Dealing with Clutter

[mschrisgo2]

So my house has been feeling”messy” for lack of a better word. For a few weeks here, I chalked it up to cabin fever: winter weather and COVID restrictions, resulting in a lot more time inside, and resulting dissatisfaction.

Well, I stumbled upon a YouTuber who specializes in decluttering. I watch a few episodes, initially mostly because I like her sense of humor. Then I realized I’m currently not happy with my house because it is, in fact, cluttered. Cluttered= things sitting around because they really don’t have “places” because they really aren’t useful (or beautiful).

I began to use her simply suggestions, the first being a black trash bag and a box marked Donate. Walked through and just picked up each object, asked myself Where I used it, when the answer was Never, it went into either donate or trash. A big trash bag full and a medium sized Donate box full later, my house feels much better!

[Teacher Terry]

Dealing with useless junk makes for a much nicer home. I am not a minimalist but everything has a home and it feels restful and great to be in my condo.

[razz]

Thanks, Chris, I need to do this today. It is a snowy day so after the dog walk this morning, I now have a plan.

[KayLR]

Good for you! I am slowly getting organized too. One major challenge: DH who never throws away anything "paper." I mean the only paper he recycles is the newspaper. He holds onto every receipt, magazine, bill (months after pd), junk mail, list, etc. Very challenging. Sometimes I go through his pile and trash stuff; he doesn't even notice. But I stop at his bills.

[iris lilies]

Good for you! I am slowly getting organized too. One major challenge: DH who never throws away anything "paper." I mean the only paper he recycles is the newspaper. He holds onto every receipt, magazine, bill (months after pd), junk mail, list, etc. Very challenging. Sometimes I go through his pile and trash stuff; he doesn't even notice. But I stop at his bills.
DH has been receiving professional industry magazines, three of them for a long time. Oh, this is an industry he left in 1987. They all have to do with food processing. They are free of course, but that doesn't relieve the pile they create.

Each time these outfits call to “check on his status” I tell them he doesn't want the magazines, stop sending them, cut it out! They call a couple of times a year. One time I even told them he had died. The magazines continue to come. They are industry commercial publications that clearly exist to sell advertising, and so they have to tell her advertisers that their readership is X thousand of people.

A few months ago I sat down and called the subscription offices of everyone of these,
to cancel, and it seems that two of the three are the same company but the third one does appear to be a different one. Anyway – I hope I got the stream of these irritating magazines stopped.

DH has issues going back 3 years still wrapped in plastic.

He has other magazines he actually pays for that are stacked unread, like Handyman magazines, but that is a different thing, he can keep those. For a while anyway.

years ago soon after we got married he talked about subscribing to National Geographic. I told him OK fine of course you can subscribe to it, but you will not keep issues. That will not happen in my home. If you subscribe to them I will clean them out annually so just be prepared. He didn’t have a problem with that. But he did stop the National Geographic subscription decades ago.

[razz]

When you move, the unwanted stream will stop, won't it?

[iris lilies]

When you move, the unwanted stream will stop, won't it?
see, I feel sorry for the people who buy our house. They are innocents who never signed on for these idiotic magazines decades ago, and so I am trying to stop the stream coming to this address now.

[iris lilies]

I will add that National Geographic magazines are the last frontier of print clutter. The Greatest Generation and their heirs can’t bear to throw out years worth, so they call the public library to insist the library take them. We got several of those calls each year.

[razz]

I will add that National Geographic magazines are the last frontier of print clutter. The Greatest Generation and their heirs can’t bear to throw out years worth, so they call the public library to insist the library take them. We got several of those calls each year.

When I was chairing the local Friends of the Library book sale, I was surprised by the number of offers of National Geographic and sets of Encyclopedias each year. People were so surprised when we declined them. Once the computer/internet became the source of info, encyclopedias faded away.

[sweetana3]

Our library sale (which is huge) had a free table full of NG's, some magazines, condensed books, etc.

[iris lilies]

When I was chairing the local Friends of the Library book sale, I was surprised by the number of offers of National Geographic and sets of Encyclopedias each year. People were so surprised when we declined them. Once the computer/internet became the source of info, encyclopedias faded away.
Razz, good for you for chairing that huge task. How much money did yours earn? Our library was never able to pull it off in the black, but I looked at the event as a community building event, yet another program that cost money.

i was bemused to see someone list ONE VOLUME of a 1970’s encyclopedia on a recent Facebook Marketplace listing. They asked $7 for it. Who thinks like this? Why would anyone think one volume has value, and why $7? so very strange and random.

One of my all time favorite “the library must take these valuable books” calls was from a mother cleaning out her basement (it is always a basement cleanout that generates these calls.) She had a stack of her son’s medical school books that were a good 10 years old. Surely we want them! But they have valuable information in them even though some is outdated!

yeah, No.

And then she postulated that if we didnt take them (we didn’t) she would send them to the “books for Africa” project. Because African people deserve outdated medical science.

ugh. Makes me nuts. Sometimes I feel like I spend my life clearing out crap, my own and that of others.

[Tybee]

I think the books for Africa people could determine whether they were useful. They probably did want them, if they were only ten years old.

ETA: I was curious, so went to check their parameters, and it looks like 10 years is the outer edge of okay for them:
Books For Africa accepts:


children's books
books that are 15 years old or newer.
primary, secondary, and college textbooks (soft and hard cover) published in the last 15 years.
dictionaries or reference books published in the last 10 years, except encyclopedia sets.
medical, nursing, technical and science books published in the last 10 years.

[iris lilies]

I think the books for Africa people could determine whether they were useful. They probably did want them, if they were only ten years old.

ETA: I was curious, so went to check their parameters, and it looks like 10 years is the outer edge of okay for them:
Books For Africa accepts:


children's books
books that are 15 years old or newer.
primary, secondary, and college textbooks (soft and hard cover) published in the last 15 years.
dictionaries or reference books published in the last 10 years, except encyclopedia sets.
medical, nursing, technical and science books published in the last 10 years.


That’s fine, let that group be inundated with outdated textbooks. I cannot see advanced sci/tech books 10 years old being used for instruction, but whatever.