Tag: #springcleanup

Aging in Place, Closet Organizing, DeCluttering, DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life, Kitchen DeClutter, Moving, Safety in The Home

Wasting Away

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

Wasting Away

Growing up most of us are taught not to waste anything because there are people starving, that people would love to have what we have so be sure you don’t waste it.  I remember the nuns saying don’t waste your food there are people starving and some classmate would say under his/her breath “then why don’t we send it to them”, GREAT idea and this concept of sending things we don’t use to someone who could use it is most easily translated to our “stuff”.

I work with people who possess an overabundance of “stuff” and when I ask them why they keep so many pieces of a certain item, many times, I’m met with a shrug and “I don’t know”.  I encounter tens and tens of collared knit shirts, tens of multiples of tens of T-shirts (I might go so far as to say hundreds of T-shirts) and lots and lots of black pants.  People don’t know what to do with these item s and they don’t want to be wasteful, so they don’t deal with the overabundance of items they possess.

What if we looked at being wasteful in a different context?  What would you say if I said to you these items are being wasted because they are shoved into the back of your drawer or closet and NO ONE is using them, and they are wasting away when they could be put to good use by someone else.

I know that if I find T-shirts stuffed into the bottom of your hall closet you are wasting them.  I know that if I find collared knit shirts hanging in your laundry room covered in dust you are wasting them.  I know that if I find boxes of socks in the basement covered in mouse poop you are wasting them.  I know that if I find a total of 270 shirts in your home in various rooms that 240 of them are being wasted.  I know that if I find cans of tomato paste, vegetables, tuna fish, or any food item, past their expiration date they are being wasted.

Your money is being wasted.  If you stopped buying excess what could you do with that wasted money?  Would your bank account have a positive number?  Would you be able to go out for a beautiful meal once a month? Would you feel better because you contributed to a soup kitchen or homeless shelter?  Would you be able to volunteer somewhere with the hours not wasted buying items you don’t need?

Be conscious of your spending, donate what you can, enjoy experiences.

Stop Waste NOW.  You can do it!

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DeCluttering

Indulgent Purchases vs. Making Memories

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

(How does that indulgent purchase feel compared to experiences you’ve spent money on?)
Clutter is baggage and can underscore indulgent purchases. What is an indulgent purchase? I’m willing to bet you had an immediate answer, not a second wasted in thought, on the tip of your tongue, before you finished reading that sentence. Is it a three-quarter length chocolate brown leather coat that you charged and paid off in three installments plus interest, hanging in the closet that hasn’t seen the light of day for several years because it doesn’t fit the same as when you first bought it and it’s no longer in style? Perhaps the fountain pen you paid $500 for is sitting in your desk still waiting for the day when you will sit and write long letters to friends and family? For a moment, stop and think, “What is my most indulgent purchase?”
Often times indulgent purchases may require justification because they were an impulsive decision. Indulgent purchases can be the choice that feeds your vices. Retail therapy, lethargy and/or denial of a difficult situation or period of life are the perfect combination for spending on, and justifying, an indulgent purchase. Right behind the feeling of immediate gratification comes the feelings of regret and perhaps irresponsibility. And, thanks to clutter, a visual reminder of the physical baggage.
The good news is a study shows that buying “experiences” is good for you. (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/to-buy-happiness-purchase-an-experience) The “happiness magic” is all in what, how and where you spend your money. Aside from the excitement of the initial purchase “high” of a material indulgence, the experience of the purchase can be short-lived and generally does not hold long interesting. When you spend less money on “stuff”, you spend less on maintenance of the “stuff”, rewarding you with more discretionary income.
More discretionary income means there’s more opportunity to buy experiences. Having fun, exciting experiences and making memories is something we look forward to and we get to re-live those experiences when sharing them with others over the course of a lifetime. The positive feelings we get from experiences is satisfying and lives longer in our hearts and emotions. The memories from the experience last a lifetime. And isn’t it more exciting and engaging to share about something you’ve done rather than something you own?
As you declutter your living space, you create space, the breathing room for clarity to uncover what you really want, what makes you truly happy and how you want to feel. The next time you find yourself about to make an impulsive, indulgent, or debt producing purchase, ask yourself these questions: 1) Am I buying for immediate gratification? 2) Am I buying because of the status it represents? 3) Am I buying to “fit in” because everyone else has it? or 4) Am I buying an experience?

Enjoy a20160520_225521 fun experience: Boy George and Cyndi Lauper singing Karma Chameleon

May your next purchase be a happy memory.

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DeCluttering

Spring Time is Clean-Up Time

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

daffodilLiving Among the Paper Clutter and Dead Trees

It’s real!  The dining room table is buried beneath heaps of paper because the kitchen island has morphed from a rolling land of hills into a mountain ready to break an avalanche.  In the living room, there’s a mound of magazines and newspapers multiplying on the ottoman, with some spill over on the coffee table or chair awaiting for someone with spare time to read, sort through, clip and save, and maybe even restack.  The file cabinet is chock-full.  There could possibly be a box filled with paper in an attempt to deal with this issue at a more convenient time.  Better yet, there could even be a designated room housing the clutter of paper.  In any way, shape or form, there is acute knowledge of the accumulation of paper as it permeates throughout the house with ultimate plans for a takeover.

This may be a bit extreme, but the barrage of written and printed information we receive every day surrounds us.  Even though we live in an electronic age, the regular mail gets delivered just about everyday.  That’s almost 365 days of some form of paper delivered in one year.   And this doesn’t’ include the myriad of other avenues paper seeps into our space.  We reach for sticky notes to jot reminders, we send and receive printed-on-paper invites, receive subscriptions to newspapers, magazines and the insurmountable obstacle of brochures, flyers and promotion postcards, and more.  School artwork, your business and possibly parent’s personal business paperwork comes home, too.  Our spouse brings home paper from work.  We collect receipts for various reasons, some with very valid reason, and some…well, it’s a mystery as to why.

At the end of the day we walk in with the daily mail, just wanting to relax, and so we drop it on a counter, or a table thinking we’ll get to it “in a moment” or “later”.  Later doesn’t come.  That moment was long gone, perhaps several days ago.  But the paper…it’s still coming.  And it’s accumulating.  Whatever attempt we made or didn’t make is a conditioned response.  A habit.

Like tending to the garden or the yard cleanup every season removing weeds and debris, we need to tend to our “inner yard” – the landscape within our homes and with the same fervor and commitment.  We need cleaned up space, free from clutter and debris in order to grow, thrive, feel good, be our best and be profitable.  Surely, looking at the accumulation of paper reveals the high amount of usage that is occupying valuable real estate – the inside of your home.  As the mounds of paper continue to take up space, the daily process of recycling is halted.  And recycling is critical because about one third of new paper comes from recycled paper; therefore saving living and thriving trees.  Recycling the accumulated piles of paper is helping to conserve the trees in our natural landscape. Those stagnant mounds of paper are dead trees in your home, like the weeds and debris in a yard prior to clean-up.  In order for you to grow and thrive those piles of paper need to be cleared and brought to recycling.  Agree to designate a limited intake through change of habits, and possibly an intervention to end the accumulation of paper.

Ruthlessly, survey the interior of your home.  Where are the piles?  Look everywhere, the closets, the office file cabinet, the basket in the corner of the room, under the beds, the bottom shelf, that stuffed drawer, everywhere.  Tackle each section, one at a time, with the goals of organizing, sorting, shredding and recycling.  Spring clean-up starts today!

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