The biggest source of clutter in my life is....

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The biggest source of clutter in my life is....

(12 posts) (10 voices)

Started 1 year ago by HappyDogs
Latest reply from badkitti
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HappyDogs
Member

.....web site passwords. Specifically, I dislike:

1) sites that do not let me pick my own password (like this one I believe)
2) sites that require a certain combination of letters, characters, and numbers. All 3 is fine, I have one, but then there is always one site that won't allow [enter whatever here] and you have to come up with something new
3) sites that won't let me change my username. Honest to god how hard is that to program (answer: not very, and yes, I am a web programmer so I actually know)
4) sites that require passwords no longer than x characters (again, honest to god, it is not that hard to change that field in the database and it is good customer service to do so)

Okaaaay, sorry, I suppose I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I am off to LastPass to solve this problem I seem to have. Thanks for listening!

Posted 1 year ago #
ArtGal
Member

@ HappyDogs...it's ok, everyone has a bad day now and again :) You might want to check this site though because I got to pick my own password. Click on your red Log-in name at the top of the page, then click on Edit...at the bottom of the page you can change your password. One problem solved! :)

Posted 1 year ago #
HappyDogs
Member

@artgal The thing is, I don't think I should have to edit it, I should just be able to pick it. I let my users do that, and it just isn't that hard to program. Geeks (like me) tend to not think in terms of user convenience, because we are familiar with the medium and can easily figure it out -- therefore it must be easy, right? I think job 1 in web design is what the user wants, not what the site owner wants! Web sites that are hard to use, because the programmers/designers didn't think or work hard enough, are a bit of a hot button for me.

But yeah, I'll settle down now.

Posted 1 year ago #
klutzgrrl
Member

yep, yep, hate all those passwords. And even worse, when you have to remember you birthday as part of their security. I used to be paraniod about identity theft so gave fake birthdays... so now I can't get my neopets account because I forget what birthday I gave, and I've deleted the email address I was using when I started.

Some days I want to erase my entire internet history and start afresh. But somehow it always finds you. But it's like the rest of life, untidy and full of unfinished business, and some things will never go away.

I'm also struggling with outdated hardware. I've got so many once-expensive gadgetty things - a PDA, even USB sticks, cables, an old MP3 player. gah.

Posted 1 year ago #
Zora
Member

Sewing projects and materials. As all of you well know. Because I kvetch about the problem periodically :)

Posted 1 year ago #
suzjazz
Member

Hard to say which is the worst, but here are some contenders:
1) Spam. I spend half my life unsubscribing from email mailing lists and then getting more and more different ones. I never subscribe to any of them in the first place; it's annoying to have to unsubscribe.
2) Stuff that used to be in our storage unit which we closed out a few months ago. Some is my BF's, but most of it is mine, and I am desperately trying to get rid of it. The mere thought of posting a dozen ads on Craig's list exhausts me. I give away about 5 bags of stuff to Goodwill and other charities every week, and there is still a seemingly endless stream of it. Antique dealers and consignment shops won't take my antiques because the market is flooded with them and no one is buying.
3)Paper clutter in the form of mildewy files stored in my basement file cabinet. I am going through it and making some progress.
4) BF's desk, recording equipment, and "man cave," a 10 by 11 foot room with a big screen TV, 2 huge stereo speakers, mic stands and mics, laptop, dozens of cords,bookcases and shelves full of 200 DVDs and books, a bureau, a double recliner, and a TV table. He is trying to clean it up, but he is a messy person and I am a neat person.
<sigh>

Posted 1 year ago #
GirlOverboard
Member

The biggest source of clutter in my life currently is my in-laws. They're living with us after losing their home, so we have two 2bdrm apartments' worth of stuff in one 2bdrm apartment, plus a storage unit full of stuff from a time when they lived in a house. Both of his parents are serial just-in-casers but his dad is pretty no-nonsense about getting rid of stuff that we can't/won't use. His mother is sentimental. They both looooove inventions and trying to help us live better but in the end, it just results in more junk!

Examples:

They recently bought two of those toothpaste squeeze bands for our two toothpastes. When they learned that we were pleased with them, they bought two more... for... tubes of stuff that we don't really use on a regular basis.

When helping them clean out their storage unit, I picked up an old clock. His father couldn't have cared less about it, but his mother's response was that we should keep it. She didn't know why, but it was old, so she wanted to keep it.

His father has so many duplicate tools spread across so many makeshift toolboxes that I don't even know where to find everything. Ugh.

Anyway, @HappyDogs, I don't know if your intention was to get us all talking about our *own* sources of clutter in our lives, but I think it's an important topic. I hope we haven't hijacked your thread too badly and that the Unclutterer people and other sites with which you experience this frustration will hear you out. It's not always the most fun thing in the world, but let them hear your feedback! It doesn't always change things right away, but if other users feel the same way, you'll most likely see changes eventually. :)

Posted 1 year ago #
djk
Member

re: passwords
I also do not like having too many to remember, especially since so many of them are completely unimportant as for security. I don't care if the world knows my password to a site I am a member of (obviously, barring weirdos with vendettas, but I think my meaning is clear), as compared to, say, my banking password.
So I have a file in my emails where I forward the confirmation sign-up email where I state what my password is. Then when I forget I can quickly search my "memberships" tag and find what password I used. I use variations of the same one for unimportant ones. But for example--if I have used my former dog's name as my password, I don't use "Fido", I would write "childhood pet" and that tells me that FIDO is my password for that site. And if it is a site that requires alphanumeric passwords, I might note for myself that it is "childhood1pet123"

For serious passwords (banking, unclutterer LOL) I have a "password keeper" on my iPhone

Posted 1 year ago #
Claycat
Member

PAPER!!!!!!!

Having said that, passwords aren't too much of a problem for me, because I let Firefox remember them for me except for those involving money.

Posted 1 year ago #
HappyDogs
Member

@klutzgirl LOL I do that too. I'm always a 19 year old boy with a random birthday! It's none of their business, particularly if they haven't published a privacy policy. They don't need to know my mother's maiden name, the make of my first car, or my high school either. ;) I'm on this one email list that I haven't been able to get off of, for ten years now, emails to the admin get the standard "log into your account and set email to noemail". Allrighty.

@girloverboard It's tough to have parents live with you. I remember when my grandparents came to live with us -- I was a teenager and even I could sense it was tense sometimes. The parents really try to help (like buying extra tube squeezers!), they just don't want to be a burden and are feeling uncomfortable about being there, perhaps. A co-worker's live-in MIL keeps making him Paula Deene recipes -- he loved the first one she made and complimented her cooking. Now that is all she will make and he has gained 30 lbs!

@ everyone That's cool, everyone has a different clutter hot button! I am glad to hear yours!

My other hot button of the moment: the Twilight series. I keep hoping Blade will show up and say "real vampires don't glow" and do his thing, but I realize that is just an idle fantasy. Anyway.

Posted 1 year ago #
chacha1
Member

back to ArtGal ... thanks for the tip on editing the Unclutterer password! I never even thought about whether that red login name was a live field so I never clicked on it! Now I have my "usual" password instead of the hideous jumble the site automagically assigned to me. ... Like djk, I use one password for all non-security-conscious applications, which is most of them.

The biggest source of clutter in my life is, and has been, unfinished business. I'm working on it.

Posted 1 year ago #
badkitti
Member

I was going to say books, but I'm changing my mind : Its PAPER. I'm a secondary teacher - how much of this stuff do I need? Thankfully we're moving towards a more e-based ethos, but sometimes you do need paper. I have my summer hols soon, and I am going to oust it all!

Posted 1 year ago #

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