The Clutter Diet Blog

Leave Your Clutter on Park Benches

If you are a book lover, you will really like this idea. Take books you no longer want that are cluttering up your shelves, register them on BookCrossing.com, and leave them around in public places for other people to take. That's right, just leave your books on park benches, in hotels, in coffee shops...! That's one way to get rid of your clutter!

The fun part: People can look up BookCrossing books and see what their journey has been. For example, if someone finds your book, they will see a label or handwritten note like the one posted here (image from BookCrossing's site- click it for larger version). Each book has a serial number, and the person who found it can log in and write about where they found the book and whether they liked it, etc. And if the book is special to you, you can look it up and find out what has happened to it and see how your generosity has helped others.

It's "catch & release" for books!

Ode to Binder Clips

One day about five years ago I was trying to solve a big problem for a client:  how to label a very large quantity of stackable wire cube compartments filled with papers. You could not stick a label tape to them, because they were made of thin wire. You could not write on them either. So I am in the shower and all of a sudden, EUREKA... it dawns on me to use binder clips... they are very easy to find, are inexpensive, and are the perfect size to hold label tape on the back of them, and they can clip right onto the wires. (UPDATE 1/26/11: I ended up making a Clutter Video Tip about this very thing-- you can watch that here.)

Now our team uses these medium size binder clips all the time. They are great for paper trays and other narrow surfaces. And they look like you totally "did it on purpose"-- like it was made for it! This holiday weekend I reorganized our shipping/mailing center in our office and used them for yet another purpose, shown here in this photo (click it for a larger version).  We have lots of Priority Mail and UPS envelopes, and some types we hardly ever use, like our Global/International envelopes and USPS Express Mail. So to differentiate them in our vertical sorters, I just labeled and clipped them so we can see them better.

Clutter Diet members can watch our video tutorial, Ten Ways to Label Your Stuff, for more ideas! Happy Labeling!

Vote for Clutter Diet- Help Us Win!

Readers, will you please take about 30 seconds RIGHT NOW to go vote for ClutterDiet.com at the NAPO-LA Chapter Website? They are taking votes for "Best Organizing Website or Blog" as part of their annual awards banquet at the Luxe Hotel Sunset Boulevard, Bel Air, California, on February 1, 2008. You can vote until December 31, 2007. Go to www.napola.org and click "Cast Your Ballot Now!"

Why Clutter Diet Should Win:  Our membership website, ClutterDiet.com (not this blog, but our flagship site that this blog is only an accessory for...) is absolutely unique and innovative in our industry. Nowhere else online can you get virtual organizing consulting from a team of professional organizers for $15/month. Our site took a year to develop with custom programmers who created features such as a "weigh-in" page to see how many Clutter-Pounds(SM) you have lost from your home each week!  Our members can upload photos and we consult with them every day on what exactly to do in their homes. We provide them a weekly plan of projects that's designed like a menu, with a "Main Dish" project, 2 "Side Dish" projects, a "Sensible Snack" tip, and a "Dessert" reward. We also have a searchable Knowledge Base with literally hundreds of articles.  This is Clutter Diet's year to be recognized for the achievement we've made in our industry-- please help us win this award! 

The NAPO-LA chapter is a very large and influential one in our association. Their banquet is being hosted by Sherri Shepherd of TV's "The View." Thank you for helping us win!

Get Organized for a Relaxing Fall Getaway

For my USA readers who are getting ready to travel this week for Thanksgiving, I thought you might enjoy an article I wrote for Lifetime Television called "Organize for a Relaxing Fall Getaway." It was not specifically written for Thanksgiving travel, but the concepts certainly apply...

One thing for sure--if you are flying, get there EARLY. This week will be absolutely crazy, what with George W. having to open up military airspace to accommodate all of the flights! Security lines are bound to be snaked around to the curb outside.  Don't forget to wear shoes that are easy to take off and put on, as you will have to do this along with taking your laptop out of its case, putting all of your liquids in a quart-size zippered bag, and other things.  Check the TSA website to make sure you're following all of their guidelines before you pack-- it's very confusing if you have not flown in a while.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone! I am very grateful for my attentive and participative blog readers and our amazing, encouraging, positive Clutter Diet members!

7 Things You Didn't Know You Could Recycle

The Today Show this week featured Chip Giller and Katherine Wroth of Grist.org talking about things you may not realize you can recycle. When we are doing organizing projects like garages and closets we run into this kind of stuff all the time, and you probably do too in your own home. Here are the seven items, and then you can click here to read the full article about how to recycle them.

1. Athletic shoes
2. "Techno-trash" like VCRs, cameras, MP3 players
3. Computers
4. Mattresses
5. Handheld devices like cell phones, PDAs, and pagers
6. Dry cleaning hangers and plastic
7. Soiled glass and plastic, like beer bottles with a lime stuck in them

I will say, however, that a small part of me hesitates to offer these resources in a way, because one of the behaviors I have seen happen many times is that people will get bogged down keeping things they want to get rid of because they want to find the "perfect" disposal resource. So a big pile hangs around in their garage for a year because they haven't found just the right charity to donate it to or place to recycle it. Does anyone relate to this? I want to see people make decisions and part with their items quickly. So definitely recycle when you can, but don't let waiting for perfection keep you loaded down! I am interested to hear your comments on this...

Do You Have an Emergency Twenty?

I just got rescued by my Emergency Twenty last week. I keep a little cheap-o plastic business card holder in my car with a few extra business cards and one cute little hidden twenty dollar bill.

I thought you might like to have an Emergency Twenty yourself!It allowed me to get out of a parking garage when I didn't have any cash last week. It has saved me a bunch of times over the years when I didn't expect the kids to need more lunch money and other cash mishaps. Since I have lightened my load by not carrying a checkbook, it makes the Emergency Twenty all the more important.

Maybe you would like an Emergency Hundred? It's a personal preference. Anyway, set one aside for yourself today, and you will thank me later! It's another way that being organized means you are prepared for what life throws your way.

Tips on Taming Paper Clutter

This Sunday the Austin American-Statesman's Life Guide column, by Sarah Lindner, featured some of my tips on managing paper. Here are some snips from the article:

What makes paper so hard to deal with? "Every piece of paper represents a decision that hasn't been made yet," she says. "And so when people see that large stack, they see all those decisions ahead."

"The first thing we do is pull out all of the reading material," Marrero says. Catalogs and magazines are bulky and make your stacks look "a lot more scary" than they really are. Another trick is to start with your most recent papers and work your way back.

Get electronic statements instead of paper ones when possible. But if you go the e-statement route, remember to back up your hard drive regularly. [See my previous post on backing up]

Get off marketers' mailing lists. There are several services that will take care of this for you, including one from the Direct Marketing Association at www.dmachoice.org/MPS .

Pay attention to a company's privacy policy when you sign up for a warranty. Sometimes your name can end up on junk-mail lists.

Process your mail quickly. If you live in a community with a trash can at its mail station, throw away the mail you don't need before it even gets inside your home.

Click here to read the rest of the article. Enjoy!

Get the Lead Out!

This week I traveled to Philadelphia to tape a news segment for NBC 10 on how to go through your children's toys and organize them in light of the recent lead paint toy recalls. It's the perfect time to organize your toys because it's just before the holiday season, and you can make room for the incoming gifts... and you absolutely need to get the recalled items out of your house.

People are shocked when they find out how many of these very recent and popular toys that are recalled. My own cutie pie twin nephews were playing often with the Baby Einstein cloth cubes, and the child who was in the television story with me had two of the Thomas the Tank Engine trains and several of the Sesame Street toys. Please visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission website at www.cpsc.gov to review the list and GET THE LEAD OUT of your toybox! You can sign up there for e-mail alerts to find out when new things are added to the list. The National Safety Council says there is no such thing as any safe level of lead exposure.

Here is the press release that we put out with some tips on how to approach this and how to organize the toys while you are at it. Please forward this information to someone you care about who may have small children! I am really upset about this problem as I think there are thousands of busy parents out there who think "this can't happen to me."