Archives for August 2010

Bringing clutter into the light

Is there clutter hiding in your basement, attic, or garage? Is it at the back of a closet, under the kitchen sink, or in your medicine chest? What is the situation under your bed, in the linen closet, and in the drawers of your entertainment center? How are things in your filing cabinet or your car’s glovebox? Are you harboring clutter in an off-site storage facility?

When you can close a door or drawer to hide whatever lurks inside, it’s easy to use that space as a place to put clutter and forget about it. Even though this area might not be distracting you from living the life you want to lead right now, it does create stress and anxiety each time you access the area and whenever your thoughts drift to these spaces. Plus, you are spending money to maintain these objects and areas, and you’re keeping something you might value more — something that actually matters to you — from being stored in its place.

Unlike clutter that “hides” in plain sight, clutter that is tucked away can lead to bug and/or rodent infestations, increase the levels of dust and dander in your home, and keep you from discovering leaks, cracks, or other major structural issues. Not being able to see into your home’s closed spaces can really cost you over the longterm — financially and emotionally.

To bring this hidden clutter into the light of day, find a clear, flat surface you can use as a place to set all of your stored things. A dining room table works well for small spaces, and your driveway can work for large areas. Pull out all of your items and group them by type (make piles of like things). Once you can see all of the items, go through each group to determine if anything can be thrown away, recycled, or donated to charity. Once you’ve determined what should stay and what should go, only return items into storage that should be in storage.

Try not to store anything in cardboard because it is a tasty treat for bugs and rodents and it won’t protect your things if water leaks into the space. Also, label any containers you can’t easily see inside so you won’t waste time when you go looking for something — holiday decorations, camping and hiking gear, 2008 contracts.

Also, while your stuff is out of storage and on display, don’t forget to give your storage spaces a good review and cleaning. Repair any damages and clean out the cobwebs so you return your items to the best space possible. Install battery-operated lights, too, so that you can easily check on your stored objects in the future.

I’m of the opinion that the less stuff you have in storage, the better. Good luck to you as you shed light on your home’s hidden clutter.

Posted by Erin on Aug 5, 2010 | 16 Comments | Tweet This

Storage ideas from Where Women Create

Where Women Create magazine is a product of the Stampington rubber stamp company and is published four times a year. Each issue features 10 to 15 offices and studios of women who make their livings in creative careers.

Since artists typically need lots of supplies to produce their crafts, I thought the spaces in the August/September/October 2010 magazine might feature some atypical storage solutions. Although most of the offices were stuffed with supplies, many of them had ingenious methods for storing items. Here are a few of my favorites:

Camille Roskelley covered her closet doors with white felt to use as an inspiration board for her fabric while designing quilts (image by Ryne Hazen):

Wendy Addison uses an old architect’s blueprint chest to store paper supplies she uses in her artwork. These chests are perfect for organizing flat items (image by Michael Garland):

Artist Jennifer Murphy is clearly a visual processor, and as a result uses walls lined with cork board to store her papers and materials. For people who need to see their work or they forget about it, taking advantage of vertical space can be very helpful (image by Jennifer Murphy):

Editor-in-chief of Where Women Create Jo Packham has repurposed antique shelf brackets to hold ribbon rods and new shelves to store craft supplies in her studio (image by Zachary Williams):

Editor and consultant Nancy Soriano utilizes the space above her office door to store books and the back of her door to hold magazines (image by Scott Jones):

Self-proclaimed “junkinista” Ki Nassauer has made a career of rescuing damaged and discarded items and turning them into artful and usable objects. In this case, she took an old table, sanded, repaired, and painted it, and then added a small fabric mattress to create a kitty bed. It’s not necessarily storage, but it is incredibly cute (image by Heather Bullard):

Posted by Erin on Aug 5, 2010 | 9 Comments | Tweet This

Unitasker Wednesday: The Daddle

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

Oh, Daddle, you are one of the most special unitaskers I have encountered:

I don’t even know what to say. I’m at a complete loss for words. Or, rather, at a loss for words that are appropriate for a family-friendly website. I can think of a number of double entendres and completely inappropriate jokes. So, those of you over 18, simply imagine that I have written those jokes here and chuckle to yourselves. Ride on!

Thanks to reader Sharon for trotting this unitasker out for our attention.

Posted by Erin on Aug 4, 2010 | 28 Comments | Tweet This

Unclutter unwanted callers from your phone

One of the reasons I dislike using the phone for work is because eleven years ago my number belonged to a guy named Dave. This Dave character isn’t a former employee, he’s just some bloke who has fallen on hard times with his bills and who constantly has creditors calling after him. I thought for awhile he might be using my number on new credit applications, except I once asked a caller trying to harass Dave how she got this number and she said it was the fifth number they were trying for him, one their records showed working in 1999.

No matter how many times I tell the collection people that this is not a current number for Dave, no matter how many times their calls go to voice mail and they hear my greeting, no matter what I do to get the folks to stop calling, the calls continue to pour into my phone relentlessly. And, because I don’t typically know the numbers of the legitimate people calling me, I waste time answering the collection calls and listening to the messages at least long enough to know to delete them.

Thankfully, our office phone system has a new feature on it where I can type numbers into a form and have the harassing creditors’ numbers blocked. And, there was already a service on our system where every number comes up on caller ID, even ones that the callers believe are spoofed or hidden. Unfortunately, the new blocking method means I have to get at least the initial call to be able to capture the number, and also some creditors use hundreds of outgoing numbers so it can still be a three or four day project blocking calls.

Now that the number of collection calls are starting to reduce, I’ve been wondering how people on cell phones and home landlines deal with situations like this. I can’t be the only person out there being harassed by persistent wrong numbers. So, yesterday, when Lifehacker ran their post “What’s the Best Way to Block a Number from Calling my Cellphone?” I let out a very happy squeal.

Adam Dachis, author of the post, suggests transferring your number to a Google Voice account where you have similar controls like I now have on my office phone:

  1. Log in to your Google Voice account.
  2. Find the call you want to block (or the voicemail that resulted from it).
  3. Select the checkbox next to the call or voicemail.
  4. Click the “more” link underneath the call.
  5. Select “Block Caller.”

He gives other options that don’t include transferring your cell number, and there are some really good ideas in the comments, too. If unwanted calls are cluttering up your phone line, I strongly recommend checking out Lifehacker’s “What’s the Best Way to Block a Number from Calling my Cellphone?“

Posted by Erin on Aug 4, 2010 | 36 Comments | Tweet This

Many paths can lead to the same, remarkable goal

I’m rereading Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man right now. I mentioned it in the “Ask Unclutterer: Best methods for recycling” post a couple weeks ago, and decided to reread it when I saw it on my bookshelves a few days later. I’m not much of an environmentalist — I’ve never tried to save the whales, or even just one whale — but simple living advocates and proponents of waste reduction often find themselves in the same professional circles. I thought Beavan’s words might have something to inspire me in the work I do, and I was correct.

Beavan’s book, with the phrase “save the planet” in the extended title, is more about saving himself than saving the Earth. It’s obvious from the first page of the text he doesn’t know what he wants from life. He feels disconnected, like he’s only going through the motions of living, and that his priorities are out of whack. He wants to make a change for the better, and living without impacting the environment is more of his path to discovering what matters most.

The similarities between choosing to live without distractions (being an unclutterer) and choosing to live without damaging the planet (being an environmentalist) are arbitrary since both, at least in this case, end up in the same place: a remarkable life. When Beavan talks about his previous habit of constantly eating out at fast-food restaurants, he’s really talking about getting rid of the clutter so that he can focus on what matters most to him. From pages 45 and 46:

So much of my trash-making and waste is about making convenient the taking care of myself and my family. It’s about getting our needs out of the way. But is this so? When did taking care of ourselves become something so unimportant that it should be got out of the way rather than savored and enjoyed? When did cooking and nourishing my family become an untenable chore? What is more important that I’m supposed to do instead?

He continues on page 47:

Even modern replacements for priests, rabbis, and Zen masters — the positive psychologists — have something to say on this point. That new breed of shrinks has discovered that happy people spend a lot of time being grateful for what they have and savoring their experience. They don’t rush through “now” to get to later. They don’t make taking care of themselves or taking care of their families something they have to get over with so they can get to the good stuff. Instead, they insist that this moment, whatever it is, is the good stuff.

What is it that matters most to you? What is your vision for a remarkable life? What path are you taking to get there?

These are all good questions, with limitless sets of answers, and ones that I keep asking myself and discerning on a regular basis. If you’re searching for a more remarkable life, maybe they’re questions you also want to be asking yourself.

Posted by Erin on Aug 3, 2010 | 15 Comments | Tweet This

On the Forums: Merging two households, pantry clean-up game, and organizing bags

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.

If you use an RSS reader to follow your favorite blogs, you can easily keep track of what’s going on in our 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.

Posted by Erin on Aug 3, 2010 | 1 Comment | Tweet This

Unclutterer interviews host of Clean House, Niecy Nash

I had the amazing pleasure to interview the beautiful, funny, and Emmy-award-winning Niecy Nash on Friday about the latest season of Clean House and the work she’s doing with Clorox and the World Toilet Organization’s Ode to the Commode campaign. She’s a woman who takes time management to a new level — she was on the Clean House set when we spoke — and had a great deal to share in just a few minutes of her time.

Here is the inside scoop she gave me about Clean House:

Clean House has been on the air since the fall of 2003, and the ninth season of the show started in July with The Nelson Family. When new episodes of the season air, they’re on Wednesday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET/9:00 p.m. CT on the Style Network. (I don’t believe there is a new episode this week, but there are numerous reruns. Next week looks to have a new episode with The Ryan Family.)

The crew will be at a house for a week, and cameras roll with Niecy typically three of those days. There are between 50 to 100 people responsible for producing a single episode — from writing scripts, lighting the rooms, filming, and helping with the uncluttering, garage sale, designing, decorating, and organizing.

I asked Niecy what is the most valuable thing she has learned while hosting the show. She said, “We have a responsibility to each other. I’ve learned that I’m my brother’s keeper.” When she said this, it was obvious that she takes her work on the show very seriously. Although she’s all laughs and smiles in front of the camera, she genuinely feels committed to helping the people who have been selected to appear on the show.

The inside scoop on her work with Dancing with the Stars:

In addition to her work on Clean House and her daily appearances on CBS’ The Insider, Niecy was also a contestant last season on Dancing with the Stars. She ended up in an impressive fifth place and said that dancing live in front of more than 20 million viewers while wearing a leotard was the hardest thing she’s ever done, “definitely harder than taking on the messiest homes in America.”

The inside scoop on her work with the World Toilet Organization:

Niecy is also the national spokesperson for Clorox’s Ode to the Commode campaign, which supports the World Toilet Organization. “Nearly 2 billion of the world’s population does not have access to clean toilets and basic sanitation,” Niecy said. She went on to explain that every day water-related diseases claim the lives of 5,000 children under the age of five.

She said that on Clean House she and the crew work to improve the lives of people who need help, but not the kind of severe help others in the world need. This campaign helps the WTO make toilets accessible and affordable for people who need basic and working sanitation.

Niecy said that you can help, too, by going online to OdetotheCommode.com and flush the virtual toilet for free. For every flush, Clorox donates $1.00 to the WTO.

The inside scoop on all things Niecy Nash:

As I was wrapping up the interview, I asked Niecy, who is also a mother of three, how she manages all of her commitments. She laughed, paused for a moment, and then recited the famous Warren Zevon line, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

Posted by Erin on Aug 2, 2010 | 17 Comments | Tweet This

New month a good time to start new routines

As a child, I looked forward to August more than any other month of the year. It’s my birthday month and it’s back to school month — a duo of perfection in my world. August was, and still is for me, the month of new beginnings.

As an adult, I’ve tried to use August as my month to start new habits and routines (or as a time to improve old ones). These routines make it easier to keep the clutter out of my schedule and free up the rest of my time to do what it is I really want to do.

This August, I’m re-introducing my exercise routine now that my foot is healed. I have really missed running, and I’m glad to have the go-ahead from my foot and podiatrist to start moving.

Listed below are all of the routines we’ve written about in the past on Unclutterer. If you’re struggling with time management, or just looking for a more streamlined way to get through the day, one or more of these routines might have something to offer you:

Need hep sticking to a routine schedule? Check out our article “Ability to delay gratification can help with routine maintenance.”

Posted by Erin on Aug 2, 2010 | 11 Comments | Tweet This

A year ago on Unclutterer

2009

  • Simplicity and sincerity
    The choice to live simply isn’t one of denial or exclusion, but rather one of being sincere in all of your actions.
  • Unitasker Wednesday: Frozen Food Safety Monitor
    So, in addition to having rotten food, you also have a monitor to tell you that your food is rotten — how about that!
  • Tough calls and hard decisions
    I’m of the opinion that it’s okay to keep tough calls, at least in the short term.
  • Do it now
    I try to hold true to the two-minute “Do it now” policy at work, and an extended five-minute “Do it now” policy at home.
  • Workspace of the Week: Give it the ol’ college try
    College dorm rooms are notoriously limited on space. This week’s workspace is Aarondfrancis’ lofted bed-above-desk solution to this problem.
  • Ask Unclutterer: Blog post ideas
    How do you come up with something new to write every day?
  • Weekend Project: Your closet floors
    To be able to vacuum and/or sweep the floors of my closets, I have to pull out storage containers and crawl on my hands and knees to reach back into some of the corners. Inevitably, I find something that I didn’t remember was there and I end up clearing a bit of clutter out of my home.

2008

2007

  • Coleman multi-tasking blanket
    Here at Unclutterer we love multi-taskers. Especially, multi-taskers that can be stored away in a neat little bag.
  • Bike storage solutions
    There are many storage solutions available that will keep your bike out of the way when it isn’t in use.

Posted by PJ on Aug 1, 2010 | 1 Comment | Tweet This