Archives for August 2010
Workspace of the Week: Small, simple, sufficient
This week’s Workspace of the Week is Maureen.Ayer’s shades of gray office:
This is Maureen’s office in her apartment. The desk sits in a small nook between the living room and the hallway to the bathroom and bedroom. In addition to being visually appealing, it’s an organized space to process mail and bills, send a couple personal e-mails, and then quickly return to life at home. Since this doesn’t appear to be Maureen’s daily office (she’s a photographer), the storage can be small to handle just the business of the home. She has nicely organized desk drawers and a two-drawer metal filing cabinet (you can see a bit of it in the lower right-hand corner of the picture) to hold papers. It’s a lovely home office, Maureen, thank you for submitting it 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.
Assorted links for August 19, 2010
Interesting articles on the subject of simple living:
- Kevin Rose gives advice for how to manage your e-mail account when you receive more than 1,000 messages a day.
- “Is Consumerism Killing Our Creativity?” from The 99 Percent
- The New York Times blogs about Comedian Lewis Black’s protest of Eat, Pray, Love merchandising.
- Want more time in your day? Apparently, if you are experiencing extreme fear (like falling off a building) your brain dilates time. (Please don’t actually jump off a building to experience the sensation.)
- “The importance of enjoying the habit” from Zenhabits
Simplifying packed lunches
Reader Jon wrote to us asking if we had any tips for preparing lunches at home that he can take to eat at work. He has been spending $100 a week on eating out at restaurants, and is hoping to become someone who brings his lunches to work. Since students are already back in the classroom in many states, and other students are getting ready to go, I thought now would be a great time to discuss the humble brown bag lunch.
Storage Materials:
You don’t need anything fancy, but I recommend items that are at least reusable (especially if you want to save money). You can use Lunch Skins for dry items, Rubbermaid’s plastic Easy-Find Lid containers (they’re BPA free) for foods that could spill or leak, New Wave’s Stainless Steel food containers, or Kinetic’s Glass Lock containers. You might want a thermos to hold a drink, and you’ll want a tote or box to contain it all. I’m a huge fan of bento jars and boxes, and if I carried my lunch to work, I would strongly consider getting the Zojirushi Bento Lunch Jar (the inserts are also BPA free):
Food and Preparation:
Taking your lunch to work or school doesn’t mean you have to eat peanut butter and jelly every day. The best tip I have about making lunches is to prepare them while you’re making dinner the previous night. For example, if you’re grilling hamburgers for dinner, pull aside half a cup of hamburger to cook and season for taco meat. A couple tortillas, cheese, and the meat make a great entree the next day at lunch that keeps your attention and isn’t exactly what you had for dinner.
Making both dinner and lunch increases your time in the kitchen a little, but the money you save is definitely worth it. Plus, you only have to clean the kitchen once, and you’re more likely to pack healthier lunches than you would buy if you ate out at a restaurant. If you’re making lunches for kids, enlist them to help you pack up their meals.
I wish I knew of a great cookbook to recommend for lunch ideas, but I’m completely clueless in this area. Hopefully there will be some recommendations in the comments for ways to find even more exciting meal ideas. Also, if you’re someone who brings his lunch to work every day or makes lunches for your children, add helpful tips you’ve picked up along the way to the comments. Good luck to Jon and to all parents embarking on a school-year full of lunch making.
Unitasker Wednesday: The bananarama continues
All Unitasker Wednesday posts are jokes — we don’t want you to buy these items, we want you to laugh at their ridiculousness. Enjoy!
I have no idea what it is about bananas that inspires unitaskers, but they do. Oh, how they do.
We’ve written in the past about the Banana Saver and the rectangular-shaped Banana Slicer, but did you know you could also get your hands on …
A Banana-Shaped Banana Slicer:
A Nana Saver banana clip:
Or, the “special” looking Banana Bunker:
If you’re carrying a banana around in your backpack, I can see how the banana-protection devices would be useful. However, I crack up at the idea of someone bringing a bunch of bananas home and individually protecting each banana with a Bunker as it sits on the counter — like outfitting each banana with its own suit of armor.
Now I’m off to slice up a banana using just a knife. I know, I live on the edge …
A year ago on Unclutterer
2009
- Space-saving mobile dining table
It’s a portable chest that transforms into a dining table, which appears to comfortably seat nine people. - A recycled office
This artist cut up and painted multiple damaged tables to create the most ingenious office shelving I have ever seen. - TuneUp your iTunes collection
In addition to identifying songs in iTunes, TuneUp also fixes formatting, finds rarer cover art, matches artist names, and even gives information about the songs in your collection sort of like VH1′s old Pop-Up Videos. - Hoarders: A new show
Last night, A&E aired its first episode of its series “Hoarders.” The show will air weekly on Monday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET/9:00 p.m. CT.
2008
- Make your kitchen magnetic
The managing editor of cookthink.com shares with us ideas for saving space with magnets in your kitchen. - Unclutterer on Carrie and Danielle’s Style Statement website
Danielle LaPorte interviews Erin on the Style Statement website.
2007
- Managing collegiate paperwork
How to manage the constant flow of paperwork associated with college life. - iMuffs remove personal cable clutter
I recently talked to an owner of a set of iMuffs and he seemed genuinely happy about his purchase. I am considering investing in a pair.
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Trend spotting: Tech-savvy minimalism
On Monday, the BBC published the article “Cult of less: Living out of a hard drive” about a group of 20-something hipsters who claim digital technologies have replaced all but a few of their possessions.
One of the men interviewed for the article says he only owns “his laptop, an iPad, an Amazon Kindle, two external hard drives, a ‘few’ articles of clothing and bed sheets.” Another says he only has “a backpack full of designer clothing, a laptop, an external hard drive, a small piano keyboard and a bicycle – an armful of goods that totals over $3,000 (£1,890) in value.”
Owning just a few electronics and pieces of fabric is an interesting take on extreme minimalism. In contrast to most ascetics who eschew the conveniences of the modern world, it’s current technologies that make these hyper-digital ascetics’ lifestyles possible.
[Kelly Sutton of Brooklyn, New York] … says he got rid of much of his clutter because he felt the ever-increasing number of available digital goods have provided adequate replacements for his former physical possessions.
“I think cutting down on physical commodities in general might be a trend of my generation – cutting down on physical commodities that can be replaced by digital counterparts will be a fact,” said Mr Sutton.
The tech-savvy Los Angeles “transplant” credits his external hard drives and online services like iTunes, Hulu, Flickr, Facebook, Skype and Google Maps for allowing him to lead a minimalist life.
However, the tech-savvy minimalists are quick to point out that their decisions have made some aspects of their lives difficult:
Mr Klein says the lifestyle can become loathsome because “you never know where you will sleep”. And Mr Yurista says he frequently worries he may lose his new digital life to a hard drive crash or downed server.
What do you think of these modern minimalists? Discuss your reactions in the comments.
On the Forums: Two challenges and a discussion on uncluttered vs minimalism
Some great discussions are currently underway on the Unclutterer Forums:
- A Thing A Day: Uncluttering your home one thing at a time (The challenge continues with more than 116 participants. I absolutely love reading about the things people are letting go.)
- The Pantry Clean-Up Game
- Uncluttered vs minimalist
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.
If you use an RSS reader to follow your favorite blogs, you can easily keep track of what’s going on in our new forums. Add the feed for latest topics or all the latest posts. You can even follow specific topics using the RSS link just below each topic’s title, or create an RSS feed of your own by adding topics as favorites.
Are you getting the Zzzzzzzzzzzz’s you need?
When your sleep schedule is disrupted and you don’t get the amount of sleep you need to function properly, you will instantly experience a drop in productivity and mental processing. If this sleep deprivation continues, you might experience something like this:
In case you can’t read my handwriting:
Lethargy and a decrease of energy leads to a loss of will power, which leads to poor food choices, which leads to stopping or reducing your daily exercise, which causes clutter to pile up at home and the office, which ultimately leads to complete disorganization.
In addition to tanking productivity, fatigue causes high blood pressure, reduced reaction times, a weakened immune system, and a slew of other nasty things that put one’s health in danger.
If you’re looking to be more productive at work and continue to have energy even after you get home in the evenings, sleep is a key component to making this happen. When you’re well rested, you’re also more likely to exercise and eat right, which help to give you more energy.
We each need different amounts of sleep to function at our best — I need nine hours of sleep, but my husband doesn’t require much more than seven — and these needs can change over time. Keep a sleep journal to learn how much sleep your body requires. Additionally, once you have the energy to unclutter and organize your space, your bedroom can be a great place to start. The less clutter in this room will improve your quality of sleep each night, giving you more energy to tackle other areas of your home and office.
Marketing to Unclutterers-In-Name-Only
The show Marketplace that aired on National Public Radio had a very poignant piece this past Friday about the hypocrisy surrounding the business, marketing, and branding of Eat, Pray, Love‘s “simplification” and “de-cluttering” merchandise.
You can listen to the segment or read the transcript on the NPR website.
My favorite excerpt from Stacey Vanek-Smith’s Marketplace piece:
[Andrew] Bennett [author of the book Consumed] says “Eat Pray Love” taps into something the whole culture has been moving towards.
Bennett: “It talks about finding your inner self and spirituality and a return to simplicity and enjoying life’s simple pleasures.”
Like drinking “Eat Pray Love” tea, out of an “Eat Pray Love” cup, in your “Eat Pray Love” tunic, on your “Eat Pray Love” Malay queen bed. What could be simpler?
I was also surprised to learn about the Home Shopping Network’s “three-day ‘Eat Pray Love’-a-palooza” with more than 400 simplification-themed products, Sony’s Eat Pray Love laptop, and the Eat Pray Love prayer beads. The marketing of thousands of products surrounding this stuff-won’t-make-you-happy themed movie makes Disney film merchandising look like literal child’s play. Unclutterers are smart consumers who are not wholly against buying things, but does the merchandising industry really believe that dedicated followers of simple living are going to rush out and buy ALL of this stuff? Does the world really need thousands of Eat, Pray, Love doodads?
Apparently, the strategy for product marketing to simple living followers is: “Buy, buy, buy, and then unclutter it all so you can buy some more.”
A year ago on Unclutterer
2009
- Uncluttering is not a competition
Who knows, maybe my less-than-perfect home made some of those organizers feel better about theirs. - Unitasker Wednesday: Chef Stack
It makes pancakes, pancakes, and only pancakes! - Keeping your personal brand organized: An interview with Dan Schawbel
Since we talk about office organizing quite a bit on Unclutterer, I thought it might be fun to instead let the magazine’s editor, Dan Schawbel, talk to us about a topic he knows in great detail and one that we rarely discuss on the site — personal branding. - Heading back to college in organized style
We thought we would point you to two wonderful blog posts we have seen this week on Lifehacker on the subject of back-to-school issues for college students instead of asking Tim to stop writing code.
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Guest information packets: Be organized before your house guests arrive
Lifehacker has had a series the past couple weeks on how to be a good host and house guest in today’s society. Contained in their post “How to Be the Perfect Host in the 21st Century” is a wonderful section on how to be organized before a guest arrives. One of their ideas is to create a Guest Information Packet with details about your home and your area:
Whether you’re filling out the packet we’ve provided for you or you’re building your own from scratch you’ll want to include information that helps your guest be autonomous. Our guest packet includes spots for useful information like informing your guests about household quirks. It takes a few minutes for the hot water to get all the way from the basement of your apartment building? Make a note that they should run the hot water while they brush their teeth to get it shower-ready. Have a dog with a delicate constitution? Make a note that table scraps will make everybody miserable. Militant parking regulations? Make sure your guest knows their rental car will get the boot if they park on the street after 2AM.
They provide a detailed Guest Information Packet you can download for free and then fill in the information specific to your home.
Ask Unclutterer: Trash or treasure old stuffed animals?
Reader Kay submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:
I’m trying to figure out what to do about all my old plush toys stored in *mumble mumble* cardboard boxes in the *mumble mumble* basement. I know the Unclutterer idea of taking pictures of sentimental objects before taking the next step; what I don’t know is what the next step should *be*. I doubt that Goodwill wants them; I don’t want to pass them on to young relatives — I’m not convinced they’re still healthy. Is there another option I’m overlooking?
You can have them steam cleaned, which will kill viruses, mold, dust mites, and other creepy crawlies. If you know someone who works in a hotel, the enormous steamers they have there will definitely do the trick. Otherwise, check with your local dry cleaners, who may have one in their facilities. They’re giant machines, a lot like dryers, that blast the contents with heated steam while tumbling things around to make sure all surfaces are affected.
Once this is done, you could pass them along to your young relatives without worry.
However, if these are elderly stuffed animals, they may not survive the cleaning process. For the more delicate ones, the trash may be your best option.
Actually, unless your young relatives are clamoring to take the stuffed animals off your hands, I suggest throwing all of them in the trash. Even though you once loved them, there is no guarantee your nieces and nephews will enjoy playing with a worn-out toy. So instead of dealing with your clutter, you’ll just be passing the responsibility of getting rid of it along to someone else.
Peter Walsh, in his book It’s All Too Much, makes a point about donating worn-out clothing to charity that applies equally to your stuffed-animal situation:
Goodwill receives a billion pounds of clothing every year. Ultimately, they use less than half of the clothes they get. Clothing is cheap, and the cost of sorting, cleaning, storing, and transporting the clothes is higher than their value. If you wouldn’t give an article to a family member, it’s probably not good enough for charity. Sure, it’s great to get the tax deduction and it makes you feel like you didn’t waste money buying the clothes, but if you’re truly charitable, be sensitive to the needs of the organization. Charities aren’t dumping grounds for your trash.
If throwing them in the trash brings you to tears, contact a local professional puppet group. Maybe they could reuse the pelts? However, I think this is one of those situations where these items belong in the trash.
Thank you, Kay, 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.
Workspace of the Week: Sewing storage in disguise
This week’s Workspace of the Week is Clara in Paradise’s whimsical sewing room storage.
But, to appreciate the After photograph, you should see what the area looked like before:
I like the idea of creating a closet — even with faux doors — to streamline a room and reduce visual clutter. I also like the fun Clara clearly had creating this storage space. Her closet door design is sewn on with a serger using blue thread, and the knobs are all blue felt. And, she states, the whole setup (curtain rod, fabric, thread, felt, etc.) was only $50. Check out her step-by-step process on her website. Thank you, Clara, for submitting your creative sewing storage solution 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.
The multitasking sleeper chair
The latest DWR catalog arrived in the mail yesterday, and the Soto sleeper chair instantly caught my attention:
After looking at the picture, I spotted the chair’s $3,300 price tag and quickly closed the catalog. No offense to the designers or the wonderful folks at DWR (it really is an attractive piece of furniture), but $3,300 is way above my price range.
Sleeper chairs are fantastic additions in small spaces because they work double duty as seating and guest accommodations. One of these multitaskers in a living room or office is perfect when you don’t have a guest room or space for a larger sofa sleeper. My husband and I have been considering getting one for my son’s bedroom so that when his cousins or friends spend the night they won’t have to sleep on the floor, and he’ll have a comfortable space to sit and read the rest of the time.
A little more in line with our price range are:
For $130, Target has a single sleeper:
For $20 more ($150), Target has a sleeper lounge chair:
JCPenny has the Sleepy sleeper chair for $500 that is available in nine different upholstery options:
And, for $1,000, is the sleek Vincent twin sleeper from CB2:
You don’t have to spend $3,300 or add a spare room onto your home to increase the number of sleeping accommodations you have to offer guests — a sleeper chair might be all you need for your small space.
Go big or go home?
Most children, if asked to draw the house they’ll live in as an adult, will sketch a home resembling a bloated Graceland or Cinderella’s castle. A rare child might draw something akin to Skylab, but rarely will you see a home that is an apartment or small cottage. Kids dream big, and they almost always want yards, trees, and all the amenities of a suburban mansion.
Many of us then have a difficult time altering that vision of our future home as we get older. We think that by the time we’re 30, we should have a house, a big yard, two cars, and a beautiful family to go along with all of it. So, we go to work and earn as much money as possible to make it all possible, but may never stop to ask our adult self if this childhood fantasy is really what we want.
These things might actually be what you desire. And, if you’ve taken the time to evaluate all your options and concluded this is the perfect path for you, then I think that is amazing.
It’s not such an amazing path, however, if you’re stumbling into this way of living because you’ve never questioned the dreams of eight-year-old you. It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I realized I didn’t want the big house and all of the responsibilities that go with it. And, even now, I occasionally find myself looking at the large, beautiful homes for sale in our neighborhood and fantasize about owning them.
But unless you make enough money to pay someone else to mow your lawn, a large house on a big lot means a minimum two hours of yard work each week during the spring, summer, and fall. Home ownership also means cleaning gutters, paying for home owner’s insurance, and replacing appliances when they die and windows when they break. The more square footage you have in a home, the more you have to pay in taxes, to clean, to heat and cool, and to protect from disasters and thieves.
Houses take considerable time and money to maintain, and choosing to buy one should be a truly soul-searching experience.
I’ve learned to look at the big, beautiful homes for sale in our neighborhood and appreciate that they exist, but know I don’t have the real desire to live in one and take care of it. I like that my tiny backyard is a brick patio. I like that I only have two toilets to clean. I also like that we never had to install a baby monitor because there isn’t anywhere in the house we can go and not hear our son cry (or sigh or giggle).
I’m not saying that one way of living is better than another, I’m simply saying that a big home and all of its responsibilities are not for me. I’d like to encourage you to take a few moments and decide if the dream home you’re pursuing or currently maintaining is really your dream. It might be. But if it’s not, I hope you are able to figure out what really is.
