4 ways to power sort kids’ artwork

Photo of three Sculpey clay cats, obviously make by a child.
Art Credit: B Leahey

How do you sort through this sentimental deluge?

You are not alone. You know that, right? Being overwhelmed with sorting through mountains of kids’ artwork is probably the most frequent I-got-so-much-stuff struggle for moms.

#1 Keeping It Even

If you have more than one child, curating your kids’ artwork honors your secondborn, thirdborn, fourthborn, and so on. We all have about four times as much stuff of our firstborns than we do of all the other children combined. Yet, we love them all equally, am I right? Power-sorting that pile of artwork evens out your inventory of each kid; it corrects any imbalance. Do it for THEM. I keep a casual count of what I have from my two kids. Yesterday, I was re-arranging art in my living room and realized that, without really trying, I had 3 pieces from each child on my walls and bookshelves.

Start by sorting the artwork by artist. Count the number of pieces in the shortest pile. Challenge yourself to make the other piles match that number.

Life improvement: peace of mind

#2 Keeping the Heart Art

Those uncurated piles of artwork are hiding some gems that really need to be plucked out of a mass of mediocrity. Some of that artwork was completed because the teacher said it had to be done. Some of it was done from your children’s hearts and on their own initiative. The heart art is/are the pieces you want to find, keep and digitized for posterity.

Life improvement: only the best in your home.

#3 Keeping Creativity Safe

Deep down, you already know this one: some artwork in there embarrasses your child artist. Sorting through it means you can open a dialogue and respect each young artist’s wishes that you either discard those or display them privately. I have about seven or eight frames in my clothes closet in which I rotate some of the art my kids want me to avoid having in our public rooms of the house. It totally surprised me which artwork embarrassed them … I would have never guessed it.

Life improvement: respect that goes both ways

#4 Keeping Parenting Real

Fourth, you will process your past as a parent. I thought I did a lousy job parenting and found out through my children’s artwork that they thought more highly of me sometimes than I did. Also, I came across some truly sad moments in letters to me or drawings. I was able to apologize in person and ask for forgiveness. So, I have made peace with my parenting.

Life improvement: a realistic self-image

Sorting my kids’ papers put me to rights with myself. 

These reasons — finding the heart art, respecting your child’s wishes, leveling out the inventory of each child’s handiwork, processing your past — add up to a big bump-up in life improvement. And it means you have a manageable and meaningful art inventory for a long, long time.

May you have a fruitful gallery of family art.

Organize your home like a grocery store

Photo credit: Marjan Blan

Recently, I was in a grocery store with an unfamiliar layout to me. I was looking for pickle relish. “Hmmmm, okay so it is likely to be with the condiments, olives, and salad dressings …”, I thought. Sure enough, I found it without asking for assistance when I caught sight of a long row of ketchups in one aisle.

Let’s take our cues from a grocery store’s efficiencies. Here are a handful of those that come to my mind:

Takeaway 1: Stores want you to find things without asking their staff.

Stores are smart that way. They want you to find things. By yourself. Because almost none of us is willing to hunt down an employee and ask. Stores are arranged so that shoppers can find things and the store scores a sale. They use what I call “intuitive storage”, storage so straightforward and simple that it needs no explanation.

Before konmari, when my family would ask me where something was, it meant me getting up and helping them look because I myself had no idea where the item might be. Or wait, I take that back. I had about 15 ideas where the item might be … and helping them look was easier than describing those 15 places.

Shall we even talk about how much I would harrumph and complain to have to help them find something? No. No, let’s not go there.

When we use intuitive storage like a retail store, we get to be smart that way. Our housemates get to find their things. We arrange our homes so that they can find things and we score some relaxation time.

Takeaway 2: Stores group similar items together.

This experience with the pickle relish reminded me of the wisdom of storing like items together that Marie Kondo recommends somewhere in her “Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”.

Before konmari, my storage was scattered. None of it was intuitive. None of it was “self-serve” like the stores’ arrangements are. My household set-up relied on my memory of where I last put it and frankly, I have better things to occupy my brain. Don’t we all?!?

Post-konmari, I am now training my family to find things in their new homes. Not extensive training, mind you. Just a bit of training. The week I started writing this blog post, my youngest asked for more notebook paper for school. Instead of helping her look for it, I had her think through what category notebook paper was in (office supplies) and then think through where ALL our office supplies were kept (in a repurposed five-drawer filing cabinet in the garage). She found the paper on her own and thereafter found other office supplies when she had another need for them. The same goes for cleaning supplies (lower shelves of the hall closet) and toiletries (upper shelves of the hall closet). My family can think of the category of the item, then its general storage location and usually have success finding it on their own. And I get to occupy my brain with something else.

Takeaway 3: The best stores keep a tight inventory.

Part of a retail store’s success is keeping a tight inventory based on what will practically fly off the shelves. They stock for today’s customers with today’s needs.

What if you took this mindset into your present inventory? Saving those baby toys for five years until the next child comes along would make little sense. Not devoting 10 minutes every season to cull out expired medicine and unused personal care items would be unwise. And that junk room? Oi vey, don’t get me started!

When we look at people who are successful at what they do, they often keep a tight and knowledgeable inventory of their possessions. Or, shall I say, they keep a tight inventory of the possessions needed for their success. A professional NFL player is likely to have an extremely effective home gym, even if the rest of the home needs to be maintained by a household staff.

In the same way, I have seen you-tuber with a ba-jillion subscribers detail their visual and audio equipment inventory and it is like a well-choreographed dance to see them present what is on the shelves they devote to professional equipment. I believe that the wisdom they show in their inventory is part of their success, a small part maybe but definitely a contributor.

Takeaway 4: Grocery stores use “choice architecture” in their displays.

When a grocery store wants you to purchase one item over another, they make the favored item a convenient reach. They place it on a end-cap. They position it in the middle shelves.

Blogger and skilled researcher James Clear of jamesclear.com calls this arrangement “choice architecture”. Why not employ the same choice architecture in your kitchen? I place all our non-refrigerated fruit and vegetables on our kitchen island. Right on the counter. The day or two after a grocery trip, the produce so fills the counter that it looks like it will start rolling off. It gets eaten.

I have done experiments in which I placed all that produce in big bowls on the island counter. The more I contained it, the less my family ate it. I often discarded half-bowls full of rotting fruit. I took away the bowls and the produce once again was consumed.

By contrast, I place our potato chips and junk-y snacks in the far reaches of the lowest corners of the pantry. It is out of sight and hard to reach. Really, you have to be a contortionist or crawl on hands and knees to get them. We sometimes even forget it is there until we have guests and realize “Oh yeah, we have something common to serve up here!” The produce on the counter is consumed faster than the chips because it is more conveniently placed.

I use the same technique in our fridge. I rotate the food in there every other day or every third day. I bring produce and the plain yogurt to the edge of the middle shelves. The milk with the soonest expiration date is at the front. The cheese that should be eaten soon practically leaps at you from the center of the middle shelf. And so on. This frequent rotation takes me about 30 seconds to do. And as home manager tasks go, I like doing it.

Takeaway 5: Caaaaaarrrrrrts! Grocery stores make life easier with their carts.

Bonus! I just thought of a fifth takeaway. Carts! Grocery stores make roundups of items easier with the carts they offer. When tidying up, make one lap around your community rooms with a basket or container in order to return any items to their proper places.

 

So … group similar items together, keep a tight inventory for today’s needs and use choice architecture. And get yourself a cart. Which one are you going to try first?

Weekend minimalism: 10 quickies

Here are ten ways I moved closer to minimalism this past month. Perhaps these will kick off ideas you can use to become more minimal (or just plain declutter) in your home:

Photo credit: David Mao

One daily coffee cup

Think about your favorite coffee cup. Everyone usually has one, right? Consider making that your only cup. I packed away all but my favorite cup, a squat little black one with a handle that seems made to fit my hand. (I kept a generic set of six on the top shelf for company use.) I was surprised to find I missed none of my other cups so they are going in the donate bin. In fact, I loved the extra space around my favorite cup in the cupboard and my kitchen counters were clearer. Francine Jay, author of Joy of Less, calls this the joy of one.

Housekeeping of the mind

Remove all your ad preferences on your facebook page. Go under settings, the little icon in the far right corner and poke around looking for a section on preferences. It’s a visual reminder of how much information social media has on us all. This is a good activity to do while you are waiting in line somewhere and getting restless.

Family participation: set up a discard/keep station

Make cards that say “discard” and “keep”, set out the pile in a visible space and let everyone sort through it when it’s a good time for them. Accept the results without comment and get rid of the discards right away. Recently, I pulled all our teas out of cabinets and drawers, piled them onto our kitchen table; by the end of the day, everyone had sorted through what needed to go back into the cabinet.

Go bagless no matter what

Bring your own bags to the grocery store and, when you forget, find a way to still achieve the trip without accepting the plastic bags. (Cloth bags are strong and soooo quiet; now I can’t stand the plastic one-use bags.) One day this month, my husband and I swapped cars and it wasn’t until I was in Aldis on a major grocery haul that I realized I didn’t have my bags. My work-around meant putting my Aldis purchases directly into my car, then using a laundry basket when I got home to shuttle everything into my kitchen.

(Casually) Watch your word count

Minimizing words is a powerful bringer of peace. Over-communicating, then overthinking over-communication is tiring. Okay, maybe this is just me. A few weeks ago, I was overthinking the silence that followed a far-too-wordy reply I made to a friend. Rather than chase the situation with more words, I just released the matter and choose the reality that the silence was nothing more than the end of a conversation. Emotional energy is finite and realizing where to spend that energy is good mind housekeeping.

Photo credit: Giulia Bertelli

Release unemployed hobby supplies to find other jobs

Consider your hobby supplies to be your staff. If you are not putting them to work, give them their release papers and show them to another enriching employment opportunity.

I had two craft projects this past month: painting a few mirror frames white and making beeswax food wraps. Because I was not particular about what shades of white I needed, I easily found two used cans of gray primer and a few cans of white for free at my city’s environmental center. I finished the project within a week and, once the paints were idle, they went straight back to the  environmental center. When my beeswax project was done, I texted a crafty friend a photo of my remaining supplies and asked her if she would like what I had. She said sure and we made the handoff an excuse to have a coffee and chat. If both of us were pressed for time, I would have left the supplies on her porch.

Be a museum curator. Move your art.

If you have decor in your home, move it around as a museum curator does. By rearranging it, you’ll likely find pieces that no longer work. Replace them with nothing. Get used to wall and shelf spaces staying empty for a while and you just might love it.

I had art above our bedroom doors in our hallway. I had hung the decor almost a decade ago and I just stopped seeing it there. I pulled it all down, as well as the hooks on which it hung. Every piece was filthy with dust … remind me why I would want to make housekeeping a harder job? They are getting replaced with nothing.

Pretend you are moving away.

This is simply a thinking-ahead category rather than an action item. Pretend you are moving a great distance in a month. Evaluate the “travel-worthiness” of your biggest furniture pieces. Would you take those or would be cheaper to replace them in your new locale? This is the first step towards either saying goodbye to these things or keeping alert for more dual-purpose, transportable replacements. For me, I found that our table and six chairs were something I was just enduring rather than enjoying so it is getting replaced … someday. We have no indicators that we are moving but it’s good to keep light on our feet.

For smaller possessions, limit surfaces to three items or less when at resting position. This philosophy was borrowed from a minimalist on youtube whose home I admire. Simple and inspiring.

Fighting the paper tiger

I made a casual effort to chip away at incoming junk mail. Rather than mindlessly tossing junk mail in my recycling bin, I paper-clipped them to a note that told me to unsubscribe. For a few concentrated minutes each week, I requested removals from mailing lists, usually by online means but sometimes via a standardized snail-mail letter. This was completely worth the (small) effort. I’ll elaborate more in a future blog post.

My incredibly-shrinking book collection

I had 50 books at the beginning of the weekend. I gathered them together and held each one in my hands. After my joy-sparking session (one of a series), I ended the weekend with 35 books. Private book collections should only include already-read-it favorites and no more.

7 things that make clutter bloom

Photo credit: Daniel Chen

You know the house drill. It is Saturday morning and you are pumped up to get your home in order. All it takes is … well … let’s have you think on that while go back under your bedcovers …

7 things I THOUGHT a well-organized home required before konmari:

  1. More house rules. Think about the last time you had a boss who continually changed his or her expectations of your work. Yeah, that’s the one. Frustrating, right? In some ways, we home managers create those same frustrations at home with our family and housemates. We call it life training but in reality, we develop complex and ever-changing ways in which our family can help us maintain our homes.  “I work so hard at it so obviously this mess is because no one else does their chores around here …Wait! I have an idea! I will make yet another chore chart!”

  2. Less time with people, both within the house and going out. See also #4. You find yourself immersed in deep-cleaning a room so you decline an invitation out. “Hiking? Waterskiing? A museum? No, I couldn’t possibly go. I need to clean out my basement during my vacation.” This could turn into declining a cruise or a trip to Paris. Well, maybe not that … but enough of the smaller adventures that make up the bulk of living.

  3. A stringent weekly housekeeping schedule. You resolve to vacuum every Tuesday, clean out your fridge on Fridays, and so on. There will be NO evenings where you sit idle, because you are going to harvest every moment to whip your place into shape. I feel you. I had whiteboards filled with to-do lists that started off with the words “clean floors” and then “laundry”, like these are something that needed to take up calendar time and headspace. These weekly routines seem like a great idea, don’t they? The lists start like many of our New Year’s resolutions: sky-high aspirations which are dashed in Week #2 when real life intervenes. The schedule also hides the true culprit of the mess: clutter. How often did I vacuum or dust around piles and then wonder why my house does not look any better for my efforts?

  4. More time spent at home *pout* “Everyone gets to have fun except for me because I have to do such-and-such organizing …”. When your home is chronically disheveled with stuff, the job of keeping house means staying home to tend to it. So, like #2, you see people less and you describe yourself as a homebody. In truth, you are staying home to re-arrange your piles and to wonder why nothing improves.

  5. Doing the ‘dirty work’ all the time. You feel like every household chore is beneath you, yet needs to be done.  Even in a household of evenly-distributed chores, you are still trying to delegate your tasks to someone else, usually someone younger than you or someone who is your offspring. And when I say you, I mean me.  *sniffing* “Well, no one has clean underwear because my time is FAR MORE VALUABLE than to spend 4 minutes folding those. Just dig through the pile over there in front of the TV …” You simmer in resentment that the bathroom floor is only Swiffered by you, rather than realize the effort takes about 90 seconds to do. And if anyone (whose own chores are completed) dares to watch a movie or play video games while you work, that simmer of resentment turns into an unwarranted-yet-dramatic rolling boil.

  6. Expensive professional closet organizing systems “Oooooooh, organizing would be so easy if I had that galfa/Carolina-closet system in every bedroom.” If I could, I would make the word storage an unmentionable word. An ongoing myth is that there are enough storage solutions out there for any discontent you have with your home. We all know that, but we all perpetuate the myth anyway. When you hear yourself say “I need storage”, replace the word storage with the word imagination. Then dive into whatever home problem you see with a new perspective: that you can solve this by having fewer well-chosen things, not by getting more drawers, baskets, shelves, boxes and racks.

  7. Squirreling away the mess somewhere and hoping no one notices. Saying “Here, I will just buy five more Rubbermaid bins …” is your key indicator that you’ve become a human squirrel. Before konmari, my home was stacked with plastic bins, sometimes 5 to 7 bins high. Closets, the attic, the garage … they were just there to hold mystery bins of whatever-that-was. At its core, this squirreling practice meant large parts of my home were unusable. Not a tidy home like I was pretending to have, but a useless one filled with unseen stuff and junk.

How wrong I was.

None of these assumptions on a tidy home is true. I have no chore charts, no expensive storage solutions, no excessive boxes and bins. Also, I have no need to resent everyone else’s free time because now I have mine too. I have more time with people. I could easily spend less time in my home if I wanted.

My konmari removed all the clutter and gave places for everything that remains. That was most of the housework battle in a tidy home. For the rest — the vacuuming and wiping down and restocking — I take care of those when I notice the need. I don’t need to schedule a quick sweep of the porch … I just do it when I notice it needs to be done. Everything is completed quickly because all my cleaning tools are in their places.

It’s about mindful living …

Tiny house, big drawbacks

Photo credit: Geran de Klerk

Do you have a tiny house parade that you don’t want to get rained on? Well, stop reading right now and pick another one of my posts. If you don’t mind a little sprinkle from a sky that is falling, read on.

Once upon a time, before konmari, this suburban house-dweller named me was fascinated with the tiny house trend/movement and wanted to be a part of it. I casually researched it for 18 months. My fascination came from a desire to escape my piles and bins and rooms of stuff. I imagined what I would do with my (newly abundant) free time if my household responsibilities were reduced to a couple hours a week. I really thought my situation needed a radical solution.

Wow, am I glad I konmaried instead.

Here are 5 things I found out about tiny house living:

#1 Tiny house living really only works in mild climates.

No surprises there. I would be spending a lot of time outside. Have you ever noticed how the tiny house photos are staged as if the resident is having coffee but doesn’t show many other activities going on?

#2 I couldn’t find substantial financial savings.

For me at least. I already live in a budget-friendly location. The savings only come with successfully finding borrowed land on which to park. If I couldn’t find free residential space on which to park, I would be stuck renting space at an RV park. Those rents rivaled my mortgage payments.

#3 It’s a revolving door.

Tiny houses for sale were usually used for less than 2 years, yet they averaged about $30k-$45k to purchase. To me, that was evidence that tiny house living is sort of a revolving door and no one stays with that lifestyle over the long term.

#4 I would have to find a certain trifecta of living …

Tiny house owners were constantly seeking the next free space on which to park. And most of them were dependent on their wifi and tech savvy to work from their tiny homes to pay expenses so the free space had to be semi-rural in a mild climate and yet have great wifi connection. That’s tough trifecta to find.

#5 I would not be as far off the grid as I originally intended.

Overall, tiny house living is promoted as being “off-the-grid” when it is more accurately “borrowing someone else’s grid” because tiny house dwellers use someone else’s wifi and city services like trash disposal, water resources and so on when they park on a host’s space for free or at a discount.

By contrast, my konmari-ing has given me that uncluttered living I thought tiny houses would bring. The solution was not so radical as I thought. Pare out the junk, leave the joy. That was all it took for living more simply.

Your life slideshow: 100-photo challenge

I have been concentrating on whittling down our family photos not just a manageable level but to a meaningful inventory. Here are a few insights from that process for me.

Counting-Stuff versus Just-Spark-Joy

You know how Marie Kondo (konmari) never gives specific counts of things, just leaves it at whatever sparks joy? Well, I noticed that we can set our own numbers for ourselves and still be true to her konmari method.

Marie sets a strict count in her “Spark Joy” book. Marie and her sister assembled an anniversary album for their parents and the album they filled had a limited number of pages. They had a cap of 100 photos. So she had to pay attention to the inventory of the selection, as well as the individual selections themselves. Knowing they were restricted to 100 pictures, they then set some parameters: represent a variety of “eras” of their parents’ marriage and make sure their mom looked good in all the photos.

Limits can become freedoms

I took Marie’s approach with my own photos, even though I was not filling an album with a certain number of pages. I was so overwhelmed by the volume of my photos and yet, I had less than 4,000 physical photos in a photo-archive box. I set a limit of 100 photos each for me, my husband and each of my kids. That limit turned out to be such a freedom and forced me into making good choices. For instance, my husband was in a rock band in college and, at one of the few gigs that was photographed, there were probably 10 photos and all were pretty good. However, if everything is special, then nothing is special, as the saying goes. The limit on the photos meant I had to select the best single photo. I did … it was the one that had every member in it, had the band name on a banner in it and had my husband obviously singing at the microphone. When I explained to him why it was the best one, he was like “oh yeah! I see that now …”

Make better decisions faster

I culled the thousands of photos down to a smaller inventory (600) of photos and the decisions became simultaneously more difficult but I was making those difficult decisions with better accuracy. Does that make sense?

Because the new photo inventory was manageable, I was able to digitally scan them with our scanner/printer instead of buying special equipment or sending them to a service. Scanning 600 photos was mind-numbing work to do that but in the end, I now have a “this is your life” slideshow on each member of my family. I do not know why, but I find this very comforting, like a huge checklist item is done. Plus, as I scanned the photos, I mulled over the conditions of these relationships through the years. It gave me the time to slow down and work in my heart to pray for forgiveness for ways (realized and unrealized) I might have emotionally hurt anyone and to forgive wrongs (mostly unintentional) done to me.

Commit to being thorough

I had a stack of DVDs with family photos on them that needed to be “processed”. I was tempted to skip it because, frankly, I was swimming in photos of my kids right then. I am SO GLAD I did this “just to be thorough”. I went through each DVD one by one. It did not take a lot of time; all it took was one evening! In just a few hours, I plucked all the joy-sparking photos off of the dvds and moved them to my hard drive (and soon, to the cloud).

Up to this point in my konmari decluttering, my collection of photos had so few photos of me being a mom. For my “100 photos of me”, I was sometimes just settling for pictures with my hand or side of my face or even my foot in them. These photo dvds were provided to me by my in-laws, my mom, my husband and my sister so they were some of the few photos I found with me in them. And I am actually recognizable in some of them.

The ultimate goal: peace!

I feel more peaceful than I have in a long time. And you will too. Thanks, konmari.

Get Rid of the Public Purse Dump

Photo credit: Sai de Silva

Let’s talk about that Public Purse Dump. You know, the one where I would shuffle through my bag’s contents, give up on finding whatever-I-sought and wind up emptying it out while the clerk and the other people in line behind me watch.

Did you know that the Public Purse Dump can go buh-bye if you practice the purse station that Marie Kondo describes in her book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”? Yes indeed.

Besides, of all Marie Kondo’s advice, the only one that will show physical evidence of konmari tranquility  outside the home is your purse.

What is a purse (or bag) station? It is a place — a tray, a box, a drawer — somewhere in your home where you empty the contents of your bag every day. Yep, out comes the wallet, the keys, the sunglasses, the everything. The whole habit takes less than a minute to do. And the results are so rewarding … read on.

Let’s look at before and after scenarios to witness this calm.

Photo credit: Cynthia del Rio

Before my konmari bag station:

I would regularly have to do The Public Purse Dump in search of something — a pen, a checkbook, a tissue, a badge, a set of keys, a receipt, a whatever. While I accepted this as normal for me, I have since realized how this embarrassed me on a barely detectable level. But for some reason I thought The Dump was unavoidable. My solution back then was to endure for months, then radically change my next purse’s size.

Also before my konmari purse station, I only cleaned my purse out when it reached Critical Mass. In a big-purse phase, I might find two or three almost-full water bottles in there. So heavy! My “solution” was to keep hauling this brick-of-a-handbag and wonder why my shoulders hurt.

Pre-konmari, I would stick important info in my purse, a swirling vortex of lofty intentions. My reality at the time was that the paper and whatever task was connected to it was probably gone for good. I would find whatever needed my attention weeks after it was due. I accepted that as the sloppy way I had to do my life because I was sooooo busy. Cleaning out a purse was a menial task. Who had time for those when there was so much busy-ness in life to do? My solution was to apologize for something being missed or left undone.

Now with my konmari bag station:

After completing my konmari and using a purse station, I leave the house with only what I need.

Every purse I carry is light, even my big heavy leather ones. I can reach into my purse and pull out exactly what I need without looking. For instance, my youngest had her wisdom teeth pulled and, in the middle of complicated post-op medical instructions from the nurse, I was able to reach in my bag, pull out a notebook and a working pen and start writing. I missed none of the instructions. And I knew that those notes shoved in my purse would be found and addressed the next time I arrived home.

I tend to be more thoughtful about what goes into my purse based on the outing. If I am going out during the day, I take my sunglasses. If I am going to a nighttime movie or someplace loud, I take my earplugs and aspirin, leaving the sunglasses at home. I always take my wallet and keys. When I have sniffles, I take a couple hankerchiefs.

Without extra effort, I tend to know exactly what is in my purse. So when someone asks for a pen, I know before I unzip it whether I have a pen to loan.

So join me! No more public purse dumping for you, thank you very much!

No more heavy purses.

No more need for apologizing.

No more!

6 life-simplifying phone changes

If my mobile was a person, she would be someone who delights in interrupting me … LOUDLY. INSISTENTLY.

My favorite konmari categories are the ones you can do while standing in line somewhere. You know … sort of a life declutter. I do these a lot and most of them involve cleaning out the contents of my cell phone.

This past week, I took stock of all the ways my phone did not spark my joy. I know that things are not people but Marie Kondo’s personification of objects in her best-selling “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” sometimes helps me make decisions.

If my mobile were a person, she would be someone who delights in interrupting me, both audibly and visually. LOUDLY. INSISTENTLY. All the time. Even when I am driving or having a conversation with someone face-to-face. Or the appetizer just arrived. Or the toddler just wants to keep playing peek-a-boo. Or.

Yes, I asked my phone-as-my-friend to remind me of things (and to keep reminding me of them) but here in the present moment, her enthusiasm for that task matched my insistence back then, a few days ago. Back then, I thought remembering that thing was the most important and vital thing that needed to get done. But … right now, I am BUSY doing something else on the phone. Or not on the phone. Couldn’t my phone-as-my-friend see that this present moment was more important?

So I changed my phone experience to spark more joy. These changes only take a few minutes and are the perfect way to feel productive while you wait for the next train, for the pharmacy to fill the RX or for that next bathroom stall to open up.

Here are the improvements I made to my iPhone, most of which are found in the Settings app:

1 – I took out all the pop-up banner notifications for all apps and texts. No more banners appear and block my view of what I am working on at that moment. (Check under Settings, then Notifications)

2 – I enlarged and boldfaced all the typefaces so that they are easy to read. (Settings, then Display & Brightness, then Text Size and Bold Text and View Zoomed)

3 – I took out all the custom ringtones and went with the “bamboo” sound and the vibrate function. I dialed down the volume too. Now my phone gives me a wiggle and a delicate sound to tell me something needs to be checked … when I have a moment. I do not need to know who is calling me or what is alerting me. I just need to know that I need to check my phone later. In a few minutes, I will know the whos&whats&wheres and reply when my attention is singularly focused. (Settings, then Sounds & Haptics)

4 – I FINALLY set the notifications to stop whenever I am driving. This was long overdue. (Settings, then Do Not Disturb – scroll to the end of the options)

5 – I selected the setting that turns the screen amber at sunset and back to blue at sunrise so that my digital life is more sleep-friendly. (Settings, then Display & Brightness, then Nightshift)

6 – I set a consistent bedtime and wakeup alarm schedules, one for weekdays and one for weekends. (Clock, then Bedtime)

My phone now works for me instead of the other way around.

Zero-wasting your mailbox

Lots of us think junk mail is best handled the easiest way: by opening your mail over a recycling bin. With busy lives, this might be all we can do, but what a temporary and repetitive fix that is. I took a good, hard look into my mailbox in the month of July. I dug into the minutiae of junk mail. I hope what I share here helps you reduce your mail to its essentials.

Here’s your “why”:

So let’s look at the outcome of a mailbox that is free of junk mail, since wanting something is the first step in getting it.

Real mail is useful. Imagine going to your mailbox and finding only a few pieces in there. Each one has something that is a matter of importance, something that needs your attention in order to make your life better. Some of the pieces are even matters of urgency and you are able to address the issues before a deadline.

When I made no-tolerance-for-junk-mail my focus this past month, a “real mail mailbox” started becoming my reality. For instance, I got a reminder for my annual sonogram … and it got scheduled that day! My mail also alerted me to a hold on a university account, a credit report error, and a mediation update. All of them were actionable matters of some urgency. All of them got dealt with right away. Junk mail would have disguised all of these important pieces of mail.

Of course, there are the environmental impacts of all that ink and paper. I will leave the particulars to other bloggers but recognize here that this concern for the environment can also fuel your motivation to stop junk mail.

Step 1: Automate your refusals.

Start with DMAchoice.org to clean out your general junk mail, optoutprescreen.com to halt credit card offers, and yellowpagesoptout.com to stop phone directories. Then use the  PaperKarma app on your phone for any straggling bits of junk mail.

DMAchoice is reported to take out 80% of junk mail. I set up my DMAchoice account and unsubscribed from everything in May. It took until July for me to see a reduction and I would say the 80% seems higher than my results but I did see a significant decrease in my junk mail over 60 days.

I did not use PaperKarma and wonder how much time I could have saved myself if I did.

Step 2: Wait a few months …

… then start a mail log. (This is an optional step.)

There is power in log-keeping. Keeping a food log helps dieters make fewer bad choices. “I didn’t want to put in my food log that I ate a Reeses cup, so I didn’t eat it.” In the same way, logging your mail means you no longer tolerate what doesn’t belong in your mailbox, then on your desk, then in your mind where you mentally file it under “things that pants up my life”.

Logging my mail took a few minute a day at first, then less as my mail decreased. The hassle of formally tracking repeat senders gave me extra motivation to get them out of my mail stream. On more than one occasion, I looked at my mail and said out loud “Again? I have requested twice that you take me off your list.” Mail is so much in the background of our lives and we become complacent about it far too fast. I would not have seen progress at first unless I tracked it. I had 6 days out of 26 where the postal worker had absolutely no mail to put in my box; I would have never appreciated that tiny step of progress without a written record of it.

Step 3: Take a pen with you to your mailbox.

You are going to write “refused, returned to sender” on some junk mail and pop it back in your mailbox.

One of the biggest current sources of junk mail is through the USPS program known as EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail). This is that irritating mail addressed to “tenant” or “resident” or other generic names.

This was one junk mail battle I have yet to win. Even though I have opted out and unsubscribed from so much, my EDDM junk mail still accounted for almost half my incoming mail in July. Fifteen out of my total 32 pieces of mail were EDDM. For weeks, my internet research told me there is no way to opt out of this service, since marketers pay to deliver to every house in a postal carrier route. I even taped a small sign refusing EDDM. It was totally ineffectual; appealing to your postal carrier is apparently not the way to get rid of this kind of mailbox scourge.

Just when I was starting to lose hope, I discovered this tip.

Mail sent to “Resident,” “Current Resident,” or “Current Occupant” (In other words, EDDM) can be refused if it contains any of these phrases,

  • return service requested,

  • forwarding service requested,

  • address service requested

  • change service requested.

  • or is sent First Class.

Write “refused, returned to sender”  on the unopened envelope and put it back in the mailbox.

Step 4: Involve your family

If your family keeps getting their own junk mail, it stops your clean mailbox project in its tracks. I sat next to my kids and walked them through opt-outs of everything from credit card offers to shoe store flyers to bank statements to long-past social groups. My husband joined my efforts and opted for online communications from college alum groups, past employer’s retirement accounts, and memberships.

Step 5: Clean out your junk electronic mail at the same time.

I cleaned out my email junk at the same time as my mailbox junk. When I asked senders like my bank, for instance, to move its notifications to email, I had an emailbox prepared to handle more of my essential business.

Some people I know used unroll.me to clear out junk emails and they get good results. I went about my email cleanup the long way: I sorted my junk email folder by sender and just started unsubscribing from every sender. I noticed patterns in the senders and was able to take out groups of senders with the email rules I created. Still, I wonder how much time I would have saved myself had I used unroll.me.

Step 6: Get off coupon packet lists. (Psst, all those coupons are online!)

The huge packets of coupons in my mailbox are redundant. I found the exact same coupons of my favorite service providers online.

Let the need for a purchase or service arise first, then look online for the coupon. Don’t accumulate paper coupons while you wait for the need to arise. Under the 80/20 rule, collecting coupons is spending 80% of your efforts on 20% of your results.

I was able to unsubscribe from RetailMeNot (redplum), Valassis, and other coupon packet companies easily online.

Step 7: Realize your guilt mail

The thought of unsubscribing from my favorite charities’ mail kicked up some guilt. I have no idea why, but I rationalized that I didn’t want to hurt their feelings by telling them I didn’t want their publications. My refusal felt like I was breaking off a friendship. In these cases, I found that writing a heartfelt letter of thanks and support helped. I explained that I follow them online and wanted to save their resources. (I do believe those letters were more for my benefit than theirs.) I then popped a monthly reminder in my phone to read their websites and online news.

Step 8: And then there’s nuisance mail …

This is that targeted junk mail that I somehow invited into my life. Maybe I am their ongoing customer or I signed up for a contest or I submitted a rebate. Getting rid of this kind of mail takes going directly to the source, at least in my case.

These companies do not make it easy for you to unsubscribe. It takes special effort to contact them, so use these magic words when you do reach them: “Please do not rent, sell, or trade my name or address.”

Right now, my own phone company tries to upsell me every 2 weeks or so with their glossy postcard offers; meanwhile their competitors send me fake checks to entice me to switch. (I know this frequency because I recorded their mail in my log, not because I have a fantastic attention to detail.) I have yet to use the magic words but I am looking forward to getting this done and seeing a clearer mailbox.

I found that unsubscribing from a catalog is completely undone when you purchase something from that company later. I plan to whip out my magic words (PLEEEASE do not rent, sell or trade my name or addressssssss) for every transaction.

Here’s wishing us all clearer mailboxes and minds.

The closet-hanger backwards tip doesn’t work

One of the most oft-repeated tips for closet organizing is to reverse-hang all our clothes on the closet rod, then continue wearing our clothes as we normally do. When we return an item to the closet rod, we do that with the hanger facing the usual way. In a set time period (usually 6 months or a year), we will discover what we really wear and can get rid of any clothes still on reverse-hung hangers.

I would love for all of us to re-think this strategy for closet organizing because it doesn’t work. It’s a short-term solution to a long-term problem. But don’t get me started …

Here are six reasons why reverse-hanging isn’t our best approach to a messy closet.

#1 You keep making the same mistakes.

When your closet is cluttered, you are not wearing your best. You are wearing what is most convenient because it happens to be laundered at the same time you need to be dressed.

By habit, you are likely to reach for the same clothing over and over. Selecting the day’s outfit has not been a mindful act. You are in survival mode because of your overflowing closet. Reverse-hanging your clothes only reveals what survival-mode clothes you are wearing, not what clothes are your favorites, clothes that fit your body and clothes in your favorite colors.

If I had reverse-hung my clothes instead of the konmari joy-sparking declutter I did with them, I would have been left with some ill-fitting khakis and some bleach-stained purple cotton t-shirts. This was what I wore over and over again. I claimed that clothes didn’t matter to me. I called it my uniform. Secretly, I felt awful in those and I avoided being in photos. If you had asked me to discard those, I would have told you that I would then have nothing to wear. I seriously thought those were the only clothes I had.

Meanwhile, my better-fitting and cuter stuff was pushed to the far reaches of my closet rod. I was “saving” them for some special occasion. In the reverse-hanging tip, I would have discarded these more appropriate pieces in a mindless discard after a year.

#2 You are not saving any significant time.

One attraction to this tip is that you can reverse-hang your clothes in about 90 seconds. I did a purposeful decluttering session where I removed everything on a rod and made quick decisions on each piece. Total time elapsed? Less than 45 minutes. Those minutes were well-spent … I save a ton of time on my morning and evening routine with a well-curated wardrobe. That single session brought forth my best pieces that fit me and that fit each other.

#3 It extends your procrastination habit instead of addressing the habit head-on.

In order to represent all the seasons in a year, the reverse-hanging trick needs 12 months to show you all the clothes you do not wear. That is TWELVE long months of keeping too many clothes. Twelve months of cramming clothes back onto an overstuffed rod. Twelve months of clothes reminding you of a body type you are not. Twelve months of a storage space so full that the clothes you launder spill out onto beds, dressers, chairs and exercise equipment. Twelve long months. In my book, that’s not an organizing tip.

#4 Reverse-hangers leave you with a discard pile based on regret and sadness.

“Oh look, this cute top … and I never wore it.”

“This still has the tags on it. I wasted so much money.”

“I like this BUT since I didn’t wear it, I have to get rid of it.”

The discard pile from reverse-hanging becomes one more way to berate yourself and to watch your better pieces, your “save for special occasions” outfits leave you while you settle for what you’ve always worn.

What is the best discard pile? The one you CANNOT WAIT to get rid of. It is filled with stuff you don’t like (or don’t like anymore). It’s full of bad memories, awful sizing, ugly stains, not-me hand-me-downs, and faddish fashions. Discarding a pile like that becomes a freeing event, not a self-punishment. Reserve-hanging doesn’t produce a discard pile like that.

#5 Reverse-hanging doesn’t address your laundry problem.

At the heart of an overstocked closet is a laundering problem. As you get dressed, you say, “Let me see … that’s the dirty pile and that is the can-wear-once-more piles and there is the clean-and-ready-to-put-away pile.”

Stuffed closets make laundering chaotic and unpredictable. One coping habit you probably developed is to avoid wearing your best on an average day. You wouldn’t want to be caught with your best outfit in the hamper on the very occasion you need it, right? Trapped in your overstock, you wind up draping clothes everywhere; you fall behind on laundry; you procrastinate on the washing.

You cope. You wear your subpar pieces. The ones plucked from the I-think-it’s-clean pile on the chair. Reverse-hanging just prolongs that cycle of chaotic laundry.

#6 Reverse-hanging ignores the mix-and-match versatility of a good wardrobe.

Looking at all your pieces together and making discard-or-keep decisions means your tastes emerge. Certain colors will dominate and thus, your wardrobe and your ensembles will naturally fall into place. If you randomly discard any piece on a reverse hanger, you are denying yourself the chance to see potential combinations of clothes.

 

So what can you do instead of reverse-hanging your clothes? Devote an hour — just an hour — to fine-tuning your wardrobe on hangers. Take everything off the closet rod and pile it somewhere. Then spend a few seconds with each piece to really consider if it stays or goes. I like the konmari method of holding each piece (still on its hanger) and determining if I like the item or not. To me, that is the simplest way.

If it helps, you may want to add questions to help you arrive at that emotion-driven determination. Is it hard to clean? Does it have bad memories attached to it? Will that stain ever come out? Does it pinch or gap when you wear it? There are all kinds of questions you can ask yourself. But the bottom line is that, if you don’t like an item, it’s gone. As soon as possible. In the easiest way possible.

You deserve a great wardrobe, with everything on hangers pointing in the right direction.