T11:41:00.007-05:00

I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world. ~ Thomas Edison

There is a somewhat silly tradition, here in the Northeast, called a "Yankee Swap". The object of this holiday party game is to find something you wish to get rid of, something that you can't stand, something that you don't need or something that creates clutter. Each party guest picks her item from her home, and wraps it as ornately as possible. I've seen giant boxes, with other boxes getting smaller and smaller with every opening, and with each one more elegantly fashioned than the last, to end with a very small package...that contained a set of poker chip wine glass charms. Regifting is not a faux pas for Yankee Swaps. It's the expectation! I've seen Chia Heads wrapped with a silver and gold theme. I've seen a set of "World's Worst Dictators" hand towels, stylishly presented in Macy's wrapping. I, myself, once wrapped up two truly terrible snowman mugs (with long carrot noses, making them impossible to drink from) in a Victoria's Secret bag. The name of the game is getting rid of something you don't like, and having a laugh over something you receive. The more extravagantly and enticing the wrapping, the more likely your item will be chosen!

Unlike other parties, in which gifts are chosen by number, and can be "stolen" by someone with a higher number, a Yankee Swap is all about laughs, decluttering and realizing how much unnecessary 'stuff' we all have accumulated over the years. Called a "White Elephant" party in other parts of the country, the whole point of this gathering is to have fun...and to declutter while you do so. Interestingly, we have actually received a few things that were other family's 'trash', but became our 'treasure'. One year, we unwrapped a couple of DVD's that another family didn't like, but that my husband and son were thrilled with. Yet another time, I received a battered old cookbook that the giver didn't like and had no interest in keeping. To her, it was junk. To me? A treasure trove of old fashioned, down home recipes that I use to this day. In the meantime, we had managed to unload some Christmas chotchkies that weren't "us" but came to be enjoyed by people who try to transform their home into a winter wonderland. It just goes to show that what may be an item that's intensely disliked by one person may go on to bring joy to another.

If nothing else, a Yankee Swap is a great excuse for a party, it's a fun way to declutter a few things you don't like and will provide you with a source of laughter during a stressful season ahead.

Cookie Cutter Solution

2009-11-17T11:21:00.005-05:00

I've been absent from this blog for so long, one might conclude that I've once and for all conquered my household clutter and no longer need to blog about it.

Well, one would be very kind to think that but... one would be mistaken.

Nope, I'm still here with my ebb and flow of accumulations. It's just been a particularly busy stretch, so while I've continued to read and enjoy my fellow bloggers' entries, I haven't commented on them or made any of my own lately. But I'm back now, and hoping to check in once a week or so with my thoughts and progress.

November and December tend to be so busy that I'm keeping my clutter-clearing ambitions low; but, taking the slow-but-steady approach to things, my current project is to tackle a kitchen drawer every couple of days until I make it through them all. Today's foray into one of the "gadget" drawers has me contemplating this:

Does a person who doesn't enjoy rolling out cookie dough and who lacks the necessary patience for decorating sugar cookies truly need such a sizable collection of cookie cutters?

Uh, going out on a limb here, but, gosh, er: Nope. She does not.

So. I'm thinking I'll keep a few for sentimental reasons (and just on the off chance that I might actually use them one day), then find a new home for the rest.

And if I take care of them now, I can spare myself the annual agony of thinking about how I should make some beautifully decorated holiday cookies using those lovely cutters all the while aware of the fact that the cookies stand a better chance of rolling themselves out than ever being made by me.

(That said, if the cookies do manage to spontaneously create themselves, I'll gladly eat them.)

A quick fix

2009-10-11T21:24:00.003-04:00

Here's how to get your home office/spare room sorted out quick smart: invite your in-laws to come and stay for a few weeks.

Mind you, our home has no closets, so there's nowhere really to hide. So, on the first day, we filed and recycled unsorted papers on one day. On the next, we trafficked stored clothing and craft materials out of the wardrobe and into temporary storage in our bedroom. On the third day, I dusted, vacuumed, aired and made up the fold-out bed while my husband picked up his parents at the airport. On the fourth day, we all rested!

They've just gone back home again, and after folding the bed back in, I now have a useable home office. True, I do have a largeish pile of extraneous stuff in my bedroom, but most of it can go to the op shop, and what little remains will be returned to the guest room wardrobe for storage.

Not bad for a quick fix.

Pimp my ride...or just clean it.

2009-09-30T09:02:00.010-04:00

"Neatness: The state of being neat and smart and trim." ~ Webster's Dictionary

There is a terrific show on MTV, starring a rapper named Xzibit, who surprises car owners with 'extreme makeovers' for their cars. Born Alvin Nathaniel Joiner, "X" is part comedian, part tough love expert and part automotive artistic visionary. Perhaps it was growing up in Detroit, but "X" gives the kind of care to autos, which would easily fit into the "Cash for Clunkers" program, to turn them into one of a kind, revelations about what cars *could be*...a reflection of an individual's needs, taste and style. In this era of disposable possessions, it's fascinating to see people rebuilding, re-imagining and rethinking what cars look like. Instead of junking these wrecks, Xzibit goes to great lengths, with the help of an incredible team, to make each car into a showpiece. This show really creates a sense of stewardship; not just taking care of what we own, but making it better. It's both entertaining and enlightening to see exactly what this California based team can come up with next. A jacuzzi in the back of a pick up? Wide screen TVs on every flat surface in a Mom-mobile? A golf putting green on the roof of a van?

Yet, my car is just fine. It runs well. It's nothing special, and doesn't boast a sound system worthy of a rock concert. But, it gets me to my many destinations every day, and for that I'm grateful. I have often said that, since I became a mother seventeen years ago, I have lived in my car. That's metaphorically because we do have a home. With all the driving I've done, from the early years of Gymboree to the school pick ups to Little League and off to school out of state, my car has been the home base for our busy lives. And this shows in the way it looks. I am reasonably certain that there is nothing growing mold on it inside my car, but I can't be positive. At this very moment, I have three empty water bottles, four magazines (one torn to bits), two blankets for the hockey rink, forgotten bills, mounds of dog hair, 3 mittens (that do not match one another), a broken dog leash, an empty wrapper for a Cereal bar, forgotten sunglasses, many dollars in loose change, a cracked coffee cup,my yoga bag, a book on CD that's missing one disc, a snapped in half hair brush, 12 pens, 1 melted lipstick and a case of Orangina. This is actually a good day. There are no bags from Subway or Dunkin' Donuts and I remembered to take out the wet towel from bringing the dogs swimming in the lake. My car, in short, is still a mess.

I have never really given much thought to my cars. My husband loves to quote me as saying "I just want to put the key in and have it go, I don't care about anything else." When we were first dating, my future brother in law used to take my car, unbeknownst to me, and wash it for me, because he couldn't stand the dirt. My mother in law is amazing about her cars...she cleans up the interior when she gets home from work every day. I am in awe, because I think I might practice this same action twice a year. Yet, as I look around my home, I realize I'm making such good progress here. My closet is organized and I can find all my clothes easily, hung by color and type of item. My laundry room is so tidy, you could eat off the floor (okay,maybe the dogs could). My 'sanctuary room' of my living room remains my clutter free zone. I tidy up the kitchen every night before I go to bed. Yet, my car seems to be my worst stumbling block. It looks as if I am a Clutter Club Drop Out.

I've set the bar for my car's future neatness so low that even I may be able to achieve it: I just don't want to be embarrassed when someone rides with me. I shrank in horror when a girlfriend and I were going out to dinner, and she emerged from my car looking as if she had rubbed an animal all over herself...there was that much dog hair on her seat. I plan to take two bins outside with me as I clean: one for pitching and one for putting away immediately. I have a bad habit of doing this and leaving the "put away bin" in the garage for eternity. The car will look great in the short term, but then the garage will become littered with, what my husband calls, "Ellen boxes". I plan on vacuuming out enough fur to theoretically knit a sweater. I plan on using Armor All on my seats and flat surfaces, and to clean my windows. Finally, I'm taking my car over to the car wash to have the outside looking more bronze and less dirty gray.

The question now remains? How do I keep it this way? As much as I'd love to say "I'll be my Mother in Law....I'll clean it every night!", I know that's not realistic. Between teaching yoga classes 4 days a week, attending graduate school classes, running errands, going to sporting events to watch my kids, taking the pups to the dog park and simply being on the road as much as I am, going for the goal of "Pristine" is unrealistic. What I can do, however, is try to get the worst of it every day....to bring out anything broken, anything I don't need to use in the next 24 hours and anything that's actually trash. Then, I plan on doing a big 'detox' once a week....Sunday nights seem to be a perfect time, as it will conclude our hockey and soccer watching weekends on the road. Then, I can begin my week with a fresh car! I also plan to keep an organizer, or just simply one box, in the way back of my SUV, to hold those necessities that I have to keep: my blankets (nicely folded, and without coffee spills), my yoga bag, my emergency kit and other necessary items. I believe it'll be far easier to find them without a 50 lb. bag of kibble on top of them.

Will I do a perfect job of this new area of becoming clutter free? Probably not. But, I have set my intention and hope I can achieve better. At the very least, I hope my friends will no longer look like Chewbacca when they exit my car.

Clearing Clutter for Moving...

2009-09-08T10:15:00.005-04:00

Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard. ~ Dave Mustaine

Although my husband and I aren't planning to move for approximately one year, the amount of work we have facing us is staggering. Not only do we need to find a new house, in a new state, we have to get our current home in order to sell. If I began a list of all the projects we need to accomplish before we list our house, I could easily be holding a scroll of paper to rival Santa Claus' naughty and nice list. There are rooms to repaint, floors to refinish, tiling to be replaced, shingles to be reshingled, hardware to be changed out, cabinets to be emptied and rooms to be recarpeted. There are closets to be organized, rooms to be staged, furniture to move (and clean behind) and curb appeal to be updated. We need to create a feeling of openness and airiness in a home that's been lovingly, busily and thoroughly lived in by a family of 4 humans, two large dogs and one rabbit. In short, we need to take ourselves out of the equation. I have been watching television shows on HGTV, like "Designed to Sell" and "House Hunters", to give me ideas of what people are looking for when they buy a home. It's an exceptionally overwhelming process.

Decluttering, as one gets ready to sell a house, is a completely different level of organization than regular "day to day" restructuring. An aspect of the very early stages of this process has been one question: "Will we use this in the next house?". As cluttered as my home tends to get, and as much as my husband loves to save everything he wants to use eventually, we're both looking at this time of readiness as a transition in, and of, itself. Just the act of getting ready to put a house on the market, to move and to start over is a daunting task. Of course, it's also a very healing one. In beginning to work through our basement, our attic storage and the various rooms of our house, we can take critical looks at everything we own and say "Yes....this is definitely going to make the the move with us", or "No...this has been great here, but it doesn't need to make the trip". We're learning how to prioritize what we still plan to use, until we leave, and what we're ready to say goodbye to now...knowing that it will not make the long trek down I-95. When one begins to declutter for an upcoming move, we tend not to put things in boxes for 'someday': we have permission to become much more analytical in what we keep and what we eliminate. When I think of what will simply clutter up a staged house for sale, or what I want to pay movers to take for me, I can begin to process the outgoing items far more logically, and with less emotion.

Although our moving plans aren't definite, and we don't have an exact timetable, we do have our goals of relocation and downsizing. By knowing what we wish to accomplish by next summer, we can begin tackling all of the many items on our lists, slowly and methodically. On the one hand, this gives us plenty of time to accomplish all goals. On the other, with such an open ended time frame, it is difficult to get motivated. Yet, when we focus on our new life, what it will be like and having it be closer to friends and family, we know that the hard work and dedication will be worth it. It's the getting from here to there, and how, when and where, that will be an intriguing journey.

It makes me awfully glad we have a year!

Off to school.....clutter free!

2009-08-13T09:03:00.009-04:00

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness. ~James Thurber

One year ago today, our house looked like a tornado hit just come through, and had caused massive devastation. Had there been an undocumented hurricane? Was there an earthquake off the Richter scale? No. It was simply a case of preparing my daughter to leave home for prep school in Massachusetts. Our entire house was filled with every possible item she might need in the year ahead. From one end of the house to the other, there were sheets, pillows, towels, tubs of shampoo and beauty products, posters, shoes, clothing for a year, sporting equipment (including an ice hockey bag), non-perishable food......and of course, an exceptional large amount of school supplies. There were cases of water, an electric tea kettle, a laptop computer and printer, and an I-pod home. We managed to find room for a set of shelves, another made up of a wheeling cart and a memory foam mattress pad. Adding to the chaos was a hair straightener, a curling iron and a blow dryer. The full length mirror, the shoe carrier and the under-bed storage unit were spread out with the curtains, the shower shoes & kit and the Ugg boots. Needless to say, in the weeks leading up to Caroline's departure, we all felt a sense of stress....due largely to the mess.

This method of purchasing what we knew Caroline needed, and tossing it in an open space simply didn't work. It only added to the confusion, and in the process, kept us from realizing what we'd already purchased and what we needed. For example: we found terrific curtains to block out the pesky sun from her east facing room. However, we'd neglected to buy a curtain rod, curtain hangers or to bring tools with which to hang up the curtains! The lack of a plan also made moving into Caroline's dorm room more chaotic. We weren't quite certain where each group of items were, and as the car was packed as haphazardly as the dorm-room-items were stored in the house, it made our unloading and set up process that more disorganized. We were able to unload our daughter's comforter and pillows first thing, but the rest of her bedding was buried in the bottom of the carload...creating a tough way to make her bed to use as a staging area for the room.

This year, we plan to do things in a more organized manner. We hope that this will make packing the car, and then unpacking on campus, that much simpler. Rather than look back and berate ourselves on last year's pitiful performance, we are taking a critical examination of how we can make this year a more pleasant experience. We've already begun keeping one space in the family room as a 'staging area'. This will help to contain the mess of "dorm stuff", as well as to enable us to pack more efficiently. We plan to keep ongoing lists of what we have and what we need. We are going to go through Caroline's boxes, and Rubbermaid tubs, to see what's still in excellent shape and what needs to be replaced. When we replace an item, we will dispose of the old one, to keep it from mucking up the works. We also plan to load the car in the reverse pattern of how we wish to unload it...and to set up our daughter's room. That way, the first items we'll need (such as my husband's tool box and the bedding) can come in first, and the things that can be saved for later in the day (such as the posters and wall safe poster goo) can be packed in less accessible places.

My best advice for readers who are sending their children off to school is to take a look online at the "what to bring" lists for college and preparatory school students. Then, ask a current student and parents what they really found that they needed. You may realize that those lists include items (such as microwaves) that many dorms do not allow. You may also hear, from the current student, what she truly wished she'd had. Had it not been for my friend, Molly, we never would have known to purchase a memory foam mattress pad. Dorm beds are notoriously uncomfortable and bad for backs. Caroline's mattress pad may not have been on the list her school suggested, but it certainly made a difference in the way she slept. Don't be afraid to ask questions....most families are happy to share their experiences of what works...and what simply doesn't.

It's my hope that our year of chaos can help another family avoid the hurricane of dorm preparation!

Everything I Need To Know I Learned From My Dehumidifier (er, or something like that...)

2009-07-30T09:12:00.003-04:00

I suspect there's a lesson for me in my basement. Which is to say, lately I’ve been contemplating my dehumidifier.

Ah, the dehumidifier. Staple of the Midwest home. Basements of course vary, but ours is definitely of the damp-in-the-summer variety. For several years, we had an earnestly ineffectual dehumidifier, which chugged away loudly but only barely managed to keep the basement walls from weeping. Last year we replaced it with a better, higher capacity model. The difference was noticeable within hours. I was ecstatic, as the new dehumidifier suddenly made our basement a pleasant place to be on a hot summer day.

But earlier this summer, I lost a little of my lovin’ feeling toward our dehumidifier.

Sure, it was still working its subterranean-oasis-magic. But with the humidity honeymoon being over, this summer I started paying more attention to the dehumidifier’s electricity use. Which meant I also paid a little more attention to how constantly the thing was running. I fiddled around with different humidity settings, thinking it might run less often if I altered its goal humidity level; but the change seemed to make little difference. On and on and on it ran. I even went so far as to take it in for repair, sure that something must be wrong with it. I brought it home, plugged it in – but it was the same old almost-constantly-running dehumidifier.

This troubled me. In main part because of the electricity use. But also due to, well, empathy for the darn thing. Yes, it’s a dopey thing to project one’s emotions onto an inanimate object. But the dehumidifier’s efforts earlier this summer seemed to be running eerily parallel to my own. There I was, running constantly, yet never quite meeting my goals; and there it was, doing exactly the same.

But there is at least one significant difference between me and a dehumidifier. Which is: a dehumidifier has setting buttons. And one of them happens to be a two-hours-on-two-hours-off option. Recently, I decided to switch over to that setting. By doing so, I immediately cut the dehumidifier’s energy use nearly in half. Given its previous running-all-the-time status, that stood to reason. But what surprised me about the change was this: it didn’t make a huge negative impact on the basement humidity level.

Sure, it does get a bit more humid down there during the two off hours. But not disastrously so. And when the dehumidifier comes back on, it rather quickly deals with the humidity build-up, and returns the basement to pleasant oasis condition.

Which now leaves me wondering: is there a lesson for me in here? Something about the impact of small, concentrated efforts, with clearly defined on and off periods?

I haven’t fully sorted it out yet, but I do think my dehumidifier has something to teach me about time, project, and clutter management; and about life efficacy in general.

Now if only I could find my settings panel.

Stuff vs clutter

2009-07-22T06:37:00.005-04:00

We just returned from a 6-week overseas holiday to find that the college-age couple housesitting for us did an amazing tidy-up. We found ourselves in a very good place for busting clutter.

And somehow the clutterous things that had previously melded with the household landscape now stood out clearly, and it became very easy to chuck things out: magazines, clothes, tchotchkes.

And then it became easy to do some serious cleaning. High up on a long-ignored kitchen shelf, where the greasy dust had collected out of sight, I picked up a grimy old souvenir from Japan: a plain white cup filled with fake plastic "coffee". A few inches above the cup, suspended by a stream of white plastic, is a tiny pitcher. It looks like an invisible hand is pouring cream into the cup.

They're really big on making exceptionally realistic fake plastic food in Japan, so this isn't quite as badly kitschy as it sounds.

The coffee cup is pretty good kitsch, actually. However. This particular example has been around my husband for as long as I have. And no matter where we've lived, it sits somewhere not quite in eyeshot, not quite out of it, always sporting an impressive growth of dust. Once in a while I clean it off, but this time, I chucked it out.

Well, don't you know he returned home from his first day back at work and noticed its absence. "Where's my coffee cup with the cream thing?" Cue argument: don't throw out my stuff/clean your stuff/but it's my stuff/then look after your stuff.

It ended with me outdoors rummaging in the rubbish bin with a flashlight, unsure whether or not I hoped the cup had smashed when it landed in the bin.

It hadn't. I brought it inside and put it on the shiny clean counter. The revolting state it was in spoke plainly of a neglected object. He carefully wiped it clean and shiny, and put it on a lower shelf in the kitchen where we can see it. And where, no doubt, it will get the ongoing attention it requires to keep it from being mistaken for clutter in the future.

Breathing Room

2009-07-15T09:05:00.008-04:00

There is no answer to any of life's questions. It's a matter of time and timing, of seas and seasons, of breathing in and breathing out. It's a matter of balance. ~ Peter McWilliams

One my greatest frustrations, on the declutter journey, is what a "3 steps forward, two steps back" method I seem to live by. Just when I have one room under control, with unneeded items brought to Goodwill or simply pitched, with shelves organized and tidy, with a plan of action under way, I find that another room simply implodes. While I have the very best of intentions on keeping my decluttering and organization skills on track for the whole house, I've discovered that my plans seem to only work when I'm actively focused on one particular space. The sad truth is, I'm a dreadful multi-tasker. I can keep the kitchen looking like magazine photo, but them my bedroom becomes a dumping ground. I can make certain that my laundry room is the very picture of streamlined success, but the front hall begins to resemble a shipyard loading zone. In short, I just can't seem to keep up with all of it at the same time. Like a circus performer with plates spinning on sticks above my head, I can only seem to manage one dish. I tend to be self-critical because I'm unable to keep a half dozen going a once in each hand.

I have come to realize, however, that despite my lack of success in juggling all the rooms of my house, and the many areas of my life that need regulation, I feel incredibly tense when there is chaos all around me. As much as my brain and heart want for me to be a 'streamlined self-correcter', my natural tendencies simply don't lie in this skill set. So, I find myself in a vicious circle: I feel hectic because my house is in disarray, so I focus my cleaning on one room. While I am making that room perfect and systematic, another room becomes even worse than it had started. So, my stress level rises dramatically. as I take in the cluttered mess in the next room, I abandon my original project to focus on the room that looks worse. In "Tasmanian Devil" fashion, I find myself moving like a whirlwind from room to room and space to space, spinning my organizational wheels and accomplishing little. So, what is there to do?

I have discovered that by making just one space in my house consistently clutter free, I can feel more relaxed. Knowing that there will always be one room that is clean, tidy, clutter free and nicely "done", I can let myself off the hook for being perfect in other areas in my home. This idea may sound like a cop out, and it probably is. But, I have found that my 'breathing room' space works for me. It's a place in which I can recharge my emotional batteries, read a book, breathe deeply, and not look around at all the projects I have to accomplish. By maintaining this 'safe zone', I am confident that I will not trip over my son's hockey skates, my daughter's soccer bag, my dogs collection of mangled socks (otherwise known to them as beloved toys) or stacks of dishes that must be washed. My "Breathing Room" is a kid-rough-housing-free, trash-free, food-free and clutter-free zone. I do happily welcome visitors into the living room...IF they can abide by keeping the space clear of mess and distractions. Interestingly, while I find that I'm fighting an uphill battle to keep the hallway and kitchen in perfect condition, my teenagers do respect my living room rules. Now and then, I'll find my daughter reading in her favorite chair, or my son on his laptop, using the wireless network in there. My husband and I can enjoy a glass of wine, without worrying about our endless list of "honey' do'" projects. The amazing discovery is that the whole family seems to relish the "Breathing Room" with the same enjoyment I feel.

While we're far from perfect on this declutter journey, and while it feels as if the process is never ending, maintaining just one space for breathing room appears to have benefits to all of us. It's a quiet retreat in which we can seek sanctuary, taking time to relax and renew...and then begin 'fighting the good fight' against clutter again, once we are restored.

Lori's Clutter Update

2009-07-08T09:44:00.006-04:00

It has been quite a while since I posted here! I have been decluttering a bit and thought I'd post an update. So far this year I have painted my kitchen (and cleaned out cabinets), decluttered and painted my daughter's room, and removed an old water heater and water softener to be recycled.

I've also cleaned out a drawer or two here and there in the interest of taking small steps toward organization.

Lately, though, I've been looking to declutter my life, that is, remove the things that don't truly support what I'm about. I've been looking at it as a "revision" of sorts. This is to make room for things that do matter, like participating in a discussion about clutter, and my writing in general. I've decided to spend less time on my computer doing random google searches! Not that this will stop completely--I love a good google now and then.

I'm saying "no" to opportunities to serve my community that aren't truly fitting with my "life mission." I'm not going to participate in school fundraisers anymore. I'll simply make a donation instead, I'm not a fundraiser. It isn't one of my gifts, so why waste precious time feeling guilty that I didn't sell enough cookie dough? I'm teaching my children to clean the house, and therefore ridding myself of certain chores.

I've done something else in this "revision." Not sure if it's the right thing or not, yet. In the interest of pursuing a tangible goal, and because it's something I've always considered doing, I've decided to go back to school and obtain teacher certification. Believe it or not, I think this may help me achieve some writing goals I've been falling short on. In the interest of balancing my introvert and extrovert, and gaining long term financial security as well, it seems a good option for now.

As I approach middle age I'm reminded that taking some risks (however small!) is necessary to feel alive. It is easy not to. Perhaps that's one reason many people hang onto things. It's a risk to let them go, to inflict a loss on oneself, however small. It's also a risk to let go of old routines to step down a different path.

But really, it's not such a gamble. Most decisions do have an "undo" button. I can quit a school program later on if it turns out to be a bad decision. And most of the things I get rid of can be replaced later if we truly need them. Keeping that in mind, I step forward, knowing I'm free to change my mind. Revision in writing, and life, can have many drafts!

Current Project: Emptying a Closet

2009-07-01T09:07:00.003-04:00

In our house, we are lucky enough to have two upstairs hall closets. We've been using one for towels and various bathroom overstock (extra tubes of toothpaste and bottles of shampoo, etc.) and the other for sheets and blankets and the like.

While there's part of me that likes the current set-up, I've recently decided that it needs to change.

One of the big obstacles in my ongoing attempt to sort and de-clutter around the house has been a Huge BackLogged Project: old photos. Most of them are jammed into boxes that have been crammed into a basement closet. I'd like to use that closet for out of season clothes, but I can't because it's so stuffed full of photo miscellany. My current plan is to shift all the photo stuff to one of the upstairs hall closets, including all of our photo albums (currently in cupboards and places all over the house) along with approximately fourteen kazillion unsorted envelopes of developed film.

Doing so will relieve me of my concern of humidity damaging the photos; it will open up the basement closet for better uses; and it will help me organize my approach to Once And For All catching up those darn photos.

But the bottom line is that I'm now faced with the prospect of consolidating two closets into one.

My plan is to accomplish this in the next two weeks. I'll post progress updates to the comments section, if you'd like to follow along at home. Wish me luck!

Drowning in books

2009-06-24T08:49:00.009-04:00

"To read too many books is harmful." ~ Mao Zedong

I have never before used a quote as the impetus of an article that I disagree with as strongly than I do with the remark from the former Chinese leader. I am passionate about books, I love magazines and I enjoy reading newspapers over coffee on weekend mornings. Reading has always been one of my life's greatest passions. A college friend once teased me that I'd read the back of every cereal box, as if it were a work by Tolstoy. I am never without a book or a magazine. I carry my library bag with me wherever I go. My philosophy is that I never know when I may need to wait, so why not have good reading material with me at all times? I understand that I'm not alone in this lifestyle. Bibliophiles are everywhere. You see us with our books in the doctors' waiting room, we have our own stack of magazines in the hairdresser and we come equipped for our commutes on the train with newspaper in hand. We can block out any noise or distraction by focusing on the words on the pages in front of us. We can easily slip into another world as the chaos of life swirls around us.

And yet, we are left with a problem: what do we do with all of this vast array of reading material once we're done with it? One of my greatest clutter issues to tackle has to do with the overwhelming amount of reading material I have. I have stacks of books on every conceivable surface. I have magazines piled up next to my bed, in the guest room and all over my car. Newspapers are stacked next to the fireplace, but in summer, we simply don't go through them as we do in winter. As much as I love reading, while in the midst of it, what do I do with all of these literary mountains?

Books are often the hardest to part with. They become our friends and our touchstones. But, when "our bookshelves overfloweth", it's time to do some serious weeding out. I will look at my books critically and ask myself these questions: "Will I read this again within the next two years?", "Do I have space for this particular book?" and "Does this book have enough merit to remain in my personal library?". Many books are entertaining, and yet, when we look critically at them, we realize that don't need to keep them forever. If you begin to organize your bookshelves in alphabetical order (no need for the Dewey decimal system unless you truly feel the urge), you can better judge if the book is a "keeper" or not. If you decide against long term commitment, consider passing your books along to your local library. If the library can't use the book for circulation, you may find that they will have yearly book sales...the revenues of which can benefit the library itself. If you are intrepid, consider holding a book sale yourself to benefit a local cause. You will be surprised how many people are in the same position as you are and will have many good books to donate. Each year, during my children's home ice hockey tournaments, I have held a book sale in the lobby of our ice arena. The money we raised went to help fund scholarships and pay for new equipment, for our youth league. Additionally, parents of visiting teams (all of whom were from out of town) were thrilled to pick up a new book to read for a dollar or two, as they waited for their children to skate. I was thanked over and over again for providing this service. The book sale benefited our youth program, but it also benefited those parents who had a great deal of time on their hands. And, we raised a nice amount of money to give back. Why not hold a book sale (setting your prices reasonably) to benefit your local food pantry, animal shelter, women's shelter or soup kitchen? It is minimal work, and maximum benefit.

Magazines can be a wonderful way to spend a quick read. We can admire the photos, become informed by the articles, and simply be entertained for short snippets of time. My family subscribes to a great number of magazines, in part, due to fundraisers. We have enjoyed all of our subscriptions a great deal. Still, when one is finished, they gather dust, create a tripping hazard when left on the floor, and just create incredible clutter. Stacks of already-read magazines can make any home appear in disarray. If there is an article in a magazine that you find incredibly helpful, or one that you would like to reference in the future, consider clipping out that article and placing it in a file. My mother used to use this very idea for home decorating ideas. My mother in law uses this plan for recipes. My teenage daughter will create ideas for new outfits, using her same wardrobe. All of these are valuable ideas to clip out the bits you will need in the future. Even if you aren't going to be using them immediately, having those ideas on hand to pull out at a moment's notice, can create a handy reference guide. At the very least, you can always toss them later on. For entire magazines (uncut), I urge you to consider donating them to a doctor's office. When I was in the midst of cancer treatment, my life was very fretful and scary. Additionally, it involved a great deal of waiting around in various specialists' offices. For the most part, there would be nothing to read but a 3 year old issue of Fly, Rod & Reel that was battered and torn. It made a frightening and unsettling time even worse. By donating interesting magazines of all types (remembering that spouses and children often wait, as well), you may brighten the day of someone undergoing a trying time. Emergency rooms in local hospitals also welcome donations of new magazines, as they have a great deal of traffic in and out. Where there are waiting rooms, and anxious people who would welcome distraction, even a one month old magazine can make a difference. Variety is the spice of life, and different types of magazines can interest many different people.

Newspapers can be easily recycled at most recycling centers. Many towns have programs in which to bring them in and simply drop them off in a specially designated place. This is both a reasonably easy option, and good for the environment. And yet, are we really getting the most 'bang for our buck' when we do this? After we read a newspaper, consider leaving on your seat on the commuter train, on the airplane, at the coffee shop or car service center waiting room. The person following you may not have seen it, and this 'pay it forward' gesture may brighten another person's day. If you would like to benefit another organization, consider donating your used newspaper stacks to animal shelters. They are often in dire need of them to help line the abandoned animals' cages. Your trash can be a wonderful help to the shelter staff. Lastly, consider using newspaper as an alternative to gift wrap. You can have your young children use rubber ink stamps or finger paint hand prints on it. You can also just wrap up your gift, as the paper is, and tie it with a wonderful ribbon. The black and white can make an intriguing gift wrap. The ways to reuse are endless.

There are many ways to keep the literary bug in check without allowing it to take over our homes. We can organize, sort and pass along all of our reading material. We can recycle and reuse. We can share books and magazines with our friends in a reading swap, or we can donate them to benefit others. We can create a clutter free home, and bless those in our community at the same time. It doesn't get much better than that.

The Last 5% and the Analytical To Do List

2009-06-14T17:51:00.004-04:00

As I've been scrutinizing my clutter and considering its causes, I've concluded that a good chunk of my clutter accumulation comes from projects and tasks that I nearly completed before I moved onto something else. Things that I've gotten to, say, 95% done, but didn't quite manage to make to 100% complete. Does this sound at all like you?

If so, you're probably tempted to point to yourself as lazy or distractible. But I don't think the 95% behavior stems from personality defect. Instead, I'd suggest that many of us have had periods during our life where we truly have been so busy that finishing tasks to the 100% point wasn't an option. A colicky child; an extremely stressful work deadline; a sudden medical emergency - these are the sorts of things that can make it temporarily impossible to follow through to completion on the tasks in other areas of your life.

For most of us, the all-encompassing stressor eventually recedes a bit. But often the siege mentality that went along with it does not: that sense of, "I can't possibly put my toothbrush away before I leave the bathroom, because I've got to get to the crying baby/work/appendectomy!" Leaving the last 5% undone becomes an uncomfortable habit that has the potential to undermine your sense of competency, and at the very least leaves a trail of clutter in its wake.

What I have found quite effective in countering this habit is what I think of as an "Analytical To Do List." When I find myself slipping into 95% mode, I take a few minutes to make a very detailed list for what I'm trying to accomplish. On the list, I break the project into the smallest possible steps, and I list them all.

To be effective, the list has to go down to a level of "it's ridiculous for me to be including all these steps." With that level of detail, the list becomes an anchor. Find yourself getting distracted? Return to the list. Do the next step. Almost done? Return to the list. Do the next step. Feeling overwhelmed? Return to the list. Do the next step.

Analytical lists can help you pinpoint where you might be getting stuck, and the logical thinking they demand can also help you prepare better for the task at hand. They can be applied to a particular project, or they can be used to structure your day. Consider them for short-term use (to get you out of your 95% thinking once and for all) or for long-term use (if you're a chronic 95%er).

Now, you'll excuse me while I go check off the list item "Write blog post" and move on to the "Click on Blogger's 'Publish Post' button" item.

Done!

Take a picture...it lasts longer!

2009-05-24T17:56:00.007-04:00

"Take a picture...it lasts longer!" How well I remember that playground taunt...the boys would scream it at the girls if they caught us looking their way during kickball games. The girls would tease the boys with it, if they ogled us while we played on the swing set. It was the taunt of the "courageous" to the "timid". It was an equal opportunity embarrasser. It worked in its desired effect: it let the onlooker know that they were caught peeking.

And yet, "Take a picture...it lasts longer!" makes sense in the declutter arena. How many times have you gotten your 'system' to work, only to forget how you did it? In my own life, and my own decluttering mission, I have organized, and reorganized, more times than I can count. I come up with an impressive battle plan to separate, simplify and strategize my storage options. I get with the program! I'm using my space in the best way possible, and I'm proud of my ingenious solutions.

But, then the inevitable happens: a few busy weeks go by, the piles accumulate and I have no idea how to get back to being organized. I try to come up with the same system, and yet it invariably alludes me. I can't remember what the pantry looked like before the Sam's Club shopping spree, and I have no memory of the precise way I'd kept the magazines and books organized. If anything, I felt more demoralized, but I couldn't seem to find my yellow brick road back to Oz. Or, at least, to a house that didn't look like Dorothy's tornado hit it. The solution came me in a flash (pun fully intended): take a picture!

I've come upon a method that doesn't do the work of organization for me, but will help my aging braincells remember what works. When I organize an area, and I'm really pleased with the steam lined storage solutions, I'll take a photo of it. Not only will the picture be a visible reminder of the tidy pantry or my immaculate closet, but it will also show me *what* I was able to fit *where*. I don't keep the pictures tacked to the outside of storage bins, but I have heard that this is extremely helpful for parents with young children. I do, however, find that keeping a visual key to my own system can help to keep me on track, can inspire me to maintain the level of organization, and if disaster (or busy months) strikes, it can help me by acting as a road map to find my way 'home'.

Now, if I could only find my glasses....

Rolling Out the Roles

2009-05-12T08:20:00.003-04:00

A while back, I blogged about my realization that one of my clutter causes is the sometimes muddled way I go about carrying out my non-workplace roles. At work, I know exactly what's expected of me, and, for the most part, I carry out my duties efficiently and neatly. At home? Er, not so much.

So I assigned myself the task of identifying the particular roles I fit into when I'm not at work, in hopes that the assignment would help shed some light on the issue of clutter.

I'll spare you the long, detailed list I came up with; but suffice it to say, it was rather eye-opening. While I tend to think of my non-work life in broad categories (family; household; writing life; friends & community; self), the more I reflected on each of those areas, the more I realized that each of those categories is made up of dozens of roles, and each of those roles further divide into more roles.

For instance, take the category of "Family." Within that, my roles are: mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, etc. Each of those roles has roles. The role of "mother," for example, includes, but is not limited to: nurturer, educator, timekeeper, driver, disciplinarian, caretaker, staff photographer, and on and on. One might argue that these are not so much roles as tasks, but I think in fact they are roles, because there are particular tasks that can be listed under each role heading.

Another example: I'm a writer. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? But "writer," a role that means I'm someone who writes, doesn't capture it all. I'm also a published author (tasks here include responding to requests by my editor and my agent). I'm a "publicist," informally, for my own writing. I'm a public speaker (story times). I'm a member of the writing community (participation in my writing group, writing events, etc.). I am, somewhat irregularly, a blogger. Etc. Etc.

So what does all this mean for my clutter? I'm still gnawing on that, but the general conclusion I have reached is that I need to maintain a better awareness, moment to moment, of what role I'm currently carrying out. This awareness and focus on a particular role will help me feel more fully engaged in what I'm doing, and will in turn help ensure that the task(s) I'm carrying out within that role get finished, and tidied up, before the next hat is put on.

I think it's also important that I do a better job of scheduling time for each of my roles. It would impossible -- and foolish -- for me to try to schedule every single role into specific time slots. But I can certainly do a better job of assigning my time to my major life areas, and then saying to myself, "During the current 'household' time, I'm going to focus for a while on being 'small engine mechanic,' and check on the oil in the mower."

I think this will give me a better sense of accomplishment and...

... a little less clutter!

A cluttered mind...

2009-04-27T15:54:00.009-04:00

The place I find the most clutter is not under my bed. It isn't in my closets, on top of my kitchen counter or taking up space in the garage. It doesn't get dumped out when I clean out my purse, nor does it pile up in the laundry room. Unfortunately, the most cluttered place in our lives is, quite often, within our own minds.

Our thoughts run amok and our minds overflow with too much information. One of the dangers in the electronic media age is mental overload. Our minds can only process so much, and the rest just becomes too much for us to process. We have our heads filled with the daily schedule of everyone in our family, our shopping lists, our bills, our 'to do's that range greatly, our organizational projects, and the tasks we've been asked to do for others. We process everything we hear and see on the news, much of which we can do nothing about, and yet images assault our senses. We have emails to answer, phone calls to make, meetings to schedule and friends who need us. We are overwhelmed by the information we have to wade through each day, and even so, we are still overtaken by tidal waves of memories of varying importance. Once our minds have taken in all they can, they simply stop accepting more information. Our thought processes can't distinguish between an urgent call we do need to make to our bosses, and the Girl Scout cookie sale that doesn't need to be our first priority. Both items can be lost in the overwhelming sea of a cluttered mind.

Despite the fact that this blog is about clutter, I have to admit that the initial process of de-cluttering my home began to clutter my mind. I added in all the projects that I knew I had to tackle, to make my home more streamlined and efficient. But, with each room I chose to engage in clutter battle, my mind took up more brain cells worrying about how I was going to accomplish this mission. I began to stress over not having my bookshelves organized by the date I'd set or my laundry room set up in the most efficient manner by my goal time frame. As my stress built up, I discovered that I was less motivated to take on these tasks. I found myself literally walking in circles with my thoughts flowing from "Call the vet's office, confirm the plane reservations, teach my classes, wondering if a friend is angry with me, pay the bills, how did I get so grumpy?, clean out the fridge, become distracted by 5 different types of mustard, begin an article on breathing through stress, panic over the bookshelves, 'why did I buy all that mustard?"' and come back to wandering the house aimlessly. The sad fact was, even knowing all the information that I do about stress and brain function, I allowed my mind to become cluttered with unnecessary information.

So, what can we do to work through all this mental junk mail to cut straight to save only the important pieces? We need to let it go. We need to find ways to release all of the information we've taken in every day. For some people, journaling is an effective tool in allowing our thoughts to flow freely. Simply by writing down our thoughts of all kinds, we are able to let go of those that simply don't matter and aren't worth our time. We're also able to rediscover those ideas and important pieces of our lives that we really do need to focus on. Other people find that meditation is an extremely helpful means for releasing the stress of each day. Whether it's a traditional seated time of meditative prayer or a walking meditation, setting one's intention for 'mind clearing' can be both restful and energizing. We can use the breath to help unite body and mind, and simply give ourselves permission to 'dump' everything we don't need to think about. I have a friend who, when she gets home from work each day, takes five extra minutes to sit in her car. She doesn't get out before she closes her eyes, takes deep breaths, and makes a conscious decision as to what she 'chooses to bring in the house with her', and what she feels free to leave outside the door.

Most of us have to deal with feelings of being overwhelmed from time to time. There are as many styles of dealing with this stress as there are people. But allowing our minds to remain cluttered is just as unhealthy as allowing our homes to be filled with garbage. We wouldn't dream of having actual trash sit around all over our homes. We would be offended! So, why do we allow this to happen to our minds...which can flow into our physical well being? Therefore, let's set the intention each day, for just finding simple ways to release all of the rubbish we don't need...in our minds and thoughts, as well as our homes.

Rest when you`re weary. Refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Then get back to work.

~ Ralph Marston

Try This At Home: A Short Assignment About Roles

2009-04-22T06:01:00.006-04:00

Lately, I've been reflecting on the fact that in the workplace, I have very little clutter; at home, I have a lot.

I think this may be due to the fact that at work, I have a well-defined role, a specific task set, and a time and place set aside to carry out my assigned tasks. At home, on the other hand, I have multiple roles (as do we all) and a rather ad hoc method of carrying out the tasks related to those roles.

To some extent, I'm at peace with this contrast. I like the fact that I'm a different person at home than I am at work, and I wouldn't want to try to arbitrarily map my work-outlook onto my home life.

Yet I do think I could do with a little more of my work mindset at home, to help quell the clutter that has managed to accumulate around some of my home roles. I also think that I would benefit from identifying which of my home roles seem to be the primary source(s) of clutter.

So. I'm going to do a little assignment this week, and make a list of all the various roles and functions I perform outside of the workplace.

If you'd like to try this as well, feel free to post your results in the Comments section or, for my co-bloggers, in your own post. I'll report out on my own results when I have them.

But for now, all this thinking about roles so early in the morning somehow has got me thinking about rolls. I think breakfast is in order!

Spring Cleaning

2009-04-11T13:04:00.006-04:00

"Science has never drummed up quite as effective a convivial agent as a sunny spring day." - W. Earl Hall

It's that time of year again! It's time to throw open the cupboards, crank out the windows and detox the house. It's a chance to bring fresh air inside our homes, and kick the nastiness of winter outdoors. In short, it's time for a whole new perspective on cleaning. For those of us who live in northern climates, spring cleaning is far different than it is for those who live in warm areas. Many of us have had our windows and doors closed and locked since late October. Simply airing out the house, catching a Spring breeze and encouraging overall cleanliness, can be necessary after months of dirt, dust and clutter build up.

Spring cleaning is also wonderful because it gives us a "staging area": outside! For many of us, our homes are bursting at the seams. We may even know where each item is, but when we take time to declutter, we find that we simply move one pile of clutter from one room to the next. During Spring cleaning, we are able to take everything outdoors, room by room. This technique may sound like a great deal of work, but when we are truly getting our homes cleaned and organized from the floor up, it's virtually impossible to do 'around' the furniture. Gathering friends, or family together, pick a staging area outdoors, lay down cloths, towels and blankets, and bring everything, from the beds to the cupboards, outside. When you clean indoors, you will be able to tackle the inches of dust bunnies (or in my house, dust lions) that had been trapped underneath, and behind, furniture. Steam clean your rugs or really bring your wood floors back to a glistening clean. This way, when you bring the furniture back inside, you're already beginning from a place of cleanliness....and you're not covering up more mess with the furniture.

Use this time, when everything's out of the way, to really detox your home. There are some fantastic, non-toxic cleaning products, that are readily available to help make your home sanitary...and also be safe for pets, children, and anyone with breathing issues. Keep in mind, many products on the market really aren't safe to take in, even for the healthiest of us. So, as you 'go for the gold' as you freshen up your home, think about employing non-toxic products in your regimen. Additionally, if you had intended to paint a room, or to put up new wallpaper, this is an excellent time to do so....everything is out of the way already!

While the pieces are outside, really take critical look at what you have accumulated. Instead of automatically bringing every little bit inside, ask yourself: "Do I really need this?", "Is it still serving a purpose?", "Is it in good condition?" and "Do I have a place for this?". If you answer no to any of these queries, then immediately put that item into your dumpster or into your car to bring to a charity organization. Once it's outside of the house, it's a great deal easier to look at every item critically, rather than just allowing our eyes to glaze over the piles inside because 'they're just there". Only bring back inside what you intend to use, what you have a place for, what's especially meaningful and what isn't just taking up space.

This process may take more than one day. You also may be able to do more than one room at a time. You could group the rooms into categories, such as "Kids' rooms" or "Common spaces". Regardless, just removing everything will make the entire process more complete, more thorough, and in the long run, more long lasting.

Finally, prepare a delicious picnic lunch to enjoy outside during the day. It will make the chores seem far more enjoyable to your 'workers' than just
recruiting them without an incentive. Gourmet sandwiches have a wonderful "Tom Sawyer" effect on those helpers. Above all, simply know that you're doing a wonderful job for the health of your home.

Debbie's KickStart Report: Days #5-15

2009-03-29T16:19:00.003-04:00

Yeah, I know -- I lost steam on the regular KickStart Challenge updates (made it through days 1-4 with little updates and then I fell off the blogging planet), but I'm here now at the end of it to report out on the KickStart as a whole

I'm sorry to say that I can't give you an itemized project list, as I neglected during days 5-15 to record what I did (and, like everything else in my life that isn't written down, the details are now hazy); but I did manage to successfully accomplish one mini (or, in many cases, micro or nano) de-clutter task each day.

I rather liked the experience. It gave me a little momentum and a sense of accomplishment during a fairly hectic stretch.

But even with my standards set extremely low, I still felt a little bit of resistance. The best way to describe it is Contemplation of the Futility Factor. As in, "I'm so behind on so many things. How could cleaning out my pencil cup possibly be a good use of my time?????"

When one starts thinking like that, not only is it tempting to fail to take on small clean-up projects. It's also way too easy to "let go" other little bits here and there, so that one can focus on Big Looming Deadlines and/or Large Important Priorities.

And so the clutter piles up, awaiting the day when things settle down, and the small things can be the priority. But things never really "settle down." The small and little things have to be done right along side the large, or they'll never be done.

Of course, I've known that for a long time, but I finally, slowly, beginning to accept it.

So onward! More micro de-clutter. The smaller the better!

On a totally other topic: I've not been doing a good job of commenting on the other entries on this blog, but I've truly been enjoying them all, and just wanted to let my fellow bloggers know that. What a wonderful variety of perspectives, experiences, styles, and more are represented here - I love to read everything that appears! I also enjoy the individual blogs of all the bloggers who write here (again, I'm bad at regular commenting, but I'm a very regular and appreciative blog reader).

So thank you, and blog on!

Decluttering after Vacations

2009-03-26T07:24:00.004-04:00

We just returned home from a wonderful vacation to the southwest. We had a fabulous, illuminating and exciting visit. We went to places we'd been to before, and we also explored new sights and sounds. With every adventure came some memorabilia, as well as some purchases we thought would help 'stimulate the economy'. Despite the fact that I tend to be a heavy handed packer to begin with, my suitcase was busting at the seams when we left. So, I'm now confronted with a big mess to bring me out of my Zen like, post holiday reverie.

One of the dangers of vacation packing is the initial mess. Like many women, I tend to over think what I bring. I tend to pack far too many pairs of shoes, and perhaps, not enough tops to cover the number of times I spill on myself. I began the vacation with clutter, I'm afraid, as I sorted through all of my warm weather possibilities for travel. These took over my room for a week before our departure, and never really were put away. Additionally, once I arrived at our first stop, I did the 'half packed suitcase, half unpacked', rather than remained one way, or the other. This not only caused a mess in our guest room, but also made it harder to find what I needed. While we were staying at my mother's beautiful home in Arizona, I ended up borrowing more from her than I used of my own clothing, partly because I couldn't find what I needed, and partly because I packed the wrong things. Finally, I made the cardinal mistake of not leaving room for purchases made while were traveling around the southwest....leaving an overstuffed suitcase beyond the point of control. Now, I have to unpack, and I'm almost afraid to open my bag, certain it will detonate from its long voyage of overstretching.

This trip has taught me several things to minimize vacation clutter:

Pack more sensibly. Pick multi-use items that don't get dirty easily (white jeans were probably not my best choice) and comfortable shoes that can be worn with dresses, skirts and pants. When traveling to a warm location, pack items like sarongs that can be used for skirts, pool cover-ups, and even scarves in air conditioned restaurants. Don't pack clothing or accessories just because they're your favorites. Make certain that they're right for *this trip*.
Stick with one color palate. It's much easier to mix and match, I discovered, if you have gone with black and white, earth tones, or brights. If you get one piece dirty, you can switch it out more easily than you could if you packed pieces that will only go with one other item.
Pack one dressy dress...you never know if you will go out to a more elegant meal than you'd planned. I am lucky I could wear my mom's adorable little black dress.
Leave room for purchases! I can't stress this highly enough. With the extra bag fees, not to mention the overweight suitcase surcharges, it's much better to pack lighter on the way out, since the vast majority of us bring more home than we leave with.

Now that I'm home, I have the chore of unpacking. This can be a daunting task. It's sometimes easier to leave the packed suitcases on the floor than it is to just deal with them immediately. My advice is to leave it if you arrive home late, but tackle the first thing in the morning. Immediately sort into piles of laundry, items to put away immediately, gifts to be placed with other gifts (so they won't get lost in the shuffle) and rubbish. We all tend to bring home some actual rubbish...from shopping bags to empty allergy medicine containers, it's best to just pitch them immediately.

Finally, bring that suitcase to the basement or attic so that you don't stub your toe on it every night for two weeks.

Most of all, as you unpack and reorganize your new things in with your old, jot down memories of your trip before they are lost, and enjoy the afterglow of a lovely holiday.

On the couch

2009-03-26T06:45:00.007-04:00

Late last year, I got fed up with our couch. It was a "temporary" couch we bought kinda cheapish when we moved to Australia, planning to stay "only a couple of years".

Very large, very orange and fairly comfy, it served us well for those first two years. But two became three, and three became four...until 11 years, three houses, and two children later, the orange couch was not all it had once been. It had seen birthday parties and movie nights, and plenty of food and drink spillage (plus the odd bout of gastro). Its blessedly washable canvas cover had shrunk after hot days on the clothesline (and ripped just the merest bit in back when not exactly fitting back on the frame).

The day I got fed up with it, it was still solid enough, but it was a tangible reminder that I was still living like a college student: with temporary furniture. So on a whim, I rang up the Salvation Army and fairly shouted down the line: "Free couch! Come and get it!" And they did.

But what does it say about me that when I had a large empty space in my living room, I panicked and rushed to fill it? I moved a small pullout couch from the home studio into the living room—and immediately acquired a large paper cabinet for the studio.

Several months on, having gladly lent the paper cabinet to an artists' collective for as long as they need it, we are finally getting the lovely, grown-up living room furniture we want (and need -- the pullout is not going to withstand the kids' abuse much longer!).

Lesson I am taking from this? When I get some space in my life, I need to just enjoy it. Savor it. Contemplate it. Maybe it doesn't really need filling—at least not right away.

Debbie's KickStart Report: Days #3 and #4

2009-03-18T21:01:00.003-04:00

Here in Michigan, spring is in the air.

And while one would think this means the cold/flu season is but a distant memory, I've learned over the years that, when you've got young kids in the house, all manner of viruses seem to pile up and thrive come March. This is especially so if you've managed to make it through most of the winter with little to no sickness in the house, and may have even (foolishly) stated aloud what a healthy year it's been. And so it is that for 10 of the last 15 school days, one or the other child has been home sick.

Yeah, yeah, I know -- it sounds like I'm winding up to send out engraved invitations to my pity party. Nah. Sick kids have it harder than their parents, and with the particulars of what the kiddos have gone through, I can't complain (too much). But what I can say is that, being one who craves routine, the last several weeks have taken a bit of a toll on me. And so one might forgive me for falling off the bandwagon of my 15 mini-de-clutters in 15 days challenge.

But don't write me off yet!

I've stuck with it, albeit by keeping my aspirations very low.

Day 3, yesterday, I paid some household bills. When I went to file the paid copies, I sorted through the contents of about a half dozen household financial files. Not only did I pull out old bills and statements, I went ahead and ran them through the shredder, right then and there (rather than employing my usual approach: putting them into the box labeled "To Be Shredded" and then letting them sit for a few decades).

Day 4, today, I found myself totally without de-cluttering ambition. Before I knew it, it was 8:30 p.m. and I hadn't made any attempt. Feeling desperate, I pulled open a relatively clean drawer of my desk, one that holds stationery and some assorted cards. Having discovered over the years that I'm not really a card-sending type, I elected to toss the greeting cards into a bag to take into work. Maybe someone there will want them. In the meantime, a successful 5-second de-cluttering project completed!

(Yeah, Day 4 is a bit of a "made it on a technicality" entry, but hey. Four down, eleven to go.)

Debbie's KickStart Report: Days #1 and #2

2009-03-16T20:12:00.003-04:00

In yesterday's blog post, I announced my intention to kickstart my de-cluttering efforts by spending 15 days doing at least one micro-declutter per day.

I'm happy to report that I've successfully made it two consecutive days into this challenge.

Yesterday I tackled the kitchen junk drawer. One could call it a junque drawer I suppose, but truly, it was 65% junk. I always feel ambivalent about throwing things out when sorting (I don't want to add unnecessary waste to the landfill), but sometimes junk is junk is junk. Tossing felt good. About 20% of the drawer contents were items that needed to go elsewhere in the house. The 15% that is left in the drawer fits much better. I no longer cringe when I open the drawer.

I used the momentum from that to do some work on the garage shelves. Having a nice spring day on my hands helped with that as well: hurrah for spring cleaning fever!

Today, I took a short break from working at home and cleared out my upper right desk drawer. Here the declutter breakdown was a bit different: 35% went elsewhere in the house; 25% went into the trash; and 10% went in the giveaway box. I ended up with 30%, which fits much better in the drawer.

These % figures are, of course, ballpark figures. Actual figures were 34.78%, 23.49%, 9.16%, and 32.57%.

(Just kidding! De-cluttering humor: it's its own genre.)

Tomorrow I'll report on Day 3.

In the meantime, I'm 13.333% kickstarted!

Fifteen Day Kickstart Challenge!

2009-03-15T09:26:00.003-04:00

This blog began earlier this year, and my hope was that by participating in it I would be a little more accountable about my domestic clutter pile-up and hence make progress on clearing much of it away.

Several months into this blog, I can happily report that I've met really neat co-bloggers, and I've spent quite a bit of time reflecting on clutter and coming to understand clutter causes better.

But as for actually getting rid of anything?

Eh, not so much.

I think I need a kickstart of some sort. Something doable that will help move me from inertia to momentum.

So here's what I've got planned: fifteen days, one small thing per day. Maybe a drawer, maybe a file, maybe a cupboard shelf -- anything, really, no matter how small. I think fifteen successes in a row will get things rolling in a way that Good Intentions alone couldn't.

I'll report in briefly for each of the 15 days. Fellow clutter bloggers, if you'd like to do the challenge along with me, you're welcome to, but don't feel like you have to. (The kickstart may or may not help, but I figure it's a good experiment if nothing else). Readers, feel free to try the challenge, too, and let us know in the comments how it's going.

One small thing. Fifteen days.

Ready, set, go!

To Do or Not To Do

2009-03-12T06:01:00.005-04:00

I have mixed feelings about To Do lists.

While I recognize that capturing and recording what one needs to accomplish is a necessary and sometimes productive undertaking, To Do Lists Grande (those massive tomes that delineate the full scope of one's Undone) tend to discourage me.

However, I've had good success with what I think of as Micro To Do Lists.

I use Micro Lists either for a specific project or for a particular time period. The smaller the project or period of time the better - so I might make a list for just a portion of a project or a part of a day. On a Micro List, I list every single step that needs to be done. Every single. And I add blank lines at the end, so I can capture the additional things I end up doing during that project or time period. Then I print the list up, neatly (in my favorite font, with check boxes for each step) and use the list to guide me through.

What I like about such lists is that they're highly functional. When I start getting distracted, or my energies diffuse, I simply remind myself, "Back to the list." I look at the one next thing on the list, and focus my efforts there.

The lists can sometimes feel excessive (as in, "I think I spent more time making the list than doing the tasks on it!"). But they're a good tool for me for the little-bit-by-little-bit approach to clutter clearing.

Keeping up appearances

2009-03-09T20:20:00.006-04:00

I was doing pretty good there for a while. But boy, does clutter creep up on ya.

I admit the cat pee threw me for a few days, but with the help of an enzyme-based washing powder (also, in a happy coincidence, safe for using to water the garden) and a string of fine laundry days, I survived that.

I cleaned up the office. That's in a state of stasis: for several weeks now it has been not tidy, exactly, but I can walk in and sit down to work without having to clean up first.

And I have managed to keep the living/dining room somewhat orderly, so that we can choose whether to eat in the kitchen or at the dining room table without first having to move mountains of papers etc.

The kids' bedrooms are not too bad, either. They've been keeping their floors clean and dresser-tops organised as well as making their beds most mornings. I can get in with a vacuum almost any time I want/need to.

But while I have been keeping up with all of this, somehow our bedroom sprouted a whole buncha junk, and the laundry room has become a very small disaster area. How does it get this way?

Camouflage

2009-03-06T08:30:00.006-05:00

Camouflage: concealment by some means that alters or obscures the appearance. (as defined by Webster's dictionary.)

Despite our best intentions, and our highest goals for clutter free living, there are those moments when we are faced with an area of glaring clutter..... and a ringing doorbell. Very few surprises make my heart beat faster than an unannounced guest and a room filled with unnecessary objects, papers and other items that simply don't belong there. While we are on the Clutter Free journey, I do understand that this not an end but a process, and a retraining of habits. But, what does one do when faced with an immediate need to "conceal by some means that alters or obscures the appearance" of a messy room? The answer? Camouflage.

As a former Army officer's wife, I am well aware of the appearance of camouflage fatigues, or rather in Army terms: B.D.U's (Battle Dress Uniforms). The goal beyond these uniforms was to conceal a soldier's position from the enemy by blending in with the surrounding terrain. I propose that, in a serious pinch, it's possible to use this same idea to discreetly hide clutter from immediate view. While I don't propose these techniques to be used longterm, I think they will come in extremely handy when the situation merits: such as your mother showing up unexpectedly.

A beautiful floorlength table cloth on your dining room table can sophistication and elegance to a room. If you don't happen to have one, handed down by Great Aunt Lily, they are available, fairly inexpensive from stores such as Target or Linens N'Things. By leaving the tablecloth on your table, and adding little touches like candlesticks and a simple centerpiece, you create an ambiance in your room. Under the tablecloth, however, is the perfect place to stash clutter quickly. Just make sure your items are in bags or boxes, and those items are tucked all the way underneath the cloth, so that your secret is safe! No one will ever know. They will look at your lovely dining room and think how beautiful it looks, never realizing that you have unfolded laundry in bags underneath the table.

The Catch All Bin: using a Rubbermaid (or similar style) bin, do a whirlwind cleaning. Run around the house like a madwoman, place everything out of place in the bin, and then place the bin neatly in a corner of the kitchen, pantry, laundry room or other 'out of the way' spot. Just remember that these "run around" bins do need to be cleaned out when your guests leave, or you will a house full of miscellaneous bins. A variation on this is the Catch All Room, such as an attic or a basement. But, do remember that those can become even more overwhelming if they remain untended. Use this as an emergency only plan, with a cheery, breezy "Just one moment! I'm on my way!", called to your unexpected guests on your doorstep.

Built in storage units. Do you have window seats or built in cupboards in your house? Use these to your advantage. Keep them as emergency storage spots for items you don't have out on display or don't use frequently. Window seats can be beautiful, and add decorative seating areas to a sunny spot in your home. But, they can also be a great place to stash soccer balls, Lego's and Barbies. Additionally, ottomans are wonderful footstools for a living room. They can also create extra seating, but many will come with a handy hidey-hole in which to toss socks without mates and newspapers.

None of these tips are meant to compete with true and honest efforts at becoming clutter free. However, we are all caught with those moments between Camouflage vs. Utter Mortification. When caught between these two possibilities, I'd suggest an artfully draped sheet over a pile of laundry, with a couple of pillows thrown on top. Voila! Moroccan style seating.

If you tackle the projects once your guests leave, you will feel incredibly positive about being able to successfully entertain without worrying about your neighbor twisting her ankle on Hot Wheels cars. What your guests don't know will not hurt them. Literally.

Not Done, But Better

2009-02-26T19:05:00.002-05:00

My home office closet before:

...and after:

Still some work to be done with sorting and storage, but it's a more functionally useful space now.

I managed to incorporate 5 tubs of "stuff" that were previously cluttering up the corner of my office, so that's progress, too.

Sweet Dreams

2009-02-20T11:54:00.005-05:00

I just cherish quiet evenings that I can climb into bed, pick up a good book, feel cozy, and settle in for the night. There's something about a restful bedroom, just 'made' for sweet dreams that puts my insomniac mind at rest, and allows me to get into the spirit of simply relaxing. However, for many of us, our bedrooms seem to be Clutters' Last Stand. After reading Debbie's wonderful piece about taking care of clutter, one space at a time, I began to realize that all the work I've done, in my own house, has completely ignored my bedroom.

My pantry is finally organized. My laundry room looks ready for business. Even my kitchen feels more streamlined and effective, without all the clutter. Our garage, though always a "work in progress", is in great shape, and we're no longer embarrassed if people have to come in that way. So, why have I been so delinquent in tackling my bedroom?

I believe it's partially because we do so much more 'living' in the master bedroom than the average family. We have two very large dogs (who believe they claim ownership to the bed) and a bunny (who also believes that the bed is her domain). Because we live in Wild Kingdom, my beautiful "had to have it' red and gold silk bedding is always in a state of 'protect and defend'. I generally have at least 3 fleece blankets covering my bedding, in the hopes it might last more than a year. My husband and I often work on the bed too, which means we are surrounded by power cords and various tray tables, papers, pens, post-its, and bags of work to be done. Additionally, we seem to be surrounded by more remote controls than we have electronics, phones on both sides of the bed, magazines to date back the last few years, books we mean to read and Xerox copies of articles people have sent us. We have email print outs of hockey schedules and school calendars. We have empty coffee mugs and water bottles, plus the occasional stray bill. In the surrounding area, we have 7 slippers, none of which match, and a way array of dog toys.

In short, our bedroom is anything but restful. I realize that in tackling the rest of the house's clutter, I was only allowing it to pile up more in the room we used the most....not to mention, the one that should be the least cluttered. In Ariane Benefit's wonderful article, "Organize your bedroom for the best sleep of your life", she writes :

"If your bedroom is full of clutter, your mind will be cluttered too. If your mind is cluttered, it's impossible to relax and sleep. Without a clutter-free foundation, the tips below won't be as effective. So start with the floor and the surfaces in your room."

So, my goal for this weekend is to begin to clear the clutter in our room, with the mindset that this will not only look better, but also make for a healthier sleep environment. I just need to find a way to break it to the dogs....

A stinky silver lining

2009-02-18T23:38:00.004-05:00

I have recently been helped along in my decluttering by my ~~stupid~~ dear little cat Cookie—who has been peeing in my office and elsewhere around the house!

I must say, it is remarkable how quickly you can become unattached to anything the minute you find it has some cat pee on it. Something that formerly had possible value suddenly can't go in the trash fast enough.

But you know what, I found I really didn't need any of the items. It's as if the cat marked them for disposal. I know, very icky. And it says absolutely everything about my hoarding tendencies that my cat has to pee on something before I throw it out.

It's also vaguely unsettling to consider the possibility that perhaps she is a tidier being than I am—I just wish she had a nicer way of pointing out my character flaws!

Ambition

2009-02-18T08:36:00.003-05:00

Over on my writing group's blog, Lori has a question of the week for the blog group to answer. Even though it's a great question, over two weeks have passed and I've yet to post anything in response.

Why? I think my response may have fallen victim to unrealistic expectation setting on my part.

As soon as I read her question, I had all sorts of grand ideas of how I'd format my post. I'd take photos of all the objects and charms I referred to in my answer, and I'd integrate them into the post, along with sparkling description of the inspiration the items pictured give me when I write. But this would involve: a) writing a scintillating blog post; b) taking photos; c) downloading the photos; d) cropping/formatting the photos; e) uploading the photos to Blogger; f) tweaking the entry to take out the annoying format problems I get every time I upload photos to blogger; g) redoing my blog entry because, once the photos were added, the words seemed dull; h) you get the picture. Too exhausting a prospect, so I didn't even bother.

I think a similar dynamic may be at work in my clutter-clearing attempts. I proclaim an ambitious goal, such as "Clear All the Clutter In My Office," only to find that the size of the undertaking exhausts me before I even begin.

So. New mantra: Clear some of the clutter.

The front left quadrant of my upper right drawer looks better already!

Because Clutter's First Cousin and/or Best Friend Is Usually Procrastination...

2009-02-13T08:28:00.005-05:00

Over on The Blue Skunk Dog blog, I saw this post about a way to self-block your own time-sink Internet destinations. Too funny. Wonder if it works.

Discovering Treasures

2009-02-13T08:25:00.005-05:00

One of the greatest sources for inspiration along the Clutter Extravaganza Journey has been discovering unexpected treasures along the way. Initially, I spent months wandering aimlessly around my house in circles. I felt powerless to begin in any one space, as each seemed to clamor for my attention. Frankly, we seemed to be buried. And yet, as I just dove in and began to sort into my “Keep, Sell, Give to Charity” piles, one room at a time, a theme began to emerge: that I was an explorer on the hunt for buried treasure. Although I am still on the path, and not at the journey’s end, these hidden gems have been extremely motivational to keep me going.

It’s actually fairly simple for me to be ruthless (ironic, since my middle name is Ruth) in terms of getting rid of extraneous items. We have more unnecessary sports equipment than any family should ever need. We also have a plethora of old towels, sheets and blankets…many of which are ripped and just need to be pitched. I am not precisely sure how this happened, but we also seem to have acquired a collection of left handed gloves and right footed shoes. Apparently, there is a thief running around with my son’s left footed Nike Shox sneaker and my daughter’s right handed Columbia ski gloves at this very moment.

Still, once I get rid of the trash, and I put the usable hockey equipment away, and wash and fold the towels that can be used for the beach, I come across items I’ve forgotten. As I was sorting through the desk in the guest room (that became a catch all spot for everything from holiday gift wrap to old phone books), I came across photos from my honeymoon. I looked down at the smiling faces of a young couple that looked a bit like us, with the beautiful Austrian alps in the background. I hadn’t seen these pictures in more than 20 years. They brought tears to my eyes. When I rearranged the mess that was my dining room cupboard, I found my grandmother’s stunning red, cross stitched tablecloth, stuffed under Walmart polyester ones. As I tackled the pantry, I came upon my mom’s apron that wore when she was seriously cooking. While none of these items are intrinsically valuable, each one meant a great to me. And yet, they were buried behind and under “Stuff”.

I’ve since made a little album with my honeymoon pictures, wishing I could tell the young lady in the photos to start and stay organized. I have hand washed and ironed my beautiful table cloth and plan on setting the table with it for the next holiday gathering. I have been wearing my mother’s apron. It makes me feel a connection to her, even if neither of us are the best cooks in the world. By decluttering, I’ve been able to discover my own sense of what’s treasure: my connection to the meaningful in the past, my own memories and the “place” I came from. Of course, there have been some more financially valuable finds that I haven’t felt emotionally bonded with, and those I’ve been happy to sell on eBay. But, in general, making room for my memories, by eliminating the rubbish, has been a gift unto itself.

A Novel Approach

2009-02-11T15:40:00.013-05:00

I am on the phone with my mother. She casually mentions that she is renting a storage space to hold some of her books. My Mom owns enough books to fill a small public library.

“Mom! You can't be serious. It doesn't make sense to pay money for a storage space. You have a house.”

“The house is too full. There’s no room. That is why I am renting the storage space.”

“But, Mom. That’s crazy. What about the basement?”

“Full.”

“The garage?”

“Full. And, before you ask, the barn is full, too.”

“It is a big barn, Mom.”

She is right, of course. The barn is filled floor to ceiling with treasures that haven't seen the light of day in years and couldn't be located if her life depended on it, yet she can't part with any of them. How did her life get filled with so much stuff that there isn't room for the things she really loves, like her books?

As I wonder how my Mom will even be able to read her books now that they reside in a storage unit, my thoughts turn to my own stash of books. Eight oversized cardboard boxes filled with books that I haven’t seen since the movers placed them on our sleeping porch (a.k.a. my junk room) when we moved into our house over six years ago. I feel profound sadness. What good are those books doing sitting in boxes where no one can read them?

“Wait a minute,” my best friend sighed into the phone. “You are giving all of your books away because you don't want to be like your Mom?”

“This isn’t about my Mom.”

“Really? Your Mom rents a storage unit to house her books and the very next day you decide to donate all of your books to charity. You don’t see any connection?”

“Maybe this is a little bit about my Mom, but it is mostly about me. I need to find a better way to live.”

The boxes easily weigh over 50 lbs. and are too heavy for me to move. I go through each one and stack the books into piles on my office floor. I look at the mountains of books and tell myself over and over again that I can’t keep everything. I decide to keep only the books I will read again. Except nothing is ever that easy.

Eight weeks later I remind myself of the vow to streamline my life. I look at all the books still sitting on my office floor and question my commitment. Donating the books to the Downtown Women’s Center is the right thing to do. It will give someone else the opportunity to enjoy them much more than I have these past six years. I whisper, “I can’t keep everything!” one last time and load my books into the car.

Perspective

2009-02-08T18:38:00.002-05:00

Last night as I went to bed, I checked on the kids in their semi-tidy rooms and headed for bed in a room that was, for a change, reasonably neat. I'd spent the day cleaning and clearing, chucking out odds and ends, and the situation at our house has begun to improve.

But I also found myself feeling strangely grateful for our clutter. As I turned in, hundreds of families in our neighboring state of Victoria were homeless due to immense bushfires. Two entire towns and a large number of lives had been lost.

So I am grateful today that my biggest problem is too much stuff, and grateful for the perspective. We've donated money to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal to help the bushfire victims begin again. Please visit the Australian Red Cross website if you would like information on how to help.

Steps to storage heaven

2009-02-03T19:37:00.004-05:00

In brief, saw this, and this while ostensibly working. Now if only I had stairs in my house! (Then I'd have a whole second storey to clutter. Never mind.)

The Tote Bag Method of Organziation

2009-02-03T10:52:00.007-05:00

In last month's issue of "Real Simple" magazine, the editor discussed her own method for organization: LL Bean tote bags. This came as no surprise to me, as it's been a helpful method for me, as well. Her editorial simply showed me that I'm not the only person using tote bags to keep my life, and my family's lives, in good order. LL Bean bags are truly the best: they're incredibly sturdy, don't rip or tear, can come in a huge array of sizes and last a lifetime. Though less expensive copies are available at stores like Target, they do lack the 'Stand up by itself' quality that Bean bags offer. However, rather than add to your clutter, if you have a huge assortment of bags, as many people do, given to you by charities or just as gifts, by all means, use what you have in this method. While Kristin van Ogstrop's method and my own share similarities, I will focus on my own plan of attack involving tote bags for keeping clutter at bay.

Like many homes, my own seems to be inundated with 'stuff'. My mission has been to get rid of the actual rubbish, and to donate unnecessary, unloved or simply unused items to charity. But, this left me wondering "Now, what?" with the rest of the clutter. I've found that organizing around tote bags not only makes my home much tidier, but it also finds a 'place for everything' quite literally. So much of the clutter our family accumulates tends to revolve around things that don't have a place. Tote bags unite items with like items, and keep everything that needs to be together in one place. It means less frantic running around when one of the children is off to an event. It means all the library books, my yoga items, my hockey Mom rink gear and my husband's coaching needs are all in one 'easy to grab' location. It means my daughter's ballet clothes are all in one bag, her hockey clothes are in another, her ski wear in yet another, and her soccer bag is always ready. By separating each activity and placing them into a bag, and creating a space for each bag, we've found that 'grabbing and going' are a million times easier. Additionally, I find I'm far less likely to get a frantic phone call about missing one cleat, if the kids have the responsibility for making sure their bags are always ready to go.

Tote bags are also a great way to organize clutter, even if you don't mean for it to leave the house. They can be used to store mitten & scarves in the front hall, CD's & DVD's or toys in the family room and gardening or pet supplies in the mudroom. You can use them to not only hold your mending, but your sewing supplies, as well. Totes can be comically whimsical, or generically practical, as long as they do the job of organizing their contents. Be mindful of what goes into each bag: if there lots of little items, you may choose to have a bag with a zipper top, and perhaps zippered compartments inside. If you plan on having sharp objects, look for a bag with extra sturdy canvas, so it will be less likely to rip.

Though most of us have plenty of bags, through one method of acquisition or another, there is a great book that includes NO SEW methods of making tote bags using old Twister games or place mats or even shower curtains and duct tape. "Simply Sublime Bags" By Jodi Kahn gives great ideas for even the most craft challenged to make tote bags to suit your own storage needs, using items you probably have around your house already. It can give you ways of making bags to custom fit your own home decor (if they're sitting out) and your size needs. It's also a fun project to recycle everyday materials (that may have been causing clutter on their own) into a practical solution for your storage.

No method is foolproof, of course. The Tote Bag method isn't unique in this. The bags themselves can get cluttered. By taking good care of looking at these tote bags are units of storage, and keeping everything needed in each one contained, you will be a step ahead of the days of looking for one glove in the car and the other under the bed. So, try it out with the bags you already have, and see if this simply way of organizing can help ease you into good sorting habits.

Email Is A Wonderful Thing (Yet Somehow Has A Tendency To Become A Bit Of A Clutter Spot)

2009-02-02T16:55:00.000-05:00

I've spent the last several weeks slowly working through a Very Large backlog of email.

Last year was a busy year; and as the year went on, I found myself with a larger and larger pile-up of emails that needed to be re-read or responded to or somehow revisited. I did manage to stay caught up on the most pressing of the emails (with a few exceptions), but the ones that didn't present an immediate demand got set aside for later -- only "later" never came. The Inbox mess accrued gradually, so that I didn't fully recognize the scope of it until I got down to work to clean it up. But oh, the clean-up experience has been humbling! Let's just say I've done the best I could. After weeding through methodically for weeks, I finally selected the remainder, closed my eyes and pressed "Delete."

I'd rather not go through that again. So I spent a fair amount of time thinking about how I'd gotten in the pickle. Specifically, I looked at where my email methods worked, and where they failed me. I came up with the following thoughts, most of which are applicable to other sorts of pile-ups:

It's very useful to have a way to quickly sort incoming email. This is one area where I've had a good system going for quite some time. I use email reader "rules" to automatically sort my email into twenty different topical folders, each with a topic label (e.g. "Work," "Commerce," "Mailing Lists," "Friends," "Writing," etc. All this happens without my doing anything. It makes it easy to prioritize what I'm going to read first, and keeps important email from getting lost in the "You have 147 new messages" avalanches.

It's also important to have an attitude of action when one sits down to look at email. This is one of my problem areas. I check my email too often, and frequently even as I'm reading an email, I know I can't respond to it (or even read it thoroughly) right away. I also tend to check my email several times well into the evening, even though I know my evening disposition is one of hunker down and slow down. So this is an important area for me to work on. My current efforts are twofold. 1) Open my email reader less often (easier said than done); and 2) Unless it's truly not possible to do so, respond or delete immediately.

For emails that require a response but can't be answered immediately, it's important to have an identified holding bin for items requiring follow-up, so that these don't get lost in the shuffle. I've now got a folder where these items go, and it's a folder that automatically opens when I open my email reader. So there they are, staring at me. There's also got to be a time, scheduled and set aside, for doing the required follow-up.

Also important are daily habits. My beginning of the day habit now is to review the emails that are in the holding bin, and to either deal with them or to schedule a time to deal with them. Early morning is my most productive and efficient time, so that's a good way to put my own disposition to work for me, and I end up taking care of not-yet-answered email at a much better clip than at the end of the day. My end of the day habit is now to shuffle through all my labeled folders where the mail came in and make sure they're empty. This gives me a feeling of completion and closure at the end of the day without having to engage very many (sleepy) brain cells.

Crucial in all of this, as in any de-cluttering overhaul, is to build in a regular time slot for catching up. No matter how carefully you approach a particular clutter-prone area of your life -- be it email or your junk drawer or your closet or your car's back seat -- there are going to be times you just can't stick to your system. What keeps you from getting too far out of line is a regular catch-up time slot. I think really what bogged me down this past year was that I had book-related events on more Saturdays than not, and Saturday early (before the kids get up) used to be my regular email catch-up time. I've re-instituted this.

Having a retooled system for dealing with my email has helped relieve me of the not-very-helpful sorts of feelings that tend to crop up around a clutter area. That is, the more I feel behind on something, the more I dread tackling it, the more I avoid it, and the worse it becomes. But, flip the coin to the other side, and the more regularly I attend to something, and the more systematic my approach, the better I feel about it, and the more efficient and productive my outcome.

Happily, I can now say that I'm feeling non-hostile toward email for the first time in months! Which is a good thing, because I truly value it as a communication tool and a way to stay in touch with people who matter to me.

(Even when I hear from all 147 of them at once!)

A muddler's tale

2009-01-26T23:24:00.010-05:00

Everyone wants to give advice to the clutterer: here’s how to fix your problem. I don't find it that easy. But am I making it too hard for myself?

Clean Sweep, by Alison Haynes (2004), is an Australian book billed as ‘the ultimate guide to decluttering, detoxing and destressing your home’. The page I read in the shop, the bit that made me buy the book, was a quote from Jane Harvey's Hoover Book of Management (1963):

Memo to muddlers This section is devoted to muddlers—the housewives who, no matter how hard they try, just cannot keep organized. For example there is the housewife who, instead of getting the house clean and straight in the morning and having the afternoon free for sewing, visiting or playing with the children, works on and off all day, often dropping into bed late at night after ironing all evening, or washing, or cleaning the stove. Yet the house still looks a mess. It isn’t that she’s lazy—it's jsut that as fast as she cleans and tidies, she creates more muddle, aided and abetted by her family.

Yes! I think, seeing my reflection. So I'm a muddler! What do I do? Tell me. Tell me!

I get the book home, and I discover that five out of 354 pages cover decluttering, and one of those is a pretty magazine-style photo of newspapers tidied up in a basket. It all boils down to three list items, about a dozen dot points, and a handful of helpful hints.

I'm not saying this does not constitute good advice. I'm asking why, if it’s as simple as several pages of dot points, is clutter an ongoing battle? I mean: what makes a muddler? I know how to get rid of stuff. But how do I keep from accumulating more? How do I stop my family from aiding and abetting me in my cluttering crimes?

Apparently I'll need another book to help me with that question.

Don't let it in the house!

2009-01-25T18:26:00.007-05:00

I'm a history buff, especially when it comes to pop culture. I can picture snippets from almost every decade and can easily imagine myself as a 1920's Flapper or a 1940's USO girl. But, when it comes to classic movies, I have to say that the 1950's were a great time for exploration on film. Nothing seemed to capture this moment in filmography better than the Monster Movies of the 50's. We can all easily picture James Dean and Natalie Wood from this era. But, we can just as easily envision the "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Although I wasn't born until the mid-60's, I remember staying up to watch the "Creature Feature" on Friday night television, where these classics would be replayed. One question I always asked myself was, "Why do they let the monster in the house?"

I think we can ask the same question of ourselves about clutter. Why do we let it in the house? We try so hard to stay on top of our mess, to create an organized system and to maintain a sense of structure in our daily lives. But, we turn around, and like a monster from an old scary movie with bag masks, there it is! The Clutter Monster has snuck in again! It comes in with stacks of mail, in our carry bags from the day's events and from duplicating things we already have.

This said, I have a secret weapon against the Clutter Monster: the trash can! The best way for me to get control of clutter is not to go into the house with it. When I come home, I walk right over to the trash can in the garage. I look through my mail, and unless it's a bill or something important, I pitch it right away. (If you live in a place that recycles junk mail: Mazel Tov! Just put it into your recycling bin.) I also make a point of going through my tote bag, the car, and anything else that might make its way into the house and evaluate it quickly. Does this really need to come inside? Is it actually trash? Unless it's something that's critical, or will need to be used soon, I will either pitch it, recycle it or put it in a 'give away' bin that I keep next to the trash can. When I go to the dump every week (for those of you who don't have curbside pick up---it's a northern New England ritual), I also stop off at the local charity shop, and drop off my give aways then.

Another great way to keep the Clutter Monster at bay is to have a "one comes in, one goes out" policy. We all have plenty of clothes, shoes, books, and other miscellaneous items in my family. I have instituted a policy of "If you buy a new one, then one like item must be given away." Not only does this help with truly thinking about 'replacement' as opposed to 'aquisition', but it's a great way to keep full closets from getting out of control. I know that if I really need a new black sweater, then one needs to go to "Heavenly Threads", the church's thrift shop. This 'one comes in, one goes out' also applies to my formerly overstocked pantry. I am blessed with a walk-in pantry the size of small room. This blessing led to overcrowding to the point that I didn't know what I had, and was buying yet another box of Rigatoni, when there were already three on the shelf that I simply couldn't see. Now, I make my food shopping lists based on what's 'going out' in the trash.

The Clutter Monster is sneaky. It likes to tiptoe in when you least expect it. But, stopping it in its tracks by not letting it in the house in the first place can be one way to keep clutter at way.

Projects & Clutter

2009-01-25T18:09:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted much to this blog (or to my writing blog) these last couple of weeks, as I've been knee-deep in a couple of writing projects. But even as I've been focused on what I've been doing, a small part of me has been reflecting on the fact that my tendency to throw myself into things, and to try to give the things I'm doing my full attention, has the side effect of me dropping other things entirely for a period of time and then having to play catch-up on those other areas when the attention-demanding-project-du-jour is finished. It results in a clutter making, clutter clearing, clutter making, clutter clearing cycle.

I'm not sure I'll ever end the cycle entirely (nor am I sure I'd want to, as some of my best work comes in the throes of hyperfocus), but I'm hoping to learn to keep the mid-project clutter creation to a minimum. In part I think I need to remind myself that I don't have to entirely put the brakes on the rest of my life in order to focus on a priority.

And I'll tackle that... just as soon as I finish my current project.

Lori Finally Posts Something. . . .

2009-01-22T08:17:00.004-05:00

I've been putting off posting until I DID something I could report on. I still haven't, but this in itself is probably worth talking about. I tend to have a manic depressive relationship with household chores like de-cluttering. In a whirlwind, I attack my house, purging and getting rid of and throwing things away (many times not taking the time to properly recycle things, there's no time, it's just gotta go!) This will go on for a week or so.

And then I'm done.

Like others have said, I believe the state of my house equals the state of my mind. When I'm overwhelmed in life, I seem to be overwhelmed by my house and lack a desire to even clean! This affects my creative work, too, and it tends to snowball and then, just when I think all is lost, my manic alter-ego forces her way out and says (in the voice of my naturally Born Organized mother) LET'S WHIP THIS PLACE INTO SHAPE!!!!

And then I do.

Until I burn out and end up leaving certain projects for "Next Time." In the current case, this "next time" project is my filing cabinets. I can feel a manic surge coming on, but it's not here yet. My lazy self is trying to hold down manic girl at the moment. I always do root for the underdog, though, and she's much more persistant than lazy self. I'll let you know when she emerges.

Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. . . .

Seven stops to a lighter life

2009-01-21T06:03:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was a big day for decluttering. I loaded the Camry—and by loaded, I mean fully loaded, to the point where the back bumper was noticebly lower and it was difficult to discern two children sitting amongst the junk—and we headed off with a list of errands. (I made the 5-year-old the listkeeper to ensure I wouldn't forget it or lose it in the car.)

First stop: baby goods consignment shop. I had carefully selected two bits of clutter that I felt were re-saleable (a carseat and a high-chair booster seat) but the consignment shop knocks back both. The carseat, they say, is good quality but the cover is too faded, while the booster seat is merely missing its tray. (Oops! Must be lost at home in amongst the crap.) Re-load items in car. Net result: pbbbbth!

Second stop: library. Drop off books, pick up new ones, including two on clutter reduction. (More about those in another post.) A few books out, a few books in. Net result: neutral.

Third stop: pharmacy. Renew peanut-allergic daughter's EpiPens, return two expired ones for recycling. Also returned old outdated prescriptions medication for proper disposal. Net result: ka-ching! Medicine cabinet now cleaned out.

Fourth stop: petrol station. Hot, windy day, both car temp and passenger tempers running high. Fill up for extra aircon use, pick up two popsicles to sweeten offspring's disposition. Net result: wise move, because next stop takes a long time, and kids are remarkably patient.

Fifth stop: electronics recycler. For a total cost of $58, my car and my life are now lighter by:

1 very large recently deceased eMac
1 small laptop dead for so long I'm surprised it hasn't decomposed
1 printer/scanner, long since carked it
1 broken electric kettle (fished from dusty pile in shed)
1 vacuum power attachment for which I no longer have the vacuum
1 old coffee machine (less long-ago-broken pot)
3 ancient cordless phones
1 old fluoro tube taken out during kitchen renovation five years ago
20,000 (give or take a few grand) dead AA batteries
1 useless answering machine.

Net result: the bliss of no longer having this junk in my house, plus knowing it will all be disposed of responsibly. Well worth the cost (which covers dis-assembly of all items, which is done locally and all by hand).

Sixth stop: op shop, which GLADLY takes not only the rejected car seat and highchair booster, but also an additional highchair and large car booster seat, and three large bags of old clothes. Net result: children now clearly visible in rearview mirror. Note to self: skip the consignment shop next time, give the charity shop priority instead.

Seventh stop: Bracegirdle's chocolate cafe down at the beach for iced chocolates. (What better way to reinforce the idea that getting rid of stuff is good behavior?) Net result: happy faces all round.

Nighttime routines to aid in decluttering

2009-01-19T11:53:00.009-05:00

One of my least favorite times of day is the post-dinner, pre-bedtime rush. There are mountains of dishes to wash, food to be packed up, mail to sort, the floor to vacuum, the laundry to change over and multitude of other tasks that require my attention. When I'm longing for a hot bath, a good book and a cup of tea, I am confronted by clutter everywhere. My first impulse is to say "There is just too much. I'll get it in the morning." But, what I've learned is that it only takes a few evenings of saying "It's just too much!" before that little bit of clutter gets out of control.

My friend, Kristen, is the most admirable homemaker I know. In addition to being a single mom to her teenage son, Kristen also owns her own business and is a dedicated volunteer for her son's school. She's an incredibly busy person. And, her home always looks unbelievably tidy. I've known Kristen since we were teenagers, and so I've been able to study her secret weapon: she doesn't go to bed with a messy house. When we were in college, hers was the dorm room that everyone wanted to hang out in. Why ? Because there were actually places to sit that didn't involve moving giant piles of laundry. Kristen has a whole system going: she puts on music, she makes herself a cup of cappuccino and she just take care of the last day's mess. She sorts, she washes, she folds, she tidies and, like the Nike commercial, she just does it. While I waste time dragging my feet and wandering around my house in circles, Kristen would have hers completely finished.

I believe that part of this is because my friend doesn't have years' worth of clutter to contend with, she's better able to keep a handle on her day's worth. This also has shown me that, when I get to the point where I'm in a maintenance mode (rather than actively figuring out what's trash and what's worth keeping), it's much easier to stay on top of clutter than it is to re-accumulate.

At this point, my goal is a bit simpler: I can't make sure my house is in perfect shape before I go to sleep, but I can certainly stay on top of TODAY's clutter. I give myself 30 minutes every evening, after dinner, to contend with the mess of the day. I'll throw out magazines, junk mail and actual garbage. I'll make sure the bills are where they need to be (rather than stuffed in a drawer). I will make sure the kitchen counters are wiped down and that "catch all" spots have been sorted. In short, I whirlwind pick up. My house isn't perfect, and the routine still has some gaps. But, I will say that keeping one eye on the clock, knowing what my 'time to log' is, I find it much easier to streamline my nighttime routine. It's also a great feeling to climb in an inviting bed, just knowing that I accomplished something to keep the house in order.

So, perhaps a nighttime tidy is overwhelming for you, as it was for me. Set an alarm clock for 15 minutes. Do as much as you can in that 15 time slot. When the alarm rings, you're done. You may find that, as you build your alloted work time to be longer, this before bed clean up time can also be very meditative and productive. If 15 minutes is all that can hold your attention, what about doing 15 minutes before work, and then 15 minutes afterwards? I believe that giving yourself a particular time can be liberating. While it seems that a restricted time slot would be stifling, in the decluttering world, it can actually be freeing because you know what your requirement is for that time.

Don't forget to make your evening tidy time nice...if you like cocoa or a cup of coffee, make it. Put on *your* favorite music. And, look at this as self-improvement time. You could even put a face mask on yourself, and give your cheeks a glow as you clean ! I once thought of my evening as my house's "spa day", and this brought on a whole new energy to my 30 minutes. Just because you're working doesn't mean you can't dance while you wash dishes. Once you make this before bed tidying a part of your regular day, it will feel as natural as brushing your teeth. And, there is a wonderful feeling about getting ready for sleep knowing that you just did something for yourself.

So...get ready, get set, GO.....and then sleep, knowing you've done a great job.

Organize vs. Sort

2009-01-15T13:57:00.002-05:00

I've heard it said that you can't organize your clutter. Organized clutter is still...well...clutter. So the solution would be to sort things out, right? But where to start? I've heard a few methods. Ask yourself do I...Love it?.....Need it?.....Use it? If not, get rid of it; sell it, throw it, or give it away. My problem is deciding whether I love something or need something that I don't use. I may have a sentimental attachment to something, but do I really love it or need it? Probably not. The other problem is "I may need this someday", probably the day after I throw it out. There are rules of thumb here too; keep it for a set period of time and if you still haven't used it, get rid of it. Take a photo of something you want to remember, but not necessarily keep.

Taking a photo of a special item, whether it be an article of clothing, a favorite stuffed animal, a decorating item or other keepsake, is a great idea. That leads me to my goal for the year; organizing all of my photos, both regular and digital. At some point I took a photo of two of my favorite stuffed animals that I had as a child. Then I bravely threw them away- on garbage day so I couldn't retrieve them. I looked for the photo for this blog entry, but I couldn't find it in the many disorganized folders I keep my digital photos in. Perhaps it was a regular photograph, but I wouldn't be able to find that one either in the mess of photos stuffed in boxes and baskets in the cupboard in my living room. I don't think I'll be able to apply the "love it, need it, use it" idea to organizing my photographs. There's that word again "organizing"-do photographs even count as clutter? I guess I'll have to think outside of the box to come up with a plan. I'll be doing some online research, talking to friends, and I'd welcome any advice to get started. I'll be posting my progress along with what I've found that works or hasn't worked.

One method that I know works is one I learned from FlyLady; pick your area and spend 15 minutes there doing what you can. That's what I'll be doing today. I'd encourage you to check out the FlyLady website, it has many great ideas for getting started.

Yes and no

2009-01-14T18:53:00.004-05:00

I'm a magazine editor by trade, but honestly, lately I avoid buying magazines. They pile up too quickly, and often they read like junk food—quickly consumed, rarely satisfying.

But yesterday I found myself at a large bookstore chain with a return credit, and so I picked up an air-freighted copy of the US magazine Real Simple for its headline alone: "Feel calmer now: 20 essential lists to organize your life".

And that appealed to me, so I thought, yes, I'll have that. My mind, hence my life, is never calm. It's constantly aflurry with things to do, from the needs to the wants ('must clean toilets' to 'study another language').

It's the middle of school holidays here, so I have to pretty much escape to the toilet to get a few quiet minutes to read. (And even then, there's banging on the door. "Mum! Muuuum! We need yooooou!") But I've actually read it—not just flicked—and it's quite a satisfying read, too. Not only have I learned that mini-bobby pins could help me tame my hedge of hair, but I've also discovered the magic of the "not-to-do list". For instance?

I will not learn to speak Japanese. (Yet. Hey, that's hundreds saved on lessons this year.)
I'm not going to renovate the kids' bathroom. (Didn't want to do that anyhow.)
I will also not backpack through Europe with the family. (Maybe next year.)

A self-ticking list, the not-to-do list. Write them down and they're already crossed off. Brilliant.

Right up at the front of the magazine is a real gem. The results of survey of a few thousand men and women include a short list of things that the happiest women do: cancel a few appointments to have more time to oneself, ignore the phone from time to time, and know how to say no.

This last bit, to me, is at the heart of clutter. If I can say no more often--whether to an event that will stretch our family's time too thin or to another "time-saving" kitchen tchotchke—maybe I can start to cut back on incoming clutter. But I still think might need to say yes to a dumpster in order to cut back on what we've already got.

De-Cluttering My De-Cluttering Outlook

2009-01-13T11:58:00.001-05:00

Clutter? I've got plenty of it.

And almost as plentiful as my clutter are my reasons (and excuses) for the clutter.

What clutter tells us about our inner tendencies and our outer circumstances can often be less than pleasant to hear. Which is why most of us embark upon clutter clearing with an outlook that has a bit of an edge to it. Think of the words one uses when considering a clutter-clearing project. We tackle clutter. We battle clutter. We get rid of clutter.

It's not that these words are that far off the mark. Too much clutter can be a menace, and it needs to be dealt with. But I think sometimes the antagonism we show toward our own clutter makes it that much harder to deal with it effectively.

So this week, I'm going to try a little experiment. I've picked two small spots in my home that I plan to sort through (the upper right drawer of my desk, and my bedroom nightstand). As I sort through the items that have accumulated there, I'm going to try to be mindful of the positive reasons they are there. I still intend to sort and reduce, but without the self-defeating mindset that I so often bring to organizing projects. My hope is that this sort of attitude will go a long way toward preventing future clutter build-ups.

(Might not actually work out that way, but it's worth a try!)

Declutter & Discover

2009-01-12T11:21:00.016-05:00

Like many families, my husband and I have made a goal to become more organized in the year ahead. We want to create a streamlined system in our house, in which we can find exactly what we need at a moment’s notice. We want to open our closets without being attacked by sporting equipment and old coats. We want to be able to have drop in guests arrive without our frantically storing miscellaneous ‘piles’ in boxes, hidden away. We want to clean sweep our home, and make sure that we’re efficient, organized, tidy and attractive…at any moment. It’s a noble goal, isn’t it ?

Unfortunately, this goal just isn’t as easy as it sounds. We have far too much ‘stuff’. Even though we’ve been married for more than 20 years, and have two children, and three pets, it seems as if we have enough stuff to last a lifetime, and yet, I can’t seem to fathom where it all came from! The first step in our reorganization has been to really take a critical look at what we have and why we have it. It’s much easier to be organized if there is a place for everything. And, it’s much easier to create a place for everything without clutter. I’m a purger…I am happy to create bags of items for the next yard sale, or to donate to our church’s thrift shop. My husband is a self-described pack rat. He would keep everything, except for trash, if he could fit it into our basement. I’ve learned that some of the things my husband's salvaged from my “we don’t need this !” pile have come in handy, and he’s come to see the light that perhaps we don’t need a dozen out of date lamps on the cellar shelves. We’ve learned to appreciate one another’s strengths, and areas of weakness, as we move on with this project. TV shows like “Clean House” and “Mission Organization” have been great inspiration and sources for ideas.

For my Christmas present, my husband built me custom shelving for the dining room cupboards. I now have plate racks that I can hold all my platters and service pieces upright upon. And, I see them, and reach for them without risking my life each time I try to get one out. I had thought I had too many, and yet, now that they’re organized, I see that each one has a special use. It’s much easier to use what I have (and not want to buy yet another dish) when I can see it. It’s almost like Christmas every morning when I open my cupboard now, as I rediscover what I already own, and am thrilled to see them. We hope to have this same kind of clean sweep and organizational approach beyond the dining room. We want to stay on top of smaller budget. We want to keep clutter from accumulating daily in the front hall. We want to feel more in control of our home, and all that’s in it.

Getting a handle on clutter and organization isn’t just about our homes. Of course, discovering my laundry room has a floor has been a fantastic expedition. But, in truth, we all need to focus on decluttering our minds and spirits too. Far too often, we let our thoughts, our hearts and our concerns rest on things that don’t really matter in the long run. We worry about what the neighbors will think if the dog gets out again. We worry that our children won’t get into a good enough college. We worry that our guests won’t like what we’ve cooked. We worry that we are alone in the world. The fact is, none of these things can be changed by worrying. I love the way Jesus puts this in the Gospel of Matthew “Can any of you add a single hour to the length of your life by worrying?”. The Dalai Lama also wrote “If a problem can be solved, there is nothing to worry about. If it can't be solved, worrying will do no good.” The wisdom from both of these teachers is compelling.

Yet as a worrier, I have a hard time focusing on what truly matters, at times. It’s hard to focus on what I can do, when my thoughts are so filled with overwhelming thoughts of what I can’t do. So, what to do next ? Practicing breathing meditation can help. Sitting and taking time to be fully relaxed and completely at peace, each day, can create ‘space’ in your mind. Additionally, I use mantras and imagery to create positive pathways of good thoughts. When I fill my mind with worry, there is no room to create beauty. When I open up space by practicing Yoga, by reading, by volunteering in the community and by helping others, I find that the clutter problem in my mind seems to solve itself. I am learning to place my concerns in their own compartments, without letting take over, making my thoughts a big mess. It’s all about creating space…and just as we can create space in our laundry rooms, we can create it in our hearts and minds, as well. One book I found to be incredibly helpful in this is Sarah Ban Breathnach’s “Romancing the Ordinary”. I hope you will also find it to be a wonderful companion on your journey. The author has an amazing way of cutting through the clutter of every day "outer" life, so that we have the time, space and energy to create a beautiful inner life.

As you declutter and discover both your homes, and your inner lives, remember that each step you take in the direction of becoming clutter-free, means more freedom in the rest of your lives. So, go forth and de-clutter ! You never know what you may find when you have the space to see it.