tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69347178367919883582024-02-19T01:48:23.296-05:00Fear of NothingToo many things, too many things to do: solutions and stories based on the book Fear of Nothing.Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.comBlogger256125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-78198027624593823992023-02-28T12:34:00.002-05:002023-02-28T12:51:55.406-05:00March of Trash 2023<p>March of Trash 2023 is about to start. This is the month-long online clutter clearing challenge. Again this year, the challenge page is at <a href="http://www.clutter.guru/marchoftrash/">http://www.clutter.guru/marchoftrash/</a>.</p>
<p>This year, there will be more content on the Take Chances Pay Attention channel on YouTube, which has a new address this year: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@takechancespayattention">https://www.youtube.com/@takechancespayattention</a>.</p>Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-80396174991879427332022-04-14T20:09:00.000-04:002022-04-14T20:09:07.730-04:00The Knee-Sprain Test<p>Part of our cultural indoctrination, one message among countless others, is the idea that there will be a period of time when conditions are not so favorable. When that happens, we are told, there will be a chance to do a few things that on a normal day you would not have time to do. This is the “rainy day” of English-language lore. And while there is a grain of truth in this idea, the opening is much smaller than we have been led to believe.</p>
<p>My favorite example for this is the extended power failure. The last time the lights went out, did you take the opportunity to wash all the windows in your home? Or did you do whatever important chore it is that does not require power? </p>
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<p>Everyone I put this question to tells me that they did something with that time, but they did not come close to catching up on everything they would have wanted to do.</p>
<p>There are other versions of this question. During an unexpected 10-hour airport delay, did you clear your email inbox? I know someone who did this on one day this year, but his story was the rare exception. I know I would not be able to do that. Given ten hours, I might be able to clear a few thousand messages, but that would come up far short of actually clearing the inbox.</p>
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My latest case in point is the experience of a sprained knee. I did not know what an inconvenience this minor injury could be until I got out of bed one Monday morning and could barely walk. Three weeks later, I still have to be strict in limiting how much walking and standing I do in the course of the day. On some days, even sitting in a chair is limited to a few hours. This, I have learned, is typical enough in knee sprain cases, which may limit ordinary activities for an average of five weeks, even though they do not require any interesting medical intervention.</p>
<p>Given a limited range of mobility for a period of weeks, unable to attempt most of my usual weekly routine, have I caught up on the things that don’t require the use of the legs? Not exactly. Not by a long shot.</p>
<p>Yes, I have caught up on some things, but I have not yet even opened some other things. I completed quarterly accounting and tax forms. I sat at my desk for many hours across several days and scanned thousands of pages of documents that are better stored in electronic form at this point. I sifted through and wrote up pages of course notes from years ago. These are big accomplishments. It is good to have them done.</p>
<p>At the same time, I have been keeping up with things that I do not always keep up with. It is now easy to find the time to do meditation and writing — for example, I wrote this blog post.</p>
<p>But after three weeks, what I have not yet done is opened the novel that is my current work in progress, about 80 percent complete and probably needing another month of effort before I can start polishing it. Nor have I opened the several online courses that I am in the middle of. That will come in a few more days, I tell myself, but my chances of finishing the courses and novel writing during this brief period of injury are nonexistent. And let’s not even talk about the 40 books that are stacked up waiting for me to find time to read. Well, I did read one, but you get the idea.</p>
<p>In gauging my progress, you have to consider the scale of the usual routine things that I have not been doing. I have been mostly unable to do gardening and housekeeping. I have cut back by more than half on shaving and showering because, yes, that amount of standing can hurt. I have not been shopping, running, or doing my usual exercises at all. I physically cannot take the trash to the street. I will have to catch up on all of these things later, when I am physically able to. With so many things I have not been doing, I have freed up an enormous amount of time, and this major reallocation is getting me only so far.</p>
<p>And that is the way it always is. It is easy to aspire to a lot of things, easy too to underestimate what they will require. </p>
<p>The lesson to learn, as always, is that life works better if you keep it in realistic proportions. Anytime you find yourself falling behind in your efforts and telling yourself you will catch up someday, it is a sign that you have taken on more than you can do. It does not matter whether the catch-up time in your story is a canceled flight, a rainy day, a power outage, or a minor illness — that time is neither as likely nor as large as you are imagining. The only way you will ever catch up is if you will admit to yourself that you can do only as much as you can do — and then start letting the other things go.
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-15462813388712481712022-03-23T18:21:00.009-04:002022-03-23T18:42:53.761-04:00Excess Supplies: Clutter in Plain Sight<p><i><a href="http://www.clutter.guru/marchoftrash/">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>The mere fact that the plastic groccery bag dispenser is filled to overflowing is a sign that something is out of balance.</p>
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<p>It’s a good idea — save plastic grocery bags out of the way in order to reuse them later. So what went wrong?</p>
<p>I got this plastic grocery bag dispenser, the one you see in the photographs, about six years ago. It is attached to the side of the refrigerator. After I got it, I quickly filled it with plastic grocery bags. The fact that I filled it at all tells you that, on average, I collect bags faster than I can use them. In fact, I have used a bag from the dispenser only about five times in six years. That’s because I always seem to have other plastic grocery bags lying around.</p>
<p>The same thing can happen with any supply that you save for reuse. Paper clips and rubber bands are the classic examples, but I have seen the same effect with scratch paper, envelopes, packing peanuts, air pillows, cardboard boxes, pens, newspapers, and other supplies.</p>
<p>The right answer in general for this situation, when a supply is piling up without any effort and this pattern will continue for the foreseeable future, is to keep only enough for a short time. Maybe you can give away the rest, but if not, you can discard them.</p>
<p>In an ideal world, these plastic grocery bags could be recycled. In practice, in my country, plastic manufacturers cannot keep up with the supply of scrap plastic available for recycling. The current state of plastic flows is that most of the polyethylene terephthalate and polypropylene beverage containers are recycled, and the remaining scrap plastic is incinerated or buried in a landfill.</p>
<p>My guess is that the dispenser, as seen in the first photo, is filled with about 200 bags, all more than five years old. The older bags might not be quite as strong as newer bags because of the effect of time on the plastic film.</p>
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<p>My first step, then, is to empty the dispenser completely, discarding the older bags it contains. Then I can place a small number of bags, enough for a month or two, into the dispenser. I can discard any others that happen to be around.</p>
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<p> The final picture shows the dispenser with 15 bags. The dispenser might look half full, but don’t be fooled; the bags are placed in more loosely, and the number is a tenth of what was there before.</p>
<p>Fifteen bags might not seem like enough, but I will get more. Anytime the dispenser looks almost full, I can feel free to throw bags away as they come in. I now know there is no need to take any effort to squeeze more bags in. </p>
<p>I can look to see if I have more opportunities to use bags of this kind, now that I know that I get them in an effectively unlimited supply. I can look for opportunities to obtain fewer bags, but that is mostly not for me to say. The number of bags coming in is determined by the policies of the stores I shop at. I am not the type of person to prod an institution the size of a retail store to change.</p>
<p>Logically, you might say that it shouldn’t matter if the dispenser is filled to the top with bags that I can’t use — it doesn’t change the size of the container. In practice, it does matter. Try taking away some of the excess supplies that you won’t realistically be able to use. Even when it doesn’t save space, you’ll find that it feels better to have the flow of materials in a state that is closer to a balance. Having excess stuff can feel like a burden. Having about the right amount of stuff makes life feel easy.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-9174996379906224302022-03-01T06:55:00.003-05:002022-03-07T18:55:54.722-05:00March of Trash 2022<p>It’s time for March of Trash — the annual challenge to create a clutter clearing habit during the month of March. To simplify the challenge, it has been all put together on one page this year. Read the details, download the daily clutter clearing prompts, and follow the action at <a href="http://www.clutter.guru/marchoftrash/">http://www.clutter.guru/marchoftrash/</a>.</p>
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<p>What is the March of Trash clutter clearing challenge? It asks you to remove one item of clutter per day for a month to create a habit of finding and removing clutter.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-30700089954807402542021-05-24T07:00:00.001-04:002021-05-24T10:07:58.071-04:00Throwing Away the Compact Fluorescent Bulbs<p>Today would be a good day to throw away those old compact fluorescent light bulbs — even if you are still using them.</p>
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<p>This suggestion goes especially for those of us in the northern temperate latitudes where the heating season is now effectively over. The waste heat from low-efficiency lighting like compact fluorescents is not wasted while you are heating the building, but the cooling season is another matter entirely. In the worst case, if you are generating large amounts of waste heat, then removing it with air conditioning, the cost of the electricity to do this for one summer can exceed the value of the light bulb.</p>
<p>My house is about one degree cooler in summer since I replaced the old low-efficiency lighting with up-to-date light bulbs. It is an easy change to notice on a hot day, and it cost essentially nothing to do.</p>
<p>If your heating season is just getting started as you read this, consider taking this step at the end of the season when summer weather arrives.</p>
<p>Current light bulb technology is about twice as efficient, and it costs less than you probably paid for the now-obsolete compact fluorescent bulbs ten years ago. Another advantage is that they are thought to last 30–50 years, which for most of us means they will still be working when we move out. Imagine a world in which, when a light bulb burns out, people say, “Now, that’s strange.”</p>
<p>The change of season is reason enough, but there is another reason to throw away all of your compact fluorescent bulbs at once. In most places, compact fluorescent bulbs cannot be placed in the trash. That is because of the toxic chemicals they contain. To throw them away, you may have to take them somewhere, as guided by local government web pages. As long as you have to make a special trip, you may as well be done with it in one trip.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-3095510275944934792021-04-01T16:03:00.001-04:002021-04-01T16:03:28.602-04:00Marching Shoes of Trash<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
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<p>What if clutter could put on marching shoes and march out of the house on its own?</p>
<p>That’s almost what it’s like when you reach the point of perfect clarity about what things you want to keep and where your life is going.</p>
<p>If you knew exactly what stays and what goes, it would still be a chore to carry out the things that don’t stay — but this work is just a matter of some hours, bags, gloves, and sweat. It is not so hard compared to the decisions you have to make.</p>
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<p>You approach this level of clarity about your stuff only with practice. Whenever you take time to take on clutter, remember that your results are measured not only in the amount of clutter removed and space cleared. Even more important, especially as you are getting started, is the clarity you gain.</p>
<p>Clearing and clarity tend to go together. As you take one item away, it is easier to see the items that remain. Most likely you will have to clear away some of your stuff to reach a good level of clarity on what remains. But clarity is good regardless of how you arrive at it.</p>
<p>At the end of a clutter clearing effort, celebrate the new space and the improved look, and also what you’ve learned about your possessions and yourself. It is the clarity you gain that will make the remaining work easier.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-81905187597981399302021-03-29T21:13:00.001-04:002021-03-29T21:14:08.794-04:00Bulk Item Day<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>For many of us, bulk item day is near the end of the month. Props to anyone who took the opportunity to rid their house of something large and unneeded.</p>
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<p>Like this one.</p>
<p>The photo came with a note: “Usually when people put old furniture out for trash it disappears within a short amount of time. Not in this case.”</p>
<p>If it’s encouraging when someone takes your bulk item and puts it to use in their own house, it’s also validating if it’s still there to be picked up by the trash haulers. <i>No one in town wanted it. It can’t have been worth much.</i> Sometimes just seeing the item in full daylight makes you glad it’s on the way out.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-12748791719397939042021-03-20T17:06:00.000-04:002021-03-20T17:06:19.465-04:004 Stuck-at-Home Emotions as Prompts for Clutter Clearing<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>Many of us are stuck at home more than usual this season, and this can be an opportune time to clear clutter from the home. Some of the unpleasant emotions of being stuck in a place involuntarily can help you focus on different parts of your clutter. I explore four of these emotions below. When you recognize these emotional reactions in yourself, you can think of them as prompts to clear clutter of specific kinds or in specific places.</p>
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<h3>1. Constricted</h3>
<p><i>What this feels like:</i> The rooms you are in feel like a poor substitute for the wide world outside. It feels like the world got smaller. This leaves you wanting room to move and space for things to happen. To tell how much this feeling is affecting you, notice how often your thoughts are turning to a wish for space, adventure, the sky, the horizon, and traveling across distance.</p>
<p><i>Clutter clearing focus:</i> Create space for yourself. Clear out anything that is crowding hallways, doorways, or any place where you walk. Clear counters, table tops, your desk, your inbox, or any working surfaces. Consider taking away large wall decorations that look heavy or are in shadowy colors, to create the illusion of open space.</p>
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<h3>2. Heavy</h3>
<p><i>What this feels like:</i> It’s hard to get started on most things. It seems easier to sit and wait.</p>
<p><i>Clutter clearing focus:</i> It may be the weight of the clutter that is getting you down. Remove large and heavy objeccts that aren’t being used, along with anything that has stayed in the same spot for a year or long enough to get dusty. Look for ways to place things that have bright colors in a more visible place for a few days to create the feeling of freshness. Considering bringing in a few local flowers or produce to provide a focal point for fresh energy.</p>
<h3>3. Bored</h3>
<p><i>What this feels like:</i> It’s hard to get interested in anything. Everything is gray. Anything you look at seems like you have seen it before.</p>
<p><i>Clutter clearing focus:</i> If you are bored in your own home, it is helpful to recognize how unnatural this is. You created the environment, so in theory, there should be no end of things for you to do there.</p>
<p>Probably there are plenty of things to do, but it is hard to see them. Instead, you keep seeing things you don’t want to do. Try to remove or hide games you wouldn’t want to play, books you read that weren’t that good, things that don’t work, and anything else that has outlived its usefulness. Get rid of clothes that don’t fit. Store away out-of-season clothes in boxes or in a place where you won’t see them. Clear counters and tables so that you have space to create something new. Pick one thing to repair or one project to press ahead on and finish so that you can get it out of the way and free up more space. When the old and tired things are no longer dominating the space, you’ll find that your surroundings aren’t as dull as they had looked.</p>
<h3>4. Crowded</h3>
<p><i>What this feels like:</i> It is hard to find space for yourself. Everywhere you turn, you see of other people’s ideas, decisions, efforts, and arrangements more than your own.</p>
<p><i>Clutter clearing focus:</i> Your surrondings have to reflect the unique person you are — and that doesn’t require a makeover for the whole house. Start with a small space, no more than half a room, that is most personally connected to you or most distinctly yours. Make this space a reflection of your personality. Do this mainly by taking away things that are not a good reflection of your ideals, values, and style. These things are there because of other people’s opinions, social pressure, or cultural epectations. Keep only the things that are valuable to you. Especially remove any passive-aggressive gifts from relatives. Those are the ones that were meant to carry the message that you shouldn’t be the way you are. When you’re done, this area should look like it could only belong to you.</p>
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<p>There is a time-honored tradition, illustrated in the Hermit card of the tarot, that supports using time away from the world to become a truer reflection of who you are. The emotions that, on the surface, seem to be waiting for the day when you can go back out into the world may also be nudging you to make a shift within yourself, and that is a journey that might start with a new look at your material possessions.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-6268027191240295852021-03-15T07:00:00.001-04:002021-04-09T15:35:18.587-04:00Time to Clean the Desk<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBLjoife789pG2Bn6tAnTdNSX_WwO6HMb1rA8rP-ALoT01RJcCipqPSFPhhLMD-_19XHlSRqWszn7let3OXKuEqlzoWmehAoTeiGrmPd6BrU8SYWT1SCMIH5EmhQkiLxaeT8k8Ig9SwgQ/s0/marchoftrash-desk-366.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="desk" border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBLjoife789pG2Bn6tAnTdNSX_WwO6HMb1rA8rP-ALoT01RJcCipqPSFPhhLMD-_19XHlSRqWszn7let3OXKuEqlzoWmehAoTeiGrmPd6BrU8SYWT1SCMIH5EmhQkiLxaeT8k8Ig9SwgQ/s0/marchoftrash-desk-366.jpg"/></a></div>
<p>When it’s long past time to clean the desk, where do you start?</p>
<p>You may have to start at the top. The only practical way to clear a desk is to consider items in the order that they are in. Any other approach would risk ending up in a bigger mess than you see already.</p>
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<p>To say it another way, the desk has turned into an in-box.</p>
<p>Pull items off the top and put them in categories as well as you can: general interest, future projects, documents to keep, action required, urgent action required. Your categies will likely be different, depending on the purpose of the desk.</p>
<p>The main goal at this initial stage may be to find that last category. Is there something due yesterday, today, or tomorrow?</p>
<p>Paper clips may be essential as you remove papers from the desk to put them in boxes. Some papers lose much of their meaning when separated from the papers around them. The most familiar example of this is a bill and its accompanying return envelope. It is harder to mail a check to pay the bill if you do not know where the envelope is. Paper clips allow you to keep the bill and envelope together as you toss them in a box.</p>
<p>The recurring mistake in desk clearing, as in clutter in general, is keeping too many aspirational things. They look interesting, but in the end, you don’t have time to pick them up. If you end up with a box full of announcements and magazines, that is surely too many. If that box is untouched a month later, you might as well throw the whole thing away. Get out ahead of this scenario by throwing the most marginal things away sooner, as soon as you pick them up from the desk.</p>
<p>More than any other form of clutter, a messy desk is a sign of time pressure. Work piles up precisely because the capacity to do the work is not as large as you had planned. After your desk is clear again, look for ways to reduce the work coming in so that you don’t find a new backlog piling up on the desk.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-61930815251044822922021-03-05T12:30:00.001-05:002021-03-05T12:30:44.280-05:00Clearing Clutter to Save Time<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>If you are busy every day, the time pressure changes your clutter clearing priorities.</p>
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<p>The most common mistake people make when taking on clutter is to focus most of their effort on making things look better. It’s true that clutter can look awful, but it is unlikely that you are facing anything so ugly as being inder time pressure day after day.</p>
<p>If you are busy, you already don’t have much time for clutter on any given day. When you can look at clutter, look for the changes you can make that will save you time in the short run.</p>
<p>All clutter is an obstacle eventually in one way or another, so all clutter clearing fress up time in the future — but some clutter clearing can free up time sooner. It makes a difference today, tomorrow, or next week. It can reduce the pressure you may have come to take for granted as part of your routine. </p>
<ol>
<li>First look for anything you know you need today or in the near future. Among all your clutter clearing objectives, these are the ones you know you have to do. Anytime things are missing among your stuff, that is a clutter problem. Feel free to address other clutter you find as you are searching, but avoid getting so caught up in the things you find that you forget that you are looking for something with a deadline attached.</li>
<li>Next, look at the items that present the greatest obstacles as you move about during the day. If there is one particularly time of day that is especially busy or stressful for you, pay special attention to obstacles that could slow you down during that time. </li>
<li>See what you can do about anything that is a frequent nuisance. The routine obstacles that steal the largest amount of itme from us can become invisible to us just because they are so routine, so try to take an objective or outsider point of view to find these recurring obstacles. Look for ways to streamline things so that you do not lose time unnecessarily on small recurring problems that could easily be solved.</li>
</ol>
<p>This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to clutter, but try not to venture very deep into the rest of your clutter at this point. Do the things you can in your clutter to relieve the pressure on your time, and then you will have more time to look at the other clutter. </p>
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Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-9246294531830181842021-03-03T10:00:00.001-05:002021-03-03T10:00:56.417-05:00Home As a Place of Power<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>Your home could be your primary place of power. If it doesn’t feel like it, the likely obstacle is clutter. Possessions you aren’t using don’t add anything to your feeling of power or your productivity. Instead, they sap your energy. To boost your power and the sense of power that you associate with home, remove some of the unused possessions.</p>
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<p>Many of us are currently spending more time at home and have more time on our hands than usual. If this is you, then now is the perfect time to improve your home by clearing clutter.</p>
<p>If you find yourself spending most of your time at home doig things that don’t really require any space, that is a sign that your home is not as productive as it could be. You need space to do the more important and interesting things you want to do. Clear space and get things moving again by clearing clutter.</p>
<p>View this full message in an 11-minute video on the Take Chances Pay Attention channel: <a href="https://youtu.be/A5ADoZyehAQ" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/A5ADoZyehAQ</a></p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-4256550517022698732021-02-28T18:46:00.005-05:002021-02-28T19:52:51.123-05:00March of Trash 2021<p>Many of us have extra time on our hands and have been spending more time than usual at home, wondering what to do. If this is you, then of course this is the ideal time to improve your living conditions by taking away the excess stuff from your surroundings. </p>
<p>At its core, clutter clearing is so simple it almost doesn’t require an explanation. The excess stuff is essentially anything you don’t use. Take this away, and you free up more space for yourself. With less clutter, you are likely to be healthier, happier, and more productive.</p>
<p>Clutter clearing is not usually quite so simple in practice, and that is where the <a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> clutter clearing challenge comes in. Download and print the <a href="http://clutter.guru/marchoftrash/marchoftrash-scorecard-2021.png" target="_blank">official scorecard</a> to add some structure to the challenge and provide a way to track your progress.</p>
<p>The objective of the March of Trash clutter clearing challenge is to make clutter clearing a habit. If you can spend a few minutes on clutter every day for a month, then it’s likely you can continue that effort and eventually live a life unencumbered by clutter. Just downlaed the the <a href="http://clutter.guru/marchoftrash/marchoftrash-scorecard-2021.png" target="_blank">March of Trash 2021 clutter clearing challenge scorecard</a> to get started, and check back here throughout the month for regular advice and guidance on clutter.</p>Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-69764914033523788822020-04-04T10:18:00.002-04:002020-04-04T10:22:46.790-04:00Breaking the Shopping Habit While Isolating<p>Stuck at home with stores closed by a state of emergency, you might just forget to do any shopping. Or if the shopping bug keeps bugging you, now is an especially easy time to break that pattern.</p>
<p>During the coronavirus lockdown in effect as I write this, I know of many people who have stopped buying most of the things that they would ordinarily be shopping for. My own purchases in the last month have been limited to food, with a few exceptions in the category of entertainment. Most routine shopping, it seems, has simply been forgotten.</p>
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<p>Statistics bear this out. Though some purchases that might have been made in stores have shifted to online sellers while stores are closed, total e-commerce sales are below normal. Auto sales numbers are half of what they were before. Retailers and manufacturers are adjusting their strategies. Most sales and promotions have been canceled or adjusted. Scheduled product launches have been postponed in the hope of getting more attention or a smoother rollout at a later date.</p>
<p>If you happen to think of shopping while you are isolating at home, one of the first things you may notice is how easy it is to postpone most purchases. The key exceptions are food and cleaning, which are as important as ever, but almost anything else can be postponed for another week.</p>
<p>To put my own experience in context, I compared my current pattern to my “shopping moratorium” month of April 2018, when I resolved not to spend any money at all if I could avoid it, and also not to spend any time shopping. Even with the exceptions I made, it took an effort at first to turn my attention away from shopping. By contrast, this month, with no rules and no plan, I am shopping even less. April is just getting started, but in the first four days I have not spent any money at all, and I am not due to go for groceries again for at least another week. I may be writing checks for income taxes when I work through those forms later today, but otherwise, there are no other payments to make in the next week or two. In March, though I was still leaving the house for work in the first half of the month, I was already dialing back my shopping, so that I made only five store visits in the entire month along with three post office visits and two gas station stops.</p>
<p>If you are like a lot of people isolating this month, you sort of miss shopping, but if you look at an online store, there is no spark there. In my opinion, this is perfectly normal and rational. If you already have clothing, it will last for a few months at home. Shoes especially don’t get the same wear and tear if you are not going out in the world, so they will last longer than you would normally expect. When no one sees what you are wearing, clothing loses some of its importance anyway. It has been an a-ha moment for me to realize how many of my purchases were meant to make an impression or help me navigate the outside world. It doesn’t matter so much when I am at home and no one is seeing me 99 percent of the time.</p>
<p>Postponing online purchases is socially responsible too. If you don’t want to put warehouse and delivery workers at risk during a pandemic for something you bought only because you were bored, there is nothing wrong with that kind of reticence.</p>
<p>If breaking the shopping habit is devilishly hard at first, practice postponing. At least put off that purchase until tomorrow. Treat that as a win even if you end up making the purchase. When you can delay by four days, you’ll find that even the most glittery shopping trance is broken, and you can continue to put off the purchase indefinitely. To make postponing purchases easier, turn off any shopping convenience features you previously enabled. One-click ordering? It takes only a few clicks to turn it off. A clothing subscription service? Canceling is almost as easy as signing up was.</p>
<p>If you are looking for something constructive to shop for from the isolation of home, here are a few suggestions:</p>
<ul>
<li><i>Cleaning supplies.</i> As long as you are spending so much time at home, you may as well make your home as clean as it has ever been. Getting all the dust out is good for the health of your lungs and would tend make it easier for you to survive the latest virus of concern. Of course, this means, after the cleaning supplies arrive, spend hours putting them to use.</li>
<li><i>Prescription drugs.</i> Delivery could be less reliable at the height of a pandemic, so look at any prescriptions drugs you depend on, and try to have them on hand well before you need them.</li>
<li><i>Comfortable clothes.</i> This is only for a few people reading this, but if you find that all of your clothes are selected to impress and you don’t have the kind of clothes that you like just because of the way they feel, then this would be a good time to cover that gap in your wardrobe.</li>
<li><i>USB headset.</i> Are you suddenly attending lots of business meetings from home? A comfortable plug-in or wireless headset with high-quality sound makes the transition easier.</li>
<li><i>Exercise mat.</i> In theory, exercise doesn’t require any equipment at all, only focus and intention, but you are more likely to do those floor exercises if you are not putting your full weight directly on a hard floor or carpet.</li>
<li><i>Magical items.</i> If you realize that a certain bell, incense, figurine, or symbol will add power to your meditation or prayers for protection, this is not the time to hold back. Troubled times make spiritual strength and safety more important than they were already.</li>
<li><i>Cooking.</i> If you find yourself having restaurant food delivered just because cooking seems hard, then any equipment that will make cooking feel easy is a good investment. A high-quality pan costs less than one restaurant meal, and in a pandemic, fewer deliveries mean fewer points of contact.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you feel like you need to do some shopping, try to avoid buying anything for the indefinite future. A time of maximum uncertainty is the worst time to commit to a specific future timeline for yourself. The clothes you buy might not fit when you finally have a chance to wear them, or your style or plans could change. Conversely, everything will be easier to get after the crisis is over.</p>
<p>When you do get things delivered, hold on to the boxes. Fill them up with the things you want to donate when the donation centers reopen — you are doing some clutter clearing while you are spending so much time at home, aren’t you? Stack up the boxes in a corner somewhere, and you have done most of the hard work of clutter clearing. When the time comes, it will just be a matter of taking the boxes to the place where they need to go.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-22884876416739853702020-03-31T19:13:00.001-04:002020-03-31T19:13:38.718-04:00Gains From Clearing Clutter<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>One of the reasons clearing clutter can feel difficult, and why we may rely on March of Trash to focus our efforts, is that the emphasis is on taking things away. It can feel like a loss even though the physical thing you are losing is something you were never going to use. You get a more meaningful sense of what you accomplish when you can reframe clutter clearing in terms of what you have gained.</p>
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<p>In physical terms you gain space and light, but it goes beyond that. Many people get a good feeling just from seeing that they have followed through on their plans and produced the outcome they had in mind, but the impact of clutter clearing persists longer than the glow of success.</p>
<p>Take some time to take in what you have gained by clearing clutter, whether it is freedom of action, a new strength of focus, or the relief at leaving the past behind. Think about what the effort and the results say about you as a person. Clutter clearing may have strengthened your sense of self or given you more confidence. You might feel more ready for what is coming next. These are just examples — notice whatever it is that comes up for you. </p>
<p>When you let go of one thing, you make room for something else. This is a necessary part of the rhythm of life — to make room for the things you really want, you <i>must</i> let go of the things you don’t really want. That is ultimately what decluttering is about. </p>
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Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-37932990868571111542020-03-29T13:33:00.001-04:002020-03-29T13:34:23.658-04:00Family Time: The Ambiguous Clutter<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>There is a side of decluttering that is so problematic that I hardly ever mention it — but now is the time.</p>
<p>When you share a space with multiple other people — which usually means your family — ambiguous situations can arise around some of the stuff in the space. Whose stuff is it? You can’t always tell by looking at something who owns it or whose responsibility it is. When this happens, the easiest course of action is to leave the stuff generally where it is. Over time, this stuff can build up.</p>
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<p>This can be difficult to solve because the best answer, as labor-intensive as it is, is to get everyone together to share information and come to a resolution around each area of ambiguity. That could require having the whole family at home at the same time, with time to spare — but what disaster would ever make those conditions come about?</p>
<p>Well, actually, any disaster that isn’t so damaging that the lights go out has that potential. The more boring a disaster is, the more likely it is that everyone will agree to spend some time looking at clutter. The current global disaster, a pandemic that has millions of families isolating at home, is almost tailor-made for a clutter-clearing initiative.</p>
<p>There is no need to be afraid of having to mediate a series of heated disputes in which two people claim an interest in the same stuff and can’t agree on what should be done with it. That could happen, but it is the rare exception, and when it occurs, it can be left for later. It is more important to get through the usual situation around ambiguous clutter, which is that no one is entirely sure how the situation came about and no one has strong opinions or is particularly eager to take ownership of the things involved. After coming to a collective understanding of what is there, those things can be cleared away in one way or another.</p>
<p>Imagine, as an example, a partially assembled jigsaw puzzle that has been languishing for a week. It may be that one person volunteers to complete the puzzle. Afterward, the completed puzzle can be left on the table for most of a day so that everyone can admire it, and then put away.</p>
<p>It is common enough that no one has any idea where an item came from or why it is there. It might not even belong to anyone in the family. Or perhaps its owner is in the room but doesn’t remember bringing it home. A visitor might have left it behind. Regardless of the details, as soon as everyone has shared their knowledge and opinions about an item, it is usually easy to come to a consensus about where the item should go next.</p>
<p>If time is not pressing, then it is important to respect everyone’s emotional limits around clutter clearing. The person who is most eager to clear away the clutter is rarely the one whose eyes are glazing over after ten minutes. Instead of pushing those who are in distress to carry on until the work is done or someone has a traumatic breakdown, it is better to bring things to a stop relatively soon after someone is seized with fatigue or emotional resistance. I would rather see a family go through their ambiguous clutter in twelve ten-minutes sessions spread out over three weeks than in an intensive half-day ordeal in which one person has to drag the more reluctant participants through an increasingly difficult process punctuated by complaints and arguments. The short sessions are more productive in any case.</p>
<p>Be patient, but find a way to clarify the ambiguous clutter in the house when the opportunity arises. Living a life surrounded by clutter that no one can do anything about can eventually lead to feelings of helplessness around life in general. Everyone will feel better with that part of the clutter taken away.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-90240232568004184622020-03-24T08:00:00.000-04:002020-03-24T12:25:54.063-04:00Decluttering While Self-Isolating at Home: Seek Balance<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>This post is especially for people who are home alone for a period of time and using the time to clear clutter.</p>
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<p>Currently, more people than ever are home for weeks at a time. Official policy in dozens of countries is encouraging people to stay home to minimize the impact of a pandemic. Staying home frees up time that can be used to clear clutter, but the unusual circumstance of staying home for weeks on end calls for a few adjustments in approach.</p>
<p>Moderation is the key. In a setting where most hard deadlines have vanished, it can be tempting to think that you can put any given task off until the next day, but decluttering is easiest if you start today. On the other hand, if you have a large block of time open, it can be tempting to imagine that you can go through all of your clutter in a few days. It is better if you go more gradually and work within your physical and emotional limits.</p>
<p>There are two kinds of physical limits to be especially careful of in this situation. If you have been working at a desk for years on end, you cannot suddenly go to moving 40 boxes of stuff in the attic in a day without some physical complaints. Yes, each box is not too heavy, but there is a cumulative effect of lifting and carrying one box after another. Ideally, stop before you get sore. Dust is another physical factor to consider. Anytime you deal with things that have not moved for a long time, you can expect to breathe in some dust. Dust weakens your lungs and causes fatigue, so limit how much dust you take in in one day. Wear a dust mask if appropriate. Some kind of dust protection is almost mandatory if you are visiting an attic for the first time in more than a year. Even wearing a dust mask, you will still inhale some dust and still need to limit your dust exposure.</p>
<p>The emotional limits of clutter clearing are less obvious — until you run into them, that is. Clutter clearing requires a person to make a large number of rational decisions one after another. “Rational” just means that you must weigh one consideration against another to arrive at a conclusion. Though we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, in fact there is a surprisingly low limit on the rational decisions a human brain can deliver in a short time without suffering ill effects, which can include mental fatigue, nausea, and emotional distress. In ordinary daily life, we never run into these limits, but they pop up when you start trying to assess your possessions by the hundreds. Some decisions are harder than others, so this is not just a matter of numbers. Get to know your limits, and don’t try to push past them.</p>
<p>Where I live, the donation centers are closed, so this is not the best time to focus on what you can donate. It is not a good time to sell anything either — buyers mostly aren’t looking, and the special challenge of delivering items anywhere while maintaining a useful level of isolation is reason enough to wait. However, when you find valuable things that you no longer want, you can always box, label, and set aside items to donate or sell later.</p>
<p>Being home alone changes the meaning of clothing. I find that I am wearing the stained and torn items that in other times I would pass over. I wouldn’t suggest wearing clothes that you really don’t like or that are uncomfortably loose or tight, but there may be clothes that you can wear only when you don’t have to worry about what others would think. As long as you are not currently shopping, then clearing out your wardrobe might be a lesser priority at this point. </p>
<p>Look at the possessions you haven’t used just because you haven’t had time. This might include cooking equipment, for example, if you usually don’t have time to cook for yourself. Realistically, now is the time to cook, assuming you are able to get the ingredients you need. If after a few weeks of isolation you haven’t used your cooking gear, then realistically, you probably never will use it, and you can safely let it go. The same logic applies in any other category where time has been a constraint. If now you can’t get out to the gym and have plenty of time to exercise at home, but you still aren’t using the exercise equipment you have been saving, then you may never use them.</p>
<p>You don’t have to just assume that an item has lost its appeal. Take an hour to dust off the exercise bike and see if it still works. Get out the flute you played in high school and see if you can still play. Then see how you feel about these things the next day. If you find that you’re ready to ride another mile on the bike and play another melody on the flute, then maybe these are things that went unused only because you underestimated yourself.</p>
<p>There are those who seek out extended periods of time alone, and often this is for the chance to reinvent themselves. Alone, it is easier to take on a new sense of self and a new way of looking at life. You can make the changes more easily when there is no one around to push back. You can take this time to make a change in your life even if the time alone was not entirely voluntary. If no one will see you for a few weeks, then they will expect and accept a degree of change when they eventually do see you. Changing the material possessions that you have around you can be part of this process of personal change. Clear out the old to make room for the new.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-62631761930825679392020-03-22T13:00:00.000-04:002020-03-22T13:27:34.095-04:00Stuck at Home and Facing Clutter<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>This month, many people find themselves stuck in an unfamiliar place. They are at home, that is, and not just for a moment but for days at a time without the possibility of rushing out on a series of errands or to some other happier destination. People are almost forced to look around and see what their possessions are, and they may not be happy about what they see.</p>
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<p>If this is you, the best thing you can do for yourself is to get out of the feeling of misfortune and then see what you can make of the situation. If you are distressed at having to stay at home for more than eight hours at a time, so that you cannot just sleep through it, I encourage you to look at the clutter around you — the material possessions that ideally would not be there because they are not being used. Why spend this unexpected time looking at clutter? Here are ten reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>Clutter is likely a big part of the reason why you spend so little time at home. The harsh energy of clutter may be the main thing that drives you out of the house so quickly.</li>
<li>Clutter could be the first thing causing the distress you feel at having to stay at home all day. Being stuck anywhere can be difficult for many reasons, but if your home is a difficult place to be, it is because of an imbalance that is right there in the home.</li>
<li>If you have not spent much time at home for a long time, that is proof enough that many of the possessions that you have stashed away at home are not really part of your life. That is even more likely if you are staring out the window or looking for a movie on TV instead of eagerly reading every book you have saved to read later and repairing everything that is broken. If now is not the time, then the time to use your possessions will never arrive.</li>
<li>If you have time to spare, then that gives you a chance to address your unused possessions — a gift of time that is more rare and valuable than it probably seems.</li>
<li>Even if you are required to stay in a state of isolation, you can still take out the trash. (Remember to wash hands after touching the handles that give you access to the place or container where you put the trash.)</li>
<li>Reducing the clutter at home will make the place look and feel better, so that you will not feel so anxious at having to stay home. Reduce the clutter enough, and you can create a feeling of openness that can make you feel that you are on vacation even if the underlying reality is that you are obligated to stay home.</li>
<li>Reducing the clutter also reduces the dust, which will improve the health of everyone present. Having less dust specifically improves lung capacity, which is especially important at a time when the world is dealing with a disease that affects the lungs.</li>
<li>Taking on any specific challenge, including clutter, takes your attention away from news reports and other information coming from distant places, places where you do not currently have much influence. Focusing on what you can do can take you away from an emotional state of anxiety and powerlessness and make you feel like you are in charge of your own life.</li>
<li>Clutter is something you can address with small visible results every day. The visible change tells you that things are getting better. That may be the opposite of what the news is telling you.</li>
<li>Clearing clutter can create the space for something else you want to do while you are staying at home.</li>
</ul>
<p>Even if spending time at home is not so unfamiliar, the extra time at home during a period of isolation is time you can put to work improving your home environment by cleaning house.</p>
<p>A period of social distancing might not be the best time to sell or donate things, but there is still a lot you can do. Throw away things that no one will ever use. Repair things that cannot be used until they are repaired, if the repairs are something you can do with the materials on hand. Finish projects that were left incomplete, perhaps because you previously didn’t have time. Reexamine the way things or stored, or consider whether things that have been in boxes for years are still needed. Do the labor-intensive cleaning chores that you might not otherwise have time to do.</p>
<p>Try to get away from the question of when things will get back to normal. It is always more powerful to focus on what you can do today. Do as much as you can today, and tomorrow, you will find that you can do something more. </p>Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-68074878067998298592020-03-21T16:00:00.000-04:002020-03-21T16:00:06.482-04:00Human Impact and Clutter<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>It is a valid approach for most decisions to ask what the human impact will be, and decisions around clutter are no exception.</p>
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<p>While there are endless ways that clutter can have a negative impact on someone, I will list three general categories that come up often.</p>
<ul>
<li><i>Physical and emotional obstacles.</i> If it is hard to walk around a room, or if it takes attention or special effort to go past a specific object, that’s a problem. A room that you set up for yourself or that you invite other people to be in should be as effortless as you can make it so that people can do the things that they are trying to do or the activities that the room is meant to hold. It is a similar thing if something looks like a physical obstacle, so that people have to slow down or take a second look to be sure that they can proceed safely. Anything that you or others want to avoid looking at or thinking about uses up the energy in a room in a similar way.</li>
<li><i>Hazards.</i> Almost every material possessions represents at least one kind of hazard. As three familiar examples, perhaps an item can burn, break, or be tripped over. All three will be true of most manufactured products, but some items represent a far greater risk than others, and it may depend on where an item is. As an extreme example, a glass vase placed on a windowsill is likely to yield broken glass and spilled water someday after a strong gust of wind. </li>
<li><i>Embarrassment.</i> You may have possessions that don’t represent you well. These are things you hope no one notices. They clash with your character or with the way you want to be seen.</li>
</ul>
<p>Ask what the total impact of an item is. If an item makes you worry about what might happen, it might be better not to have that item. There are other ways that the downside of a possession may exceed its upside. One way to ask the question is to consider whether you feel lighter or the room feels lighter with the item removed. If so, that may be an item that you are better off without.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-19571728865230749192020-03-10T18:00:00.000-04:002020-03-10T18:00:01.717-04:00Consider the Energy<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>Some of the things you own just don’t feel good to have, even if you use them for something important. There is something off in their energy.</p>
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<p>The most common way this can happen is that there is energy put into the object by a previous owner, the person who gave it to you, or the business that sold it. Like cigarette smoke on a secondhand blanket, this creates an energetic shadow over the item that drags on the energy of anyone who comes near it.</p>
<p>Your thoughts about where something came from and your own history with the item naturally affect the way you feel about the item. Strike out too many times with the same baseball bat, and you might well be looking for a different bat, even if you can’t prove there is anything wrong with the bat itself. A beautiful gift that came from a difficult person may not look so beautiful to you. The item you bought in a crisis situation may have a feeling around it that comes from the crisis, and that feeling could be triumph or despair depending on the precise sequence of emotions and events you experienced.</p>
<p>If something you own has a negative association — whenever you see it, it reminds you of something you would rather not be faced with — then you might not be the right person to own that item. Even if it doesn’t seem fully rational in an economic sense, you could be better off giving away the phone that once belonged to your ex-boyfriend and buying a new one. A person who doesn’t know the story behind the item can use it without facing the emotional weight that it might hold for you.</p>
<p>Sometimes the brand of a product takes on new meaning after you buy it. Cool becomes uncool, a previously reliable brand turns dodgy, or the celebrity designer of a product is convicted of a heinous crime and goes off to jail. If you tell yourself “it’s still the same product that it was when I bought it” but you worry anyway, consider whether you could get a happier replacement item. Few material possessions are so important that they are worth worrying over.</p>
<p>More prosaically, many products eventually show so much wear and tear that you don’t like them anymore. I remember replacing a chair after a board had broken off one side. The chair still functioned, but the way it looked did not inspire confidence, and confidence matters when you are asking a person to sit on a piece of furniture.</p>
<p>It is not always enough to ask whether something still functions and whether you can use it. If a thing bothers you or you don’t like to look at it, that could be a sign that you will feel better after replacing it with something different.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-3524343287316778752020-03-08T19:00:00.000-04:002020-03-08T19:00:14.150-04:00Clutter Clearing Reveals More Clutter<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>Clutter clearing is ultimately not very complicated but it can be a little tricky. One of the surprises in clutter clearing is that you can remove all the clutter from a specific place, such as a shelf or a drawer, only to return the next day or the next week and find more.</p>
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<p>This effect can come about in a purely material sense. Maybe the extra hairbrush you removed from the bathroom was covering an empty toothpaste tube. You remove the hairbrush, but when you go back, you see whatever was hidden under or behind the item you just removed.</p>
<p>The more important effect, though, is psychological. When you remove a little clutter, it changes your view of yourself. You no longer see yourself as someone who keeps material possessions unnecessarily, to quite the same extent as before. Then, when you see your possessions the next day, some of them no longer live up to your new idea of yourself. </p>
<p>Another way of looking at this is that any given moment, some of your possessions are the most incongruous, or the ones that just don’t fit. When you get rid of a few possessions that “obviously” don’t belong, it makes it that much more obvious that a few other possessions don’t belong.</p>
<p>One of the most persistent illusions in clutter clearing is the illusion that you’re done. It’s never as simple as it looks on any given day. Go back the next day. Go back five days later. You’ll find more. Plan on working a little at a time and going back to look again.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-54068104636718233552020-03-05T21:00:00.000-05:002020-03-05T21:00:01.050-05:00Two Starting Points<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>It is well known that clutter makes a bad first impression, but this effect is more important in specific places. In this post I focus on the two points of view that I think are most important when looking at your possessions:</p>
<ul>
<li>The things you see when you first open your eyes in the morning</li>
<li>What you and your visitors see as you enter the front door</li>
</ul>
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<p>There is no substitute for going to these specific places and seeing what is most visible from these specific angles. Sit or lie on the bed. Close your eyes and imagine the start of a day. Open your eyes. What kind of impression do you get from the first things you see?</p>
<p>Similarly, stand one step inside the front door. You might even turn out the light and turn it on the way you do when you are entering. What are the first things you see from this spot? What items make the largest impression? What kind of feeling does this point of view give you about the place you are entering?</p>
<p>Moving things around is not the ultimate answer to clutter, but it is always something to consider from these two particular vantage points. There are some things you will probably decide you need to have, but they are not so pleasant that you want them to be the first things you see.</p>
<p>Tools in general, but especially cutting tools and cleaning tools, are better kept out of sight, at least for these two starting points. These tools embody destructive power as part of their essential nature and need to be approached with care. There is a corresponding degree of stress, or at least respect, when you see one of these tools. You feel more confident and more relaxed if they are not the first thing you see.</p>
<p>There are similar considerations with anything that is broken or that represents a hazard. These are the kinds of things you can look to remove from a place that is in the line of sight of the bed or front door.</p>
<p>Look at everything you can see from these two starting points and decide how best to improve what you see. The view from your bed is important because it can affect the way you see your whole day. It may also help to determine the quality of your sleep if you are seeing the same things as you are falling asleep at night. The view as you enter the front door affects the way you understand your place in the world, and it has a similar effect on the way others view you. The comparison between your personal appearance and the views from these two places has a lot to do with whether you see yourself as “the real deal” or a phony, and it affects others’ view of you in a similar way.</p>
<p>Again, you cannot discover the clutter in these places by looking in your imagination. Actually go to the bed and the front door and see how much clutter you can find.</p>
<p></p>Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-13461108440651570892020-03-03T18:54:00.001-05:002020-03-03T18:54:48.496-05:00Not Photo Quality<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<p>Just looking around a room, you will see a few things that you want to remove, hide, or improve. </p>
<p>Once you’ve finished with those, you might think that the room is as good as you want it to be. But don’t stop there. Take a few photos of the room. In the photos, you will see more things to change — and especially, more clutter that you want to remove.</p>
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<p>Why does this work? How is it possible that you can see clutter in a photograph that you missed a minute before, looking with the naked eye?</p>
<p>It is not really a magical property of the camera. In truth, any change in perspective shows you something different, and this is especially true when it comes to clutter. Look from a different angle, with different lighting, or in a different mood, and you will see something different. Ask a different person to look at the same room, and they will see something different than what you see.</p>
<p>There is a specific psychological effect in play with photographs, though. When you see a photograph, even a photograph of your own room, you are likely to compare it mentally to other photographs. You’ll start to compare your room to the photographic ideal of a room. Many of the images in the back of your mind are from commercial photographs that don’t even depict real rooms. The rooms may be photo studios, TV studios, furniture showrooms, or other places put together by designers to make an emotional impression. Just by the nature of that work, the rooms in photographs will tend to be less cluttered than a real room.</p>
<p>That’s the main reason why, when you see your room in a photograph, you suddenly see it in a different light.</p>
<p>Use that trick to your advantage. Use it when you need to raise your expectations. These days it costs nothing to take a photograph, so take lots of photographs of your rooms. If they look awful, delete them before anyone else sees them — but also improve the room so that it looks better when people see it, and so that it looks better in the next photograph you take.</p>
<p>You see lots of photographs of rooms in which literally everything is new. Your stuff might suddenly look dingy by comparison. Don’t overreact to that effect — you wouldn’t want to live in a place where everything is brand new — but consider what improvements you could make to the things that look especially bad in a photo.</p>
<p>After you have made some of these improvements, take new photos, and imagine showing these photos to someone. Just imagining someone else looking at the same photo is enough to give you another perspective and lead you to more changes.</p>
<p>Photography is just another way to change your perspective so that you can see something new. Use photos to find clutter that went unnoticed when you were looking with your own eyes.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-55150624314864608062020-03-01T11:56:00.000-05:002020-03-01T15:07:23.204-05:00The Less Obvious Junk<p><i><a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.</i></p>
<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEeY0uTITkucCnvG_l1f15CBaPE8uIC_9_DcCKNjkZuD684rg0BJQ2MVeSC6Vn-LoS79-Z2g9BbFBjr1spkIWH_-8GSVgXRUZwaVEMDZsMlXmqghdmGMNrfWOOGrpg6UUyWyjcMn1e67Q/s1600/marchoftrash-spotlight-frayed-320.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEeY0uTITkucCnvG_l1f15CBaPE8uIC_9_DcCKNjkZuD684rg0BJQ2MVeSC6Vn-LoS79-Z2g9BbFBjr1spkIWH_-8GSVgXRUZwaVEMDZsMlXmqghdmGMNrfWOOGrpg6UUyWyjcMn1e67Q/s1600/marchoftrash-spotlight-frayed-320.jpg" data-original-width="320" data-original-height="237" /></a></div></div>
<p>Some things are legitimately useless. They are worn out, used up, unwanted, broken, or obsolete. If you are looking for clutter, certainly, start there. If you find the 11-year-old conference sweatshirt, shrunken with frayed collar and torn cuffs, and you have a better sweatshirt that you would rather wear, then toss out the sweatshirt, write “sweatshirt” somewhere on the March of Trash scorecard, and you’re done for the day.</p>
<p>Most clutter, though, is not so obvious, and finding it involves getting out of your usual way of looking at things. This year’s March of Trash features six ways to change your perspective on material things so that you can find more clutter. Look for a detailed post on each in the coming weeks.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-59133299546517880172020-02-29T20:07:00.000-05:002020-02-29T20:11:23.543-05:00March of Trash 2020<p>March is here, and it’s time for that first stage of spring cleaning that is really more clearing than cleaning — clearing out the clutter to make space and make the cleaning process easier. At my house, I like to call this part of spring cleaning <a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> because I focus on it during the month of March. It’s a challenge I take on every year to clear out at least one item of clutter every day for the whole month. </p>
<p>You are welcome to join in on the challenge too. Read the description of the <a href="/p/the-march-of-trash-challenge.html">March of Trash</a> challenge at the linked page, then download the official scorecard at <a href="http://www.fearofnothing.net/marchoftrash-scorecard.png">http://www.fearofnothing.net/marchoftrash-scorecard.png</a>. Return here to the blog throughout the month of March for frequent updates in which I show pictures and tell stories of clutter that people have thrown away. I’ll also explain in detail the six clutter-busting prompts in the 2020 scorecard. These prompts are ways of changing your point of view in order to find the clutter that may be hidden in plain sight in your home.</p>
<p>Clutter-busting is easier when you tap in to the collective energy of other people taking on the same challenge. Whether you call it peer pressure or emotional support, that energy is strongest in March when the time-honored tradition of spring cleaning is getting underway.</p>Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934717836791988358.post-46415376005323298902019-07-14T11:21:00.002-04:002019-07-14T11:21:48.249-04:00Spending Spree, part 3: Sliced Bread and Upgrades<p>I got my largest paycheck ever and I took on the challenge of <a href="/2019/06/spending-spree-part-1.html">spending it all</a>. Instead I discovered that there were other factors limiting how much I could spend.</p>
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<dl>
<dt><b>Wish list</b></dt>
<dd>I had imagined my wish list was endless. After a decade of an austerity budget, it is understandable that I might think that way. But in truth, I had already picked off the major items from my wish list one by one over the previous two years. My list was a page long, but there were some things I couldn’t find and others I didn’t really want anymore. When I bought the rest of the list, it was less than $1,000.</dd>
<dt><b>Emotional indifference</b></dt>
<dd>I mentioned that I passed over some of the items on my wish list. They weren’t so important as when I had originally written them down. I know from my own experience with clutter that I have to respect this feeling of indifference. It won’t improve my life to fill up my shelves with things I don’t really want, even if I have the money to buy them.</dd>
<dt><b>Time</b></dt>
<dd>Every way of spending money takes up time in one way or another. I bought the eight books on my wish list, but in two weeks I have barely opened them. Reading them would take days even if I had nothing else to do. Just making the purchase takes time, and that is especially true when something goes wrong. I spent more time on the two music CDs that didn’t arrive than on the seven that did. Often the time required for something is about as big as the money I spend. I want to get my hair colored, but that will happen only after I block out a few hours for the hair salon. When I went to buy shoes, I spent an hour going to three stores to find the right style in the right size. The purchases that will make the biggest difference in my daily life are the ones that have to be installed in the house. Some of the things I want to buy would require me to dedicate about a week to learning how to use them — an unlikely prospect as long as I am in my current work schedule. The more you insist on making sure you get something for the money you spend, the more time you have to put in.</dd>
<dt><b>Timing</b></dt>
<dd>Even when I know I want something, the timing may not be right. Probably there are more books I want to read, but shouldn’t I wait until I know I have time to read them? I would benefit from a better washing machine, but that and a list of other home upgrades will go more easily if I can postpone them until I have a chance to redo the house itself, assuming I can keep my current stuff going for a few more years. I think I want one more bookcase in the house, but I might change my mind after the next round of decluttering, so that too can wait. Paradoxically, knowing that I have enough money to buy something on a whim makes it easier to postpone the purchase for another week, another month, another year.</dd>
</dl>
<p>So far I have spent 41 percent of the paycheck, and I am starting to make a list of purchases and projects that will take up the rest of it. There is the hair color I mentioned and the trip to the beach I mentioned in an earlier post. There are a few much-needed home repairs that will take more time than money. These and other projects eventually add up to the sum I promised to spend, but realistically, all this will take some time to do. I will surely still be working my way through the list when I get the next paycheck ten weeks from now.</p>
<p>As long as so much depends on how much time I can put in, it makes sense that I should find ways to spend money in a way that saves me time. This too is harder to do than I would have guessed. Even time-saving purchases take time in the short run. But there are some answers, and even small things can make a difference.</p>
<p>The product that best symbolizes a time-saving purchase is sliced bread. If a loaf of bread is sliced by machine, that saves me the work of slicing the bread after I get home. The time saved is only a minute, but given the choice, I’ll take it. That is the kind of time-saving trade-off I am looking for.</p>
<p>Sometimes it is not the product itself, but the way I buy it. I might choose the store that is closer to home over the one that has the best prices. Online ordering goes faster if I can buy five products at once than if I order them one at a time.</p>
<p>A different kind of improvement comes about when I can upgrade, replacing one piece of equipment with another. The first example on my list is the power amplifier in my studio. The power amplifier provides the electrical power that moves the loudspeakers and delivers music into the room. I have been using a power amplifier that I happened to buy at a good price years ago. It works well enough but the newer ones are smaller, have better sound clarity, and use electricity more efficiently. The smaller size is important as I try to make the best use of my limited space. The electrical savings mean the investment will pay for itself in about ten years. This kind of purchase doesn’t take so much time because I don’t have to learn anything new. It is mainly a matter of unplugging one thing and plugging in another.</p>
<p>A smaller upgrade that has a more obvious time-saving component is the bedside lamp. Ideally, I should have a lamp that doesn’t make me reach so far for the light switch. This may save me five seconds every time I turn out the lights to go to sleep. The difference is not much, but in a year’s time that could mean another half hour of time, so it’s a worthwhile upgrade to make.</p>
<p>I don’t have a long list yet, but just searching for these upgrade opportunities is accomplishing the underlying goal of my spending challenge, which was to shed my austerity-budget thinking and change my relationship to money. Austerity thinking is a useful thing for getting through a financial squeeze, but it can hold a person back if the habit is still there after conditions have changed.</p>
Rick Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13451878646408232651noreply@blogger.com0