Somewhere in every home there’s the bottomless, fascinating, slightly terrifying junk drawer. It’s like a little attic.

Truth be told, I don’t have a junk drawer in my house. I have just two built-in drawers in my entire place, and they’re in the kitchen. One of the drawers holds eating utensils and the other holds food preparation utensils. Which, unfortunately, I believe made me the least fun of the 8 “brave souls” featured in the article.

I’m honored that House Beautiful reporter Shax Riegler still included me in her entertaining article in the May issue. If you missed it while it was on newsstands, check it out online. (I am still giddy that my drawer is pictured next to Karim Rashid’s. I may be his biggest fan.)

Mine:

Karim Rashid’s:

The article works through the letters of the alphabet, giving organized suggestions for everything from artwork to grills and propane tanks to zippers and sewing items.

The most efficient way to store recipes is to “scan them, then organize them with a software system, like eChef recipe software,” says Doland. The program, which also lets you save recipes found online, has an easy-to-use search function: Type in “asparagus” and find every one of your recipes that calls for it.

The June 2009 issue of Real Simple is currently available on newsstands. Unfortunately, only the products mentioned in the article that you can buy are online. However, once June 1 rolls around, I expect the full text of the article to be available digitally.

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions (or even if you didn’t), you should check out the latest issue of Ready Made magazine for my article “Easily Arranged: 10 ways to achieve the ultimate in closet organization” on pages 40 and 41:

As the title suggests, the article has 10 ideas for how to curb clutter and maintain order in your closet. Also, my picture and a short autobiography appear on page 86 of the magazine. I had Comic-Con on my mind when I wrote my autobiography, so it’s a little on the wacky side. The superpower I mention having, by the way, is completely true.

If you don’t already have a subscription, you can pick up Ready Made at your local bookstore or newsstand. I’m interested in hearing what you think of the suggestions!

When Gretchen asked if I would sit for an interview, I dropped everything to do it. The topic of the interview isn’t directly related to getting rid of physical clutter, but it definitely touches on the bigger-picture idea of mental clutter that can prohibit a person from being happy. Check out the article if you’re interested!

• How the Unclutterer Got Started, including all about Mazes of Stuff and the Bud Lite Bottle rising from the Dead/Rubbermaid Coffin (cue scary music);
• How to terrorize soon-to-be-husbands (N.B.: Mazes of stuff will do it);
• Dealing kindly with a Packrat;
• How to start the decluttering process, be dispassionate, and communicate;
• Two great ways to diminish the “mine v. yours” struggle;
• How to discuss what “Simple Living” means to each of you and how to imagine living together as one;
• Your Toaster or Mine: How to deal when the space won’t hold it all (especially two of everything);
• Who are You, Really: What new and exciting thoughts you could entertain about decluttering and how not to drag the anchor of the Old You, along with all of her dead/post energy and stories, into your new life; and
• A whole lot more!

If you’re getting ready to combine your household with someone else’s — a new roommate, a new spouse, a new child, an older parent coming to live in your established home — then you hopefully will find some advice in this episode for how to handle the transition smoothly. Or, if you’ve already combined a household with someone and it isn’t going the way you imagined, you might also want to give this episode a listen. Sandy and I laugh through a good portion of the interview, so you may even just want to give it a listen if you want to smile. And, hopefully, I don’t scare all of you with my story of how I became an Unclutterer.

To listen, follow the link to the article and then click on the red play button at the bottom of the page. A giant thank you, too, to Sandy for picking such a relevant topic and being such a terrific hostess.

My plan was to read and follow the suggestions posted on all the gazillion online productivity blogs — Unclutterer.com, 43folders.com, Dumblittleman.com and Lifehack.org, for example — that offer eclectic advice on how to spend time fruitfully.

Thank you, Michelle, for thinking of us, and welcome to any new readers who may have found us from the article!

***

A couple weeks ago, Matt was interviewed by Rachel Mosteller for the article “Chasing Utopia, Family Imagines No Possessions” that ran in the May 17 issue of The New York Times. During the interview, he was questioned about his family’s decision to downsize to a smaller home. He didn’t end up being directly quoted in the article, but he and the rest of us at Unclutterer certainly enjoyed seeing voluntary simplicity getting good press in a major paper:

Though it may not be the stuff of the typical American dream, the voluntary simplicity movement, which traces its inception to 1980s Seattle, is drawing a great deal of renewed interest, some experts say.

“If you think about some of the shifts we’re having economically — shifts in oil and energy — it may be the right time,” said Mary E. Grigsby, associate professor of rural sociology at the University of Missouri and the author of “Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement.”

“The idea in the movement was ‘everything you own owns you,’ ” said Dr. Grigsby, who sees roots of the philosophy in the lives of the Puritans. “You have to care for it, store it. It becomes an appendage, I think. If it enhances your life and helps you do the things you want to do, great. If you are burdened by these things and they become the center of what you have to do to live, is that really positive?”

Parts of the article are a little more “off the grid” than my personal commitment to simple living, but overall it is filled with wonderful perspective and I recommend reading it if you haven’t already.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Which books to definitely get rid of first, and which to hold on to.
• Two sexy ebook readers worth considering.
• Why you might find it important to not have a job that makes you want to poke your eye out with a hot metal pipe.
• How being aware of the cost of clutter and procrastination can help you to live the life you desire.
• How uncluttering and mindfulness of the Earth’s limited resources are interconnected.
• What uncluttering is all about—living the life you want, doing more of what is most important to you.

After you listen to it, come back and let us know what you think of it in the comments. I hope that you enjoy the conversation!

If you missed the first installment of the series, you can listen to it here.

In the conversation, I talk about:

• How clutter doesn’t always start out as clutter.
• Why if you are in a constant state of disorganization now, you absolutely can change.
• What exactly to start on to begin uncluttering your life.
• Why getting a storage unit is almost always a bad idea.
• The machine that will finally give you a paperless office.
• A simple way to clear out kitchen clutter.
• Why uncluttering is really just about finding what makes you happy and what really matters to you.

I look forward to reading your thoughts about the podcast! This is the first time I’ve been a part of a podcast and I must admit that it was a lot of fun.

For those of you who aren’t personally familiar with ADHD, chronic disorganization is a common outward expression of the disorder. As a result, publications, research, and websites focused on helping people with ADHD have terrific information for anyone looking for organization strategies. For the most part, the advice is very practical and creative, and leaves me saying “I can use that.” ADDitude Magazine has a wonderful resource page if you’re interested in exploring these publications.

The site, at its core, is a news aggregator. But, unlike other news aggregators, it only focuses on long-form content in magazines and newspapers. The site provides a 100 word summary of the article and a link to the original source if you decide you want to read the full work.

You can access the content on the site, or subscribe to RSS feeds. I subscribed to the “Home” feed, and I have been very impressed by the quality of the articles and their frequency (one to three a day, which is a manageable number). In addition to subscribing to topic feeds, you also can subscribe to specific news sources.

I’ve been subscribing to Brijit for three weeks now, and I feel that it is a simple, uncluttered way to stay informed. It also keeps paper out of my house, which is another benefit. I’ve found it to be a valuable resource and wanted to share it with you.

• Thought Your House Was Messy? in the New York Times Online on Tuesday, April 2
• The Great Uncluttering: The best books, articles, and web sites for helping you organize your life in Slate on Saturday, April 5
• The Great Uncluttering: The best books, articles, and web sites for helping you organize your life was reprinted in the Washington Post on Sunday, April 6

A big welcome to anyone who may have found our website through any of these articles!

I also want to mention that over on Real Simple last week, I produced an intensive, two-part, spring cleaning series. If the warmer weather is motivating you to get active in your home, then these articles are for you.

• Ways to have a distraction free internet
• Most productive software
• Organizing computer data

The articles are worth reading if you’re interested in productivity issues.

While I have your attention, I also wanted to let you know that you can now Subscribe to Unclutterer by e-mail. If you don’t read our blog through an RSS feed reader, you might think about an e-mail subscription. We’ve added a permanent link to our e-mail feed in the middle column in the group of links immediately under our welcome statement. It actually turns out we’ve had an e-mail feed since we started the site last year, but none of us knew about it. More than 500 of our daily readers, in fact, have been receiving it! It wasn’t until we went to create the feed that we discovered its existence. We’re baffled, but excited that we can publicly share it with everyone. This link might also be good to share with others who you know don’t use a feed reader but could enjoy our site through e-mail, so please feel welcome to share it!

If you click on the words Real Simple in the widget, they will take you to the Simply Stated: Home community. If you click on a headline, it will take you to the specific post. Two Unclutterer posts are listed at a time, with the top one being our most recent work.

I want to strongly encourage everyone to add the RSS feed to their feed readers. This way you can get our content automatically. To subscribe to the feed of only Unclutterer posts from the Real Simple site, go here. To subscribe to the whole Simply Stated: Home community, go here.

Now that the Real Simple widget is in place and we have a specific Unclutterer RSS feed, I’m planning to stop writing post notifications in our main content. So, if you want to continue to read our Unclutterer posts on the Real Simple website, you’ll want to use the widget or subscribe to the feed.

Please drop me a line in the comments if you have any questions about subscribing to the RSS feed or discover any bugs while using the widget. Also, if you want me to keep posting regular notifications for the Real Simple posts, I’d like to know that, too. Thank you to all of our readers for taking the time and effort to read us throughout the internet, we greatly appreciate it!

You can think of an Alltop site as a “dashboard,” “table of contents,” or even a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points — they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In this way, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation.”

Be sure to check out the main page of Alltop to explore other blogs considered by this group of whiz kids to be the top in their categories. They’re fun to explore if you have some extra minutes on your hands or want to take a break and relax.

Don’t let your web surfing stop there, however. Unclutterer also appears today on Planet Green’s website discussing environmentally friendly alternatives to sticky notes. Planet Green will have a guest post on our site on Wednesday, so be sure to stay tuned for it.

And, while I still have your attention, here are a few more random items:

1. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
2. Check out this article from the Wall Street Journal on why the size of your computer monitor affects your productivity.
3. Read about the Ultimate Unclutterer here. He’s selling everything in his life — house, job, belongings, friendships — on ebay after a bad divorce. He wants to start over with no ties to his past.
4. Happy birthday to my sister-in-law referenced in the GenPink article!

If you haven’t checked them out this week, please head over to RealSimple.com for the following articles:

• Tips to maintain focus while you organize
• Tackling paper stacks of doom

You also can subscribe to the RSS feed here.

Next Wednesday, we’re going to feature a guest post on our site from Leo about setting up a minimalist workspace. It’s an inspiring post — he even sent it to me ahead of schedule, which so rarely happens. Since March is the month of sharing at Unclutterer, I also wrote a guest post for Zen Habits, which went live last evening. So please, direct your browsers to Are you an unclutterer or a cleaner? and then stay around Zen Habits and check out his site if you’ve never explored it. You’ll be glad you did.

Check out today’s “Five quick desk organization projects” column for a handful of activities you can do right now to make your office less cluttered. You also can subscribe to the Home and Organizing RSS feed here.

If you’ve ever wondered what an Unclutterer’s home looks like on its interior, now is your chance to take a peek. I opened my home to Decor8 and shared a few tips from its style and design. Go on, follow the link, and enjoy!