Archives for February 2010

Can your stuff pass the red velvet rope test?

In last week’s post “Discover your style to keep clutter out of your closet,” I introduced the concept of thinking about your wardrobe as an exclusive club that only the best of the best can get into. Consider yourself to be the bouncer, and you get to decide what items make it past the red velvet rope, and what items don’t.

This exclusive club concept is how I think about most physical objects and obligations in my life. For something to come into my house or occupy my time, it has to pass the red velvet rope test. Your home and life aren’t places for junk, they are privileged places for the things you truly value.

If you have a difficult time thinking like a bouncer, ask yourself: “If I wouldn’t give an object to a friend or ask a friend to watch over it, do I really want it in my house?” For example, I wouldn’t give a friend my junk mail or a rusty potato peeler or a broken washing machine. My friends don’t deserve these objects in her house, and neither do I. Also, I wouldn’t ask a friend to keep track of early drafts of my book, but I would ask a friend to keep an eye on my cats if I were to go on vacation. Early drafts of my book are clutter, but my cats are prized possessions. Drafts should go, but cats can stay.

When we treat our homes and lives with respect, when we think of them as exclusive clubs instead of dumping grounds, it’s easy to determine what is clutter and what isn’t. Put a trash can, recycling bin, shredder, and donation box near the main entrance to you home to temporarily hold the things that shouldn’t be fully welcomed into your space. Then, as needed, trash, recycle, or donate to charity these collected items. You’re the gatekeeper to your life. Be a bouncer and ruthlessly decide what is exclusive enough to make it past the red velvet rope and into your life and your home.

Posted by Erin on Feb 16, 2010 | 46 Comments | Tweet This

Olympics as uncluttering inspiration

Back when I was an avid knitter (a.k.a. before parenthood), I participated a few times in the Knitting Olympics. The idea of the Knitting Olympics is that you begin a large project at the start of the actual Olympic opening ceremonies, and you work diligently to finish the garment by the end of the closing ceremonies. Many knitters take on intricate lace shawl or fair isle sweater projects — projects that are really challenging to finish in 16 days.

I like the idea of using the Olympics as motivation to complete a difficult project. Olympians train years, decades, and some even their entire lives for mere minutes of Olympic competition. They don’t give up because the obstacle might seem unobtainable; they keep training until they realize their dreams of Olympic glory.

There are only 12 days left until the final Olympic ceremony. What challenging uncluttering project can you conquer before the Olympic flame is extinguished?

Posted by Erin on Feb 16, 2010 | 12 Comments | Tweet This

On the Forums: medicines, eBay, and fridge clutter

Some great discussions are currently underway on the Unclutterer Forums:

Be sure to check it out and add your thoughts to the mix. Remember, you can start your own thread (which our system calls a “topic”) by clicking the “Add New” link under Latest Discussions on the Forum homepage.

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You can also follow Unclutterer on Twitter.

Posted by PJ on Feb 15, 2010 | Comments Off | Tweet This

George Washington: Simplicity seeker

Today is Presidents Day in the U.S., and over the past week I’ve been re-reading James Flexner’s Washington: The Indispensable Man in preparation. I’ve been fascinated by George Washington since I read his first inaugural address my junior year of high school. It was his desire not to be president that captivated me then and continues to interest me today. He wanted a simple retirement after the Revolution, not the responsibilities of leading a nation that his friends guilted him into doing.

After serving out his two presidential terms, Washington was finally able to retire to his home at Mount Vernon and live at a more relaxed pace. In Flexner’s biography, he discusses Washington’s daily routines starting on page 361:

Washington rose with the sun. “If my hirelings are not in the places at that time, I send them messages expressive of my sorrow for their indisposition. Then, having put these wheels in motion, I examine the state of things further,” always finding more “wounds” in his structures that needed to be healed. At a little after seven o’clock breakfast was ready. “This over, I mount my horse and ride round my farms, which employs me until it is time to dress for dinner, at which I rarely miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say, out of respect to me. Pray, would not the word curiosity answer as well? And how different this from having a few social friends at a cheerful board!

“The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea, brings me within the dawn of candlelight, previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing table and acknowledge the letters I have received, but when the lights are brought, I feel tired and disinclined to engage in this work, conceiving that the next night will do as well. …”

I have to laugh aloud at Washington’s candor in this passage. He grumbles about people coming to see him “out of respect to me,” when he knows they’re just coming to visit because he’s famous. He longs to have his home filled with actual friends, instead. Then, he admits that when he has a candle brought to his desk so that he might respond to letters, he procrastinates and puts it off for another date.

Washington struggled with his desire to live a more simple life even in his retirement from public service. He certainly wanted fewer social obligations, and I think we can safely infer what his opinions would have been about modern e-mail. His biography is a nice reminder that the problems and aggravations we face currently, and our desire for a more simple life, are often very similar to those experienced by the people who lived before us.

Posted by Erin on Feb 15, 2010 | 6 Comments | Tweet This

A year ago on Unclutterer

2009

2008

Posted by PJ on Feb 14, 2010 | 1 Comment | Tweet This

Saturday’s assorted links

Except for when a kind neighbor drove me to the grocery store in his all-wheel drive station wagon on Monday, I haven’t left my house in 10 days. Since I declared February as Super Simple Month, I guess I should think of this time as Mother Nature’s way of helping me to keep to my plans. (We’ve received about 4′ of snow in the past two weeks.) But, unfortunately, being shut up in my house for so long has negatively affected my creativity. I haven’t been able to run (usually this is my time to be alone with my thoughts each day), and I’m finding nothing in my house inspiring right now.

Instead of reading about my cabin fever, I thought you might enjoy checking out some links that have more valuable insights into uncluttering, organizing, and simple living than I can produce right now. Trust me, this is what is best for all of us:

Posted by Erin on Feb 13, 2010 | 27 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: Credit card clutter

Reader April submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

My husband and I have one credit card that we allow ourselves to actively use. By actively I mean it is the one we use to buy airline tickets, etc. but we pay it off right away BUT we have several credit cards going way back to our time before we met….most of them don’t have balances but a few do. The balances are the result of the old game of moving balances around to get a great rate until we can pay them off. So there are NO new purchases on these cards at all ever, just balance transfers. So how long do I need to keep those statements? I have so much paper from these cards. What the heck do I keep and what can I shred?

I want to begin by laying out my financial principles before delving into specific answers to your questions. These are the fundamental guidelines I follow for uncluttered living:

  1. Do not carry consumer debt. The only debt you should ever consider acquiring is a home mortgage and student loans (and, I’m not really in favor of student loans). Everything else should be purchased outright, including automobiles. Live within your means and you will never have to worry about debt cluttering up your life.
  2. If you must, use a charge card, not a credit card. For conveniences like purchasing airline tickets and renting cars, you may want to have a charge card. Pay this balance in full every month. Never carry a balance for more than 30 days.
  3. Save as much as you spend. If you have a steady paycheck, set up with your human resources department to have your salary automatically deposited into three accounts each month. After taxes and your retirement savings are pulled out by your company, have 50 percent of your take-home earnings deposited into your checking account, 40 percent into an emergency savings account (to cover things like large medical expenses if you should ever suffer a severe illness or injury), and 10 percent into a savings account for big and/or fun future purchases (vacations, cars, etc.). If you don’t have automatic deposit with your company, make these three deposits yourself. Once your emergency savings account becomes more than $5,000, talk with a financial planner to see if this money should be moved to a better performing investment. When you have saved half a million in emergency savings (and I’m no where close to this amount yet), you may wish to consider adjusting these percentages.

As I just said, these are the guidelines I have chosen to follow. Living this way is the only way for me not to worry about money or financial issues. You may be able to live with car loans and consumer debt and not be distracted by worries about having enough to pay your bills or what you would do if you needed a large amount of money in an emergency. I can’t live that way, though. If I have debt, I think about it, and I don’t want that kind of clutter in my life.

Knowing this about my financial guidelines, I think the first thing I would do is cancel all of the credit cards that don’t carry any balances. You don’t need them. Having them active runs the risk that someone can steal them and incur thousands of dollars of debt in your name, fills your life with paper statement clutter, and is a spending temptation. (Cancel them on a schedule, per Vida’s advice in the comments, if you are worried about your credit score. Also see “How and when to cancel a credit card” on Get Rich Slowly.)

Your next priority should be to pay off all of your balances on your not-current cards. Dave Ramsey suggests paying off your smallest balance first so that you get a relatively immediate satisfaction. I recommend paying off your highest interest balance first since it is the card that is wasting the most money. Choose whatever system works best for you, but pay off the balances. Once the balances are gone, cancel the cards.

Pay off the balance on your “actively used” card, cancel the card, and open a charge card account with someone like American Express. This way, you won’t be tempted to carry a balance from month-to-month, but you can still accrue awards points for the charge card purchases you do make.

After you cancel the cards, keep your statement that acknowledges you canceled the card and closed the account with a zero balance. You have no need to keep any additional paperwork once you have this statement from the financial institution.

As for your charge card moving forward, when the statement arrives each month you need to reconcile it with your receipts. If all charges are correct, file the monthly statements in a folder in your filing cabinet and shred any receipts you don’t need for tax or legal reasons. When you receive your annual statement, reconcile your monthly statements with the yearly statement to make sure that everything is correct. Under the advisement of my accountant, I keep monthly statements for three years and annual statements for the life of the account. However, I know some accountants suggest keeping monthly statements for seven years and others say get rid of them after you receive and reconcile your annual statement. Talk to an accountant and follow the advice he/she gives you for compliance with your state’s laws and practices.

And, remember, this is what I would do. I am sure that our readership has significantly different opinions and suggestions, so definitely check out the comments. Also, you may wish to check out Regina Leeds’ book One Year to an Organized Financial Life and Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover for even more ideas.

Thank you, April, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.

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 Feb 12, 2010 | 75 Comments | Tweet This

Workspace of the Week: Crafts contained

This week’s Workspace of the Week is SuperShopperToo’s home crafting office:

This week’s workspace isn’t necessarily uncluttered, but — wow! — it is organized. You can see additional images in the Flickr group that show more traditional office supply storage, the bookshelves and cupboards behind the desk, another view of the room, and an impressive interior view of the closet. Notes about the images explain that the vast majority of furniture in the office is from Ikea. The ribbon rod in the closet was even a $1.49 find at Ikea, originally manufactured to be used as a shower curtain rod. Items are grouped with like items, and everything has a place to live. Even if this isn’t your style, there are a lot of great organizing solutions in this office that could be repurposed for a more traditional office space. Thank you, SuperShopperToo, for your submission to our Flickr 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 Feb 12, 2010 | 13 Comments | Tweet This

Putting Unclutter Your Life in One Week to the test

Photographer Tasra Dawson put Unclutter Your Life in One Week through the ringer to see if she could clear the clutter and organize her life in seven days. She documented the process with a video series on her website and I want to share it with you. She starts with her closet (where the book begins) and works through to her living room. I loved this series and being able to see the tips from the book in action. She did an amazing job and I hope you enjoy these videos as much as I did.

Part 1: Closet and Drawers
Part 2: The Home Office
Part 3: Mail, Paper & More
Part 4: The Bathroom and Linen Closet
Part 5: Organize Your Jewelry & Accessories
Part 6: Kitchen, Pantry, and Storage Closet
Part 7: CD/DVD Media Storage

My favorite of the videos was episode six, which covers the kitchen and pantry. Be sure to check it out:

Posted by Erin on Feb 11, 2010 | 27 Comments | Tweet This

Keeping children’s toys from overwhelming a room

Today we welcome Brett Kelly, who blogs about technology, new media and whatever else the voices tell him to at http://brettkelly.org. He’s also a really swell guy.

A few months back, I was gingerly tip-toeing across the room where my children napped in an effort to get some laundry put away. After taking a few steps into the dark room and reaching the edge of the light cascading in from the hallway, I stepped into the darkness and, instead of finding the soft carpet currently being enjoyed by my other foot, I planted my size 13 squarely onto a plastic ambulance. The ambulance then began loudly announcing that it was on its way to some type of emergency situation and that its ETA was “2 minutes!” And, it wasn’t just dumb luck that brought us to this “look to the heavens and sigh deeply” moment. A quick glance around the now-illuminated room informed me that any next step I took would have caused the same result, but with the help of a different toy. The carpet was barely visible beneath the sea of kid crap.

I wrote the first paragraph in the past tense because things are better now. We managed to institute a few procedures to help ensure we’re slightly less overrun with children’s toys. I honestly couldn’t tell you the origin of these tactics, but somehow they worked their way into our parenting routine and they’ve ended up paying dividends.

Obviously, the sheer number of toys and games in your house will take it’s biannual leap during the holidays and around your child’s birthday. While Junior (age 0-4) is tearing the wrapping off of the newest noise maker, take this opportunity to stealthily pack up what you believe to be the least used toys in the pile of old toys. Put them into a plastic bag and stick them in the garage. Now, wait a couple of months. If by the time the bags have been out of sight for 90 days your child hasn’t asked about the contents, shuffle them over to your local Goodwill or Salvation Army location and get rid of them. Less fortunate kids can benefit from practically new toys that were hardly touched by their original owner and you’ll have some of your precious floor back. With older children (4+), have them participate in the entire process.

Our favorite way to keep the toy supply fresh without having to drop a bunch of money and sanity on more toys is to do a personal “toy swap” with our son’s friends. They come over to play and bring their favorite toy waffle iron or abacus or whatever and they leave with what has historically been a popular toy around our house. The exchange usually lasts a week or two. To turn this tip a little dark (and this requires that you have a pretty close relationship with the other kid’s parents), you can even arrange for a particularly annoying toy that they’ve borrowed to “have an accident” while it’s out of your house. I like to call this maneuver Mafia Toy Management.

It would be quite correct to point out that the best way to handle child clutter is to never let it get out of hand in the first place. Kudos to anybody who has been able to pull this off because we certainly haven’t. It’s especially difficult when generous and caring grandparents, aunts, and uncles are all too happy to help fill out Junior’s apparently dwindling stack of plastic trebuchets. That said, being able to keep your kid’s toy stockade under control without sending anybody into a tantrum is among my most treasured abilities as a parent (besides having them in stitches with my fantastic array of celebrity impressions).

Posted by Brett on Feb 11, 2010 | 43 Comments | Tweet This

Unitasker Wednesday: The useless machine

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

This week’s unitasker is a rare product that is better illustrated with a video than described with words. You can’t buy it in a store, but you can make one at home:

And, if I’m being really honest, I really want to build one — it’s so cute!

Thanks to reader Tom for sending us the link to this great unitasker.

Posted by Erin on Feb 10, 2010 | 19 Comments | Tweet This

A year ago on Unclutterer

2009

2007

Posted by PJ on Feb 10, 2010 | Comments Off | Tweet This

Unclutterer history and services

We have had a wonderful bump in traffic recently, and we thought it might be a good idea to talk about our history and all that we do here at Unclutterer for the benefit of our new readers. Obviously, there is our daily content on the site and in our feed, but the fun doesn’t stop there.

Brief history:

Unclutterer was started in January 2007 by lawyer Jerry Brito. In March of that year, he sold the website to the Dancing Mammoth company, brought on more writers, and Unclutterer went from being a website with posts a few times a month to a thriving site with content every weekday. In November 2007, Jerry left to start the food blog Crispy on the Outside and Erin Doland was named the new editor of the site. Erin has been with Unclutterer since March 2007 and loves her job more than she can properly express with words.

Unclutterer services:

  • Unclutterer Forums — Our active online community where you can gather to share your successes, struggles, suggestions, and smiles. My personal favorite section of the forums are the challenges that people set for themselves.
  • RSS feed — All of Unclutterer’s content delivered straight to your RSS reader of choice. If you aren’t familiar with RSS, check out our primer to learn more.
  • E-mail feed — All of Unclutterer’s content delivered to your e-mail inbox. Unlike the RSS feed, however, this content is usually delayed 24 hours from when it was initially posted to the website.
  • RSS feed without the A Year Ago posts — If you do not wish to receive the A Year Ago posts in your RSS feed, you can subscribe to this content feed. You can also learn how to create custom feeds for any website using Yahoo! Pipes.
  • Follow us on Twitter @unclutterer — In addition to our daily content from Unclutterer, we also provide information and links that catch our interest over the course of a day.
  • Nest Unclutterer — This free service blocks all of those annoying spambots and advertisers that follow you on Twitter.
  • Erin’s column on Real Simple magazine’s Simply Stated blog — Every Tuesday and Thursday Erin produces original content for RealSimple.com.
  • Keyfiler — Keyfiler is a web-based service that securely stores all of your license information in one place, for easy reference from anywhere in the world. You can also use it to generate customized reports, export your license information to handy formats like Microsoft Excel, and manage passwords for your favorite websites.
  • At the Big River — AtTheBigRiver.com allows bloggers to create intuitive, functional, and humane URLs on the fly, without interrupting the flow of your writing to stop and find the “correct” URL.
  • FixMyHTML — HTML code can quickly become a depository for useless tags and slower load times. For an easy way to figure out how to clean up that chunk of HTML code that has been giving you a headache, give this service a try.
  • Unclutter Your Life in One Week — Erin’s 7-day plan to organize your home, your office, and your life. Available at major retailers. Published November 2009 by Simon and Schuster.
  • Unclutter Your Life in One Week PDF worksheets — If you would like PDF copies of all of the worksheets that appear in the book (so that you don’t have to spend time recreating them yourself or write directly in your book), you can purchase them through our site for $2.50.
  • Less is More and Simplicity is Revolutionary T-shirts — If you need a shirt, these are great for spreading the simplicity message.
  • Unclutterer icon for iPhone and iPod Touch — With this snazzy icon, you can have Unclutterer as a link right on your main desktop.

We hope that you enjoy all of what Unclutterer has to offer!

Posted by Erin on Feb 10, 2010 | 3 Comments | Tweet This

Discover your style to keep clutter out of your closet

On page 23 of Unclutter Your Life in One Week, I promote the idea of discovering your style to help you keep clutter out of your closets. If your closet is limited to clothes that fit, clothes you want to wear, and clothes that project your desired image, you’re less likely to find yourself overbuying or with a mess you can’t control:

You may not know exactly what you want your clothes to say about you, but you probably have a good idea what you don’t want them to say. When I was in my twenties and leading a forum on school uniform policies, a group of high school students told me I dressed like a “frumpy pants.” It was a few seconds after that moment that I decided I didn’t want my clothes to say that I was a “frumpy pants.”

Years later, after reading Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte’s book Style Statement, I figured out a more proactive concept for my wardrobe choices. I’ve found that having a defined style has made it a lot easier to keep clutter out of my wardrobe. Nothing comes into my wardrobe that doesn’t project my image.

I like to think of my wardrobe as being an exclusive club that only the best of the best can get into. I’m the bouncer, and I get to decide what items make it past the red velvet rope, and what items don’t.

I’m not a fashionista, and if you knew me in the world beyond the computer screen you would probably laugh at the suggestion that I even think about my clothing. I predominantly wear solid colors. I have three of the exact same dress in black, gray, and white. I have three styles of t-shirts in four colors (black, gray, white, and navy blue). I have three pair of black pants from the same manufacturer but in different cuts. And, I look nice in these things. They work for me. They say, “uncluttered,” which is what I want them to say. Clothes that say, “complicated” or “fussy” don’t make it past the imaginary red velvet rope into my closet.

Discover your style, stay true to it, and get the pieces of clothing that don’t represent you out of your wardrobe. If you don’t know your style, check out the following resources:

  • Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte’s book Style Statement, which I mentioned earlier. Most of the images in the book are female-focused, but men can get just as much out of the text.
  • A lot of my female friends swear by The Lucky Guide to Mastering Any Style. Only 10 styles are in the book, and they’re all female styles, so it’s not a comprehensive text.
  • As far as men’s fashion goes, I like Details Men’s Style Manual. It starts with the extreme basics and moves on from there.

Posted by Erin on Feb 9, 2010 | 31 Comments | Tweet This

What clutter affects an unclutterer?

When I talk about struggles with clutter, I tend to speak in generalities — messy closets, disorganized desks, etc. My assumption is that the specific ways I fight with clutter in my life are different than other folks, and using generalities can make the advice applicable to more people.

However, I know there is value in concrete examples, and I believe our Friday Ask Unclutterer column is a great way to explore specific problems readers face. I received an e-mail from a reader recently, though, asking if I would talk about actual problems I face in my daily life. She wanted to know where clutter creeps into my schedule, home, and office.

I thought about it for a week and decided I would reveal one area where I completely fail at uncluttering. I’ve hinted at some of this in the past, but now I’ll share the whole story. It is, without a doubt, my Achilles heel:

Erin’s Failure: If something I rely upon breaks, stops working, or fails to do its job any longer, I have a tendency to ignore it instead of dealing with it. Last year, our washing machine was broken for two months and I responded by ignoring the problem. Out of necessity, I had to go to the Laundromat twice — spending more than $25 and hauling five hampers of clothes with me each time. Did I once research washing machines online to learn what might be wrong with our washer? No. Did I research replacement units, prices, warranties, or reviews? No. Did I find out which stores would haul off my broken machine if I replaced the washer with a new one? Definitely not.

I told my husband that I would take care of it, yet he’s the one who called the repairman, researched reviews of new washers, and dragged me to Sears kicking and screaming to buy a replacement. Our new washing machine cost less than $500, and I had spent over $50 at the Laundromat. I wasted more than 10 percent of the cost of the new unit because I refused to act and take care of the situation.

Nine years ago, my car died. While driving it home one evening, it transformed from a Volvo sedan into a piece of steel sculpture in the shape of a car. Did I call a mechanic to check to see what was wrong with it? No. Did I call Goodwill to donate it to charity? No. Did I have it towed to a junk yard? No. Instead, I paid $200 a month for EIGHT MONTHS for it to sit in its parking space in downtown D.C. Finally, my husband (who was just my fiance at the time) picked up the phone and called a local charity that came and towed the car away on my behalf. I wasted $1,600 in parking and $950 on insurance over that time period, and I didn’t even need a car. I lived in D.C., worked in D.C., and had unlimited access to taxis and the Metro. I’m still kicking myself over my inability to act when my car died and the loss of $2,500.

Now you know where my uncluttering fails. This is my very specific thorn in my side. How about you? What uncluttering failure specifically plagues your life? Apparently Martha Stewart struggles with clutter in her clothes closet, so I know it affects everyone. Feel welcome to bare your soul in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Feb 9, 2010 | 54 Comments | Tweet This

Why we hold on to sentimental clutter

Sentimental clutter plagues our attics, basements, closets, garages, and desks. These sentimental trinkets can keep us from moving forward with our lives physically and emotionally. If there is so much of the past taking up space in the present, there isn’t room to grow.

The article “What is nostalgia good for?” from BBC News discusses a recent report from the financial services firm Standard Life, the book Get It Together by Damian Barr, and research conducted by psychologist Clay Routledge at North Dakota State University that may provide insight into why we accumulate so many sentimental items and have even greater difficulty letting them go:

“Most of our days are often filled with with routine activities that aren’t particularly significant — shopping for groceries, commuting to work and so forth,” says Mr. Routledge.

“Nostalgia is a way for us to tap into the past experiences that we have that are quite meaningful — to remind us that our lives are worthwhile, that we are people of value, that we have good relationships, that we are happy and that life has some sense of purpose or meaning.”

Unfortunately, keeping everything from the past can have a negative impact on the future. From the article:

But Mr Barr warns the past can be fun in measured doses and for the right reasons.

“You shouldn’t revisit it as a way of avoiding the present or not thinking about the future. If you spend too much time thinking about the past, you are simply not going to be prepared for the future socially or emotionally.”

While highlighting the benefits of nostalgia, a 2006 report in Psychology Today magazine has warned that “overdoing reminiscence” risks an absence of joy derived from the present, and a reliance on past memories to provide happiness.

Thinking about the past could also trigger painful emotions, such as grief for lost loved ones or feeling like a has-been if recalling a distant career success.

Since we get a bump of happiness from sentimental items, it’s okay to keep a few of the prized possessions. Make room for the handful of valuable-to-you pieces of nostalgia that aren’t actually clutter. Get rid of the rest of the stuff that holds little-to-no value, though. A quilt from your grandmother might be an object you keep, but a stick you picked up one day in her yard might be something you should trash. It’s impossible to keep every object that comes into your life, so keep what is truly important (not clutter) and clear the rest (clutter) to make room for your present and future.

A few tips for ways to let go of sentimental clutter:

  • Snap a digital photograph of the item and keep only the image. Save these pictures securely online in a program that allows you to keep notes about the image (like Flickr or Picasa).
  • Write a journal entry about the item before you get rid of it. The act of writing down the memory will let you think about the experience, which is usually more valuable than the object itself.
  • Invite friends to a Nostalgia Night and video tape your conversations about the items. If your friends wish to take any of the items home with them, let the object go to a good home. What is left afterward can be recycled, given to charity, or thrown in the trash.
  • Make a deal with yourself to only keep sentimental items that will fit in a specific acid-free storage box or scrapbook. Deciding what will make it into the box or album can be a new happy memory itself.

Be sure to check out the full article for more insights into nostalgia.

Posted by Erin on Feb 8, 2010 | 17 Comments | Tweet This

A year ago on Unclutterer

2009

2008

Posted by PJ on Feb 8, 2010 | 3 Comments | Tweet This

Moveable mudroom

Small spaces often lack utilitarian areas where people can hang hats and gloves, process mail, and store purses, backpacks, briefcases, and keys near their main entrances. It’s easy for mail and travel items to clutter up the inside of your home when there isn’t somewhere convenient to place these things when you immediately come indoors.

I don’t have a mudroom or even a simple coat closet in my home, so I’m always on the lookout for storage solutions to replace these conveniences. Late last week, my husband forwarded me a link to a beautiful storage solution from Hansen Family Furniture in Paris and told me to click on the “Collection” link at the top of the page, and then select “Trunk” from the items:

The Trunk was designed to be used as a wardrobe, but I think would be perfect in a foyer. The Trunk is the brain child of Scandinavian-born but now-living-in-Paris designer Gesa Hansen, and is made of solid oak. It is 27.5″ x 55.1″ x 27.5″ (700 mm x 1400 mm x 700 mm) and includes a hat tree, flip-up mirror, cubby holes for shoes or papers, two drawers, and two large shelves for additional storage (a shredder and trash can could easily fit on the lower one of these). The item has hinges and does close completely.

We’re not the only ones to take interest in this beautiful piece of craftsmanship, as it will appear at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair this May in New York. Also in May, the company will release a Trunk for Bar Items.

Learn more about contact information and see additional images on the Hansen Family Furniture website.

Posted by Erin on Feb 8, 2010 | 7 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: My mother may be a hoarder

Reader Anonymous submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I am hoping that you can give my brother and I some advice. Our mom is getting worse each year and refuses to believe she has a problem. In addition to her bringing other people’s garbage into the house, she also has a number of cats who use the house as one large litter box. When my brother and I attempt to clean, she yells and screams, and takes the rubbish back in when we put it out for the garbage truck. Unless we physically rent a truck to take it to the dump ourselves, it never leaves the house. We are so worried because it’s getting worse and she is approaching 70 and are at our wit’s end. She won’t go to counseling and when we clean anything it just gets disgusting again. There is food rotting as she doesn’t have a working fridge anymore and when she buys food she forgets about it and it gets compacted with stuff she puts on top of it. The piles of garbage are growing and we can barely get the front door open now. We have threatened not to come and visit and she said fine don’t. Nothing seems to work or get through to her. What can we do as we don’t want to see her die in this. Please, can you help us? Please don’t publish my name.

Only a doctor can give an official diagnosis as someone being a hoarder, but, since your mother is refusing to seek treatment at this point, that diagnosis is going to be difficult to acquire. I think that you will be okay if you function under the assumption that she is one, however, as it definitely won’t hurt her or you if you do.

Hoarding is a psychological illness. Your mother is not a bad person or a bad homemaker, she’s suffering from a mental health condition similar to obsessive-compulsive disorder or clinical depression. As much as she doesn’t want treatment for her condition, she desperately needs it. You and your brother can clean her house a million times, but it will always return to its current state if she does not get the medical care she needs. Cleaning her house against her will might also lead to her cutting off communication with you — and that is not something you want to happen. Keeping the lines open with your mother is extremely important.

Start by learning as much as you can about hoarding. There are many resources available to those who love and care about people who suffer from this condition. The Children of Hoarders website may be specifically helpful to you, and I recommend checking out their resources section.

Unless you believe your mother is endangering herself or others, you cannot force help upon her or commit her against her will to a mental health facility. Nagging, negative and judgmental statements, and disrespecting her stuff will only exacerbate her hoarding behavior. Learn as much as you can about her condition, be supportive and encouraging, and find non-threatening ways to encourage her to seek help. Best case scenario: She decides to seek treatment and finds a healthy way to live with her condition in a safe home environment.

Thank you, Anonymous, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. My thoughts are with you and your family. It is admirable that you and your brother are worried and care so much about your mother.

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 Feb 5, 2010 | 27 Comments | Tweet This

Workspace of the Week: Chaos-free workspace

This week’s Workspace of the Week is ハク’s tech-heavy setup:

Three monitors and the numerous other pieces of hardware on this desk could easily be a disorganized nightmare, but ハク has assembled this gear into a techie’s chaos-free dream space. There are multiple images in our pool of the desk. What’s most incredible to me is that on the back side of one of the shelves is a homemade light box to photograph small figurines — it’s not a mess of cables on the back side of the desk, it’s functional space! (The cable management on this desk is pristine.) And, under the desk is a media storage shelf occupying space that is behind where legs hit but would otherwise be a useless void. I am truly impressed with ハク’s workspace.

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 Feb 5, 2010 | 12 Comments | Tweet This