Archives for June 2009

Unclutterer and smart consumerism

We’ve been receiving an unusual amount of nasty grams lately regarding our practice of reviewing and writing about products on our website. As a result, we thought it might be a good time to review what Unclutterer is and its stance on smart consumerism.

Defining Unclutterer: An Unclutterer is someone who decides to get rid of the distractions (clutter) that get in the way of a remarkable life. Our website is for people who are or want to become unclutterers. It’s a site for people who are interested in getting and staying organized. Our motto is “a place for everything, and everything in its place.”

Consumerism: This website does not advocate freeganism, asceticism, or anti-consumer behaviors. If you want to live in this manner, we’re totally fine with it. However, it’s not required or expected of unclutterers.

Unclutterers have use for technology and tools and furniture. We appreciate not having to hunt and gather or live in caves. We enjoy the conveniences provided by the modern world. There are numerous physical things that make our lives easier and free up our time to pursue the things that matter most to us. Because of this, Unclutterer promotes smart consumer practices.

What is smart consumerism? Smart consumerism is spending less than you earn. Smart consumerism is researching products before your buy them to make sure that you are getting the best quality that you can afford. Smart consumerism is only buying products that you need or that help you to pursue the remarkable life you desire. Smart consumerism is refraining from acquiring clutter.

Around our offices, we talk about simple, uncluttered living the way Albert Einstein did, “Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.”

We review and write about products that we believe might be of use to some of our readers to better organize their lives. If we see something and think that it might help someone to get closer to their remarkable life, we put it in the queue to be researched and tested. There are tens of thousands of people who read this site on a daily basis. There are bound to be products that we review that aren’t of interest to every single one of our readers. So, if we review a product and you don’t need it, don’t buy it. Just remember that each Unclutterer is different and the product that would be clutter in your home might be significantly useful to someone else.

Noting this, isn’t our Unitasker Wednesday column a wee-bit hypocritical? Yes. But the purpose of our Unitasker Wednesday column is to have fun. This is a home and office organizing website, it’s not brain surgery. No one’s life is on the line, and it’s good to keep things in perspective and laugh once in a while. Everyone on staff owns at least one (or many more) items that have been featured in the Unitasker Wednesday column. We’re fine being hypocrites when it comes to having fun.

In fact, fun is a big part of what we do at Unclutterer. We want people to get rid of clutter and organize their lives so that they have less stress and more time for fun. My personal pursuit for a remarkable life involves a great deal of laughing and I love it when the people around me are happy. If you ever read something on the site and can’t figure out our tone, please just assume that we were trying to tell a joke and failed. Our goal is to help our readers, not offend them.

Do you have a question about smart consumerism or Unclutterer? Let us know about it in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Jun 9, 2009 | 74 Comments | Tweet This

Review: NeatDesk and NeatWorks for Mac

A few weeks ago, the Neat company sent me their new NeatDesk for Mac scanner and its NeatWorks software to review. I have been a Fujitsu ScanSnap loyalist for the past two years, so I wasn’t super excited about doing the NeatDesk review. In fact, I tested one of their mobile scanners a year ago and was so disappointed with it that I didn’t even post the review to the site (why clutter up your time with an awful review?).

To my surprise, however, I liked the NeatDesk for Mac. Specifically, I really liked the NeatWorks software. (If you buy the scanner, the software comes with it. The software also sells as a stand-alone product.)

The physical scanner is basic. It was easy to assemble, simple to install, is speedy, and it has a streamlined, uncluttered design:

What I want to talk about more in-depth is the accompanying software. Like most other programs, it automatically straightens scans, has text OCR and a document feeder, can automatically generate PDFs, and has settings for color, black/white, and image-only. Where it stands apart from other programs is with its field mapping on business card scans (it generates a contact card in Address Book with the data populated straight from the scan), it supports third-party scanners (Fujitsu, Canon, HP), and it allows you to create custom field values (this is great if you scan both business and personal receipts on the same scanner, so you can have drop-down menus for different credit cards, etc.).

Additionally, I liked that I could create custom reports based on my scans. If I wanted to pull up only my receipts from May 2009, I can do that and have the cover page reflect that information. If it’s a nice receipt, the software will also map vendor, date, and amount fields, similar to how it does with business cards. However, I only got this to work twice out of 10 times because I usually crumple up my receipts when I stick them into my purse and the text wasn’t very clear on the receipt when I scanned it. (I think of this as user error, not the program’s failing.) Here is an example of a good scan:

My only real complaint is that color paper seems to throw off all field-mapping abilities. If a piece of paper, receipt or business card isn’t black and white, it won’t map the information well, if at all. Take for example, my business card:

My card is just white text on a green background, and the software program didn’t map any data off of it. Actually, the system initially thought it was an image, not a business card. I was able to type all of the accurate information in by hand, so it doesn’t completely mess up the system, but I still wish it were more accurate. That being said, a lot of document feed scanning software systems have the exact same problem. In my opinion, it’s not a reason to keep from buying the software.

I think the scanner is fine, but I strongly recommend the NeatWorks software for Mac to use with whatever scanner you own. The software was extremely convenient and performed very well. It is much better than the software that ships with the Fujitsu ScanSnap, is right around the same price as DevonThink Pro, NeatWorks is simple to use with Evernote, and it’s a great way to control paper clutter. It earns a big thumbs-up in my book.

And, my cat Charlie is a big fan of its storage box:

Posted by Erin on Jun 8, 2009 | 46 Comments | Tweet This

Illuminate your clutter hiding spaces

Clutter has a way of accumulating in poorly-lit spaces. If you can’t see it, you forget it’s there, and it’s easier to mindlessly add to the disorder. Deep drawers, basements, closets, lower cabinets, and garages are especially vulnerable to dark spaces where clutter can hide.

After you clear the clutter from an area, if it is poorly lit, I recommend putting in an adhesive LED Puck Light ($14 for a 3-pack). They require very little energy, can be used with rechargeable batteries, and help the spaces to stay clear of clutter going forward — just be sure to put the light in a place you can easily reach.

How has better lighting helped keep clutter out of your home? Is there a space where better lighting could help you? Tell us about your experiences in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Jun 8, 2009 | 12 Comments | Tweet This

A year ago on Unclutterer

2008

2007

Posted by PJ on Jun 7, 2009 | Comments Off | Tweet This

Recovering from a productivity plunge

Since late November, I’ve been writing a book. I recently turned in the manuscript to my publisher, and I have gone from working hard 14-hour days 7 days a week back to working manageable 8-hour days 5 days a week. (The book comes out November 3, and I’ll give more information about it as the publishing date gets closer. I am really excited about it.)

Unfortunately, as my responsibilities have plummeted in the last two weeks, so has my productivity. It’s now taking me three to four times longer to do routine and simple tasks. My mind is wandering, I’m in no rush to get anything done, and yesterday, for the first time in over a year, a post went up on the site 30 minutes late.

In 1957, Professor C. Northcote Parkinson wrote of this phenomenon in his book Parkinson’s Law and Other Studies in Administration. The opening sentence of his book proclaims the culmination of his research, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” And, since I am carrying a significantly lighter load of work, it’s taking me unreasonable amounts of time to do it.

Part of this decrease in productivity is probably healthy. For six months, I was pushing myself unusually hard. However, it’s time for me to get my bum back into gear and return to a regular level of efficiency.

To do this, I’m taking the following steps:

  1. Planning my new perfect day.
  2. Using a timer and music to motivate me to do my work in a speedy manner.
  3. Using my project management software for the smallest of tasks.
  4. Giving myself permission to leave work whenever I finish at any point after 3:00 p.m.

Have you noticed that your productivity takes a dive after the completion of a large project? Is Parkinson’s Law true for you? What do you do to turn this around?

Posted by Erin on Jun 6, 2009 | 31 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: Clutter-Hoarding Scale

Reader Julia submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I saw your presentation at Ignite DC. At one point during your presentation you talked about a Hoarding Scale. What is it? How do I know where I’m on it?

During my presentation, I referenced the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization’s Clutter-Hoarding Scale. The Scale has five levels, with a level one being a light amount of clutter and a level five being an unlivable and unsafe environment.

You can download a copy of the Clutter-Hoarding Scale off the NSGCD website (it’s a PDF).

Professional organizers use the scale to determine the levels of health and safety in a home. Some organizers’ skills work well with only level one and level two clients and other professional organizers have gone through training to prepare themselves to work with all five of the levels.

Most people who are level two or higher on the scale are referred to as chronically disorganized (a non-medical diagnosis), but that doesn’t mean they are a hoarder (a medical diagnosis). A licensed medical practitioner is the only one who can diagnose a person as a hoarder, which makes the name of this scale a bit confusing. I wish it were called the Chronic Disorganization Scale.

At Unclutterer, we target our content to readers who are level three and below. Anyone who would qualify as a level four or level five on the scale we believe should be receiving treatment from a licensed medical practitioner. Our information is obviously available to them on the internet, but it should never replace medical advice and treatment.

Thank you, Julia, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. I hope I helped to clear up any confusion.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

Posted by Erin on Jun 5, 2009 | 24 Comments | Tweet This

Workspace of the Week: Minimalist workstation duet

This week’s Workspace of the Week is hey.brad’s part-time pit stop:

Not every home office needs to be a dedicated room lined with bookshelves and large pieces of wood furniture. In fact, if you work at an office during the day, a small work station may completely meet your needs at home. This week’s selection is perfect for people who don’t have a lot of space, paperwork, and/or digital needs. In this office, you can pay the bills, answer a few e-mails, and leave the heavy office work at your job. Hey.brad built a space that does all that it needs to do. A setup like this would also be nice in an entryway to a home to get mail handled before it comes further into your home. Thank you, hey.brad, for your inventive addition to our group.

Want to have your own workspace featured in Workspace of the Week? Submit a picture to the Unclutterer flickr pool. Check it out because we have a nice little community brewing there. Also, don’t forget that workspaces aren’t just desks. If you’re a cook, it’s a kitchen; if you’re a carpenter, it’s your workbench.

Posted by Erin on Jun 5, 2009 | 17 Comments | Tweet This

Piegato One shelves

Whenever I see a piece of furniture that is brilliantly simple, my first thought is, “I want to share that with the Unclutterer readers.”

This week, I learned about the Piegato One shelves and instantly wanted to share them with you. They’re designed by Matthias Ries and will be manufactured by his company MRDO Products. The shelves ship flat and then you bend the metal into place with very little effort:

A short video shows how to setup and install them.

I know that the industrial look isn’t everyone’s favorite style, but you can still appreciate that such a beautifully engineered product exists. This shelving system is simple, streamlined, and wholly uncluttered.

(via Dwell)

Posted by Erin on Jun 4, 2009 | 16 Comments | Tweet This

Surprise benefits of an uncluttered life

At 1:30 yesterday afternoon, my husband made an off-hand remark about his parents coming to visit from Chicago. I was in a zone, still focused on a phone call from that morning, and only really heard “my parents” and “dinner” and “arrival.”

About an hour later, I came to understand that he said, “My parents just called and they’re arriving around 8:00 tonight. I think we should take them out to dinner when they get here.” He meant 8:00 p.m., as in six and a half hours from when he first mentioned it to me. Surprise!

It’s exact moments like these when I am thankful that we live an uncluttered life. Instead of worrying about the state of the house or what we might feed our guests while they are here or anything hostess related, I simply nodded and told him, “good to know.”

The toilets and shower in the bathroom are clean, there is food in the kitchen cupboards, we have clean bed linens, and everything in the house is in its place. I ran the dishwasher a few hours earlier than normal so that it wouldn’t keep them awake (our “guest room” is a pull-out in our living room), but, except for having two wonderful guests, our schedule for the day was the same as a typical Wednesday.

It’s surprise situations like these that I like to focus my attentions to when I’m doing my 30 minutes of chores each evening. Being free from unnecessary stress is a powerful motivator when routinely taking care of the small things. A little bit of work each night means that there is never a big issue to solve, and house guests can show up for surprise visits without causing my stress levels to soar.

Now, I just need to be a detective and figure out how this visit never made it onto our family calendar.

What benefits have you found with leading an uncluttered life? Tell us about them in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Jun 4, 2009 | 47 Comments | Tweet This

Unitasker Wednesday: Rotato Potato Peeler

All Unitasker Wednesday posts are jokes — we don’t want you to buy these items, we want you to laugh at their ridiculousness. Enjoy!

Has peeling potatoes got you down?

Do you believe that getting rid of the most nutritious part of the potato is the best choice for your family?

Is your kitchen so big that you have counter-top space galore?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, then the Rotato Potato Peeler is for you! It doesn’t slice, it doesn’t dice, it doesn’t even julienne! All it does is peel, peel, peel.

Simply hook up your potato to the Rotato Potato Peeler, push the start button, and watch all that good nutrition peel away. Peeling a potato has never been as expensive or space hogging!

(Thanks to reader Allysun for directing our attention to this gem.)

Posted by Erin on Jun 3, 2009 | 40 Comments | Tweet This

A year ago on Unclutterer

2008

  • May wrap up
    The events that made May 2008 an incredible month at Unclutterer.com.
  • We’re downsizing our apartment!
    Teri and her husband have decided to follow Matt’s advice and downsize to a smaller home.
  • Baby toy alternatives (part 2)
    While my daughter grows, she’s now two years old, and her taste in toys changes by the day I figured I would update the list that I posted last summer.
  • Up in the air!
    A Dwell Magazine article explores how to store bicycles in vertical spaces using a rope-and-pulley system.

2007

  • Under stairs storage: brilliant
    Very cool under-stair storage where each step is a drawer.
  • Roombas: Cute, powerful, and they save you time
    The Roomba works like a charm as long as you don’t have very plush carpet. I have hardwood floors with several area rugs and it really cleans up. There are no filter bags to mess with, just a tray that empties out.
  • Reader mail rocks!
    It means a lot to us at Unclutterer that we’re having such a positive impact in the lives of our readers.

Posted by PJ on Jun 3, 2009 | Comments Off | Tweet This

Desktop timers help with productivity

One of my favorite productivity strategies is to set a timer and see how much I can get done before a buzzer sounds. I used to keep a timer from my days as a high school debater on my desk. It had a magnet on the back, and I just stuck it to my bulletin board when it wasn’t in use.

Then, I dropped my timer and the digital face distorted to only read 88:88. The thing was close to 20 years old, so I couldn’t be too upset that the $4 piece of equipment had failed.

To replace my beloved timer, I decided to download a program called Alarm Clock 2 by Robbie Hanson for my Mac. (A comparable program for the PC is XNote Stopwatch and you can find a review of the program on Texas-based professional organizer Lorie Marrero’s blog.) I chose Alarm Clock 2 because it is free to download and it does everything I want it to do.

There is an alarm feature (which I use to remind me to break for lunch), a timer (to help me stay focused on a task), and a stopwatch (to help me keep track of how I’m spending my time). I like that I can set the alarms and buzzers to be songs from my iTunes folder, and that I can have them change volume based on how long they have been “ringing.”

If you haven’t used a timer before to help you with your productivity, I highly recommend using one. After lunch, when my energy level takes a nose dive, I like to set the timer for 10 minutes and see if I can finish all of my filing before the music starts playing. I also set a timer during phone calls to help me stay on topic and keep the business call to under 15 minutes. I also like to make sure that I’m spending the majority of my day (close to 80 percent) behind my desk completing important tasks that help me to advance my goals. I know that I’m procrastinating or avoiding the big-picture items when less-important tasks start filling more than 20 percent of my work day.

Do you use a computer-based timer to help you be more productive? What program do you use and why do you like it? Share your experiences in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Jun 3, 2009 | 27 Comments | Tweet This

CableBox is a box for cables

BlueLounge Design, the maker of the SpaceStation we wrote about back in March, is now selling a product called the CableBox. It’s basically just a plastic box (available in either white or black) designed to hold a power-strip inside to help contain cable clutter.

We admit this seems overpriced and ordinarily we would be tempted to find a simpler and less-expensive solution to the problem. That said, we’re hesitant to pile electrical cables inside anything not expressly designed for that intended purpose. So it’s worth considering, irrespective of the price. It’s also nice to have a more flexible alternative to the Belkin Concealed Surge Protecter, which requires you to use its own integrated power-strip.

Posted by PJ on Jun 2, 2009 | 15 Comments | Tweet This

Cleaning your computer keyboard

We’ve either done it ourselves or know someone who has spilled a drink onto a keyboard. Gina Trapani, founder of Lifehacker who now writes the terrific blog Smarterware, gives detailed instructions on how to save your keyboard after it has gone swimming.

A good cleaning once a year isn’t a bad idea for your keyboard, either, and her instructions will get you back to new. Keep the clutter out from under your fingertips.

Posted by Erin on Jun 2, 2009 | 10 Comments | Tweet This

Save kitchen space and make good coffee with an AeroPress

Our Nespresso machine gave up the ghost recently and we’re trying to decide if we should have it fixed or switch to a device that doesn’t use special pods or capsules.

In doing a bit of research, I’ve noticed that over the last year all of the elitist coffee forums have been abuzz with talk of the Aerobie AeroPress. At first glance, this $30 device seems like the kind of product that Billy Mays or Ron Popeil might pitch on late-night cable. But oddly, many of the same coffee snobs who will call you a chump if you’re unwilling to pay $250 for a conical-burr coffee grinder are now using these simple, inexpensive and space saving devices to make their coffee.

This video from the Coffee Convo podcast shows how the AeroPress works:

Do you have any advice for making high-quality coffee at home without a lot of equipment? Are you using an AeroPress? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by PJ on Jun 1, 2009 | 58 Comments | Tweet This

Capturing data from The New York Times

The New York Times had another great article last week, this specific one was “Bringing Order to the Chaos of Notes.” The article discusses the many ways that someone can capture and organize lists, notes, and all the random pieces of paper that can clutter up our lives.

Referenced in the article are:

  • One Note for PC by Microsoft ($100)
  • Notebook for Mac by Circus Ponies ($50)
  • Yojimbo for Mac by Bare Bones ($39)
  • Together for Mac by Reinvented Software ($39)
  • Evernote for PC and Mac (Free with advertisements)

What do you use to capture notes? Regular readers already know that I’m a big Evernote fan. Tell us about your system and why you like it in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Jun 1, 2009 | 24 Comments | Tweet This