March of Trash 2017 and the Spotlight Scorecard

It’s March and time for the March of Trash challenge. We all live with clutter every day — well, nearly all of us do — and sooner or later, we have to stop what we’re doing to focus on getting rid of some of the clutter in order to save our space and our sanity.

There are many ways to look at the challenge of clutter-busting, and this year’s March of Trash focuses on the way you look at a specific item and decide whether it is worth keeping or better thrown away. To help with this, I’ve created an all-new March of Trash 2017 Spotlight Scorecard. Read all about the March of Trash challenge at the March of Trash challenge page and download the Spotlight Scorecard at the bottom of the page.

Use the Spotlight Scorecard to sort out what happens to something you have found among your stuff that you suspect you won’t be needing or using. I’ll explain the key details of the scorecard in tomorrow’s post.

Less of the Wrong Stuff

March of Trash is an exercise to reduce personal clutter during the month of March. The idea is to make yourself more powerful by having more of the right stuff and less of the wrong stuff around you.

The premise of March of Trash strikes more than a few people as far-fetched. How can having less stuff be any kind of advantage? When you look for them, though, you can find a millions ways that stuff can get in the way.

No-Spending Year

Imagine going for a year without spending money on anything you would consider optional. What would happen? Michelle McGagh writing at The Guardian tried this and reports that life got simpler — after she adapted — and that she paid down her mortgage loan by 10 percent.

My year of no spending is over – here's how I got through it

Self-Discipline Doesn’t Do the Work

Which should you do first: the things you know you have to do, or the one thing you feel like doing right now?

Before you answer, consider this: you’ll feel more disciplined if you address the things you know you have to do, but you’ll be more productive if you work on the thing that has captured your imagination at the moment.

The Cure for Distracted Dieting

Distracted dieting may not work any better than distracted driving.

Paying Off a Mortgage

I paid off my mortgage. I have the letter from the mortgage bank to make it official. The letter is about step five in the process. My friends are more interested in this story than I had expected, but it makes sense when I think about it. In a world where perpetual debt has become the norm, who do I know who paid off their house while still living there? Sure, people are constantly selling houses, buying new ones, paying off the old mortgage, and taking out a new one, but that’s a different process. What is it like, in the Internet mortgage servicing era, if you are going to pay off a mortgage and keep living in the house? Friends are looking to my story to find out.

Independence, Debt, and Clutter

The four big forms of everyday suspense in America are clutter, a busy schedule, debt, and excess body fat. More often than you would think, they go together. This makes sense when you consider the effect of a person’s time and energy — when you don’t have the time and energy to solve one problem, you won’t have it for the next problem either. The positive side of this is that when you break free from suspense in one form, you are probably well on your way to solving it in its other forms too.

Today, Independence Day, has me thinking about the link between money and clutter. I’ve been spending the day going through my house, taking away some of my excess possessions.

Stamp Out Hunger 2016

If spring cleaning includes cleaning out your pantry, you may have perfectly good food to give away. For most U.S. postal customers, that’s especially easy to do during the Stamp Out Hunger drive on Saturday — just leave grocery bags of food near your mailbox or mail slot before your letter carrier arrives. Donations go directly to local food charities.