Peace [and Quiet] on Earth

"Communion" © 1992 Cynthia Friedlob [hand-colored photograph]

I've been thinking a lot about how my need for uncluttered, open space includes the need for quiet space. Emptiness allows room for reflection, but the reflection won't come easily unless there's also quiet. Kaid Benfield wrote an article for The Atlantic in which this idea is pondered on a larger scale, that of a city:

"I have a theory that, the busier and livelier a city is, the more it needs places of retreat, places where one can get away and be quiet and still."

Parks, gardens, libraries, museums, and places of worship can offer quiet relief from the pressures and fast pace of city life, but what do you do when you're home? Where do you go for relief from your busy and lively day? If you're surrounded by clutter, there's nowhere to go, and that's very unfortunate for both your mental and physical well-being.

During the holiday season, it's common to hear expressions of hope for peace on Earth. For those of us who are fortunate enough to have our basic needs well met, in fact, to have much more than we need, it might be time to acknowledge that uncluttering is not just an aesthetic issue, or even a basic stress-reducer; it's also an important part of finding a deeper, personal peace. And there's no chance for peace on Earth until we can find peace within ourselves.

Best wishes to you for peace, now and in the coming New Year.

Perspective: Clutter vs. Collecting and What's Really Important to You?

Did you think I'd disappeared? I took a hiatus that lasted longer than expected. Thanks for waiting for "The Thoughtful Consumer" to return. I've saved a long list of links about some favorite topics that I hope you'll find interesting. Let's start with these:

Clutter vs. Collecting: A New Kind of More:  '"More-ing' is what it sounds like; it's for people who want more, but the giddy surprise is what More-ists want more of. Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, famously filled her closets with shoes, but good More-ists are sly, cleverer than Imelda. They crave more subtly, choosing to hoard what nobody normal has thought to hoard ... for example, bicycle locks ..." Story on NPR's Krulwich Wonders.

What's really important to you? "If your house suddenly caught on fire, what would you grab as you fled out the door? That’s precisely the question Foster Huntington asked himself, so he gathered the belongings he himself would take and photographed them, then asked a few friends to do the same. Then, on May 10 of 2011, he launched The Burning House with 10 such photographs." The project subsequently expanded: "The results — rich, surprising, refreshingly human, from people separated by 80 years and spanning six continents — are now gathered in The Burning House: What Would You Take? (public library)." Read more and see photos on Brain Pickings.

The Principals of Minimalism: One doesn't have to be a minimalist to live an uncluttered life, but some of the principals in Grant Snider's drawing are useful for everyone. Go to Incidental Comics, where you can learn the source of the artwork used in each panel and order a poster.


Clutter and Your Workspace: A study at the University of Minnesota concluded: "Working in a neat or untidy office might affect the way you function, according to the findings of experiments conducted by University of Minnesota researchers. They showed that people working at a neat organized office tended to be more conventional, generous, and inclined towards healthy foods. A messy office, on the other hand, appears to stimulate creativity and a willingness to try new things." Hmm. What do you think?



The World's Largest Record Collection: What happens when you try to sell the world's largest record collection? Timing is everything. Fortunately, Paul Mawhinney's gigantic collection didn't meet a tragic fate. In fact, the end of his story has a bit of a twist. Click here to go to MessyNessyChic to read more and watch a 7:36 documentary by Sean Dunne.

Selling a Hoarder's Home: "The one-bedroom condo on Park Avenue was described by the broker, Jeffrey Tanenbaum of Halstead Property, as a 'hoarder’s paradise, with seven cats, one dog and 12 armoires packed to the brim.'. . . For brokers, showing and marketing a true hoarder property can require considerable creativity." Read a fascinating article in the New York Times.



A Video Portrait of American Life: Cluttered

This blog recently marked its seventh anniversary, so I wanted something special to post. I found a short video (12:17) from SoCal Connected, a KCET-TV magazine, that could be exactly what you need to break through whatever barriers are preventing you from tackling your clutter.

Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors, a photo-laden book published in 2012, was the result of a ten-year UCLA study that used "archaeological approaches to human material culture." The families, who were anonymous and considered "typical," gave full access (including video) to the researchers who gathered data that showed how many of us live: with far more stuff than we need.

This segment from the KCET show examines the book and, significantly, two families who decided to go public now, years after they had been subjects in the study. The differences are fascinating, as is the information discovered by the research. Take a look!

George Carlin Talks about Stuff

Awareness of the absurdity of how much stuff most of us accumulate permeated the mainstream quite awhile ago, but it's always heartening to see George Carlin's classic stuff routine trotted out as a reminder. This time, a stuff-struggling writer for the Huffington Post acknowledged the issue and marked George Carlin's passing on this date in 2008. If only we could remember that our homes are just our "stuff with a cover on it!" Click here to read the article and see the famous routine. (In case anyone is sensitive about this: it does contain profanity.)

What Are Your Most Important Possessions?

When talking about uncluttering or simple living, it's quite possible to be misinterpreted as a spoilsport, a killjoy who doesn't want anyone to have anything beyond a scrap of threadbare clothing, a dented coffee mug, and a tent to sleep in. Those who dare to have more than that are supposed to feel guilty or at least ashamed of being so decadent.

Of course, that's not really what uncluttering and simple living are about. But it can be a fine line that separates gratitude from guilt when we think about our own possessions. The never-ending questions we face are, "How much is enough? How much is too much?"

The images you'll see in the projects linked below are thought provoking, perhaps even shocking. They're not meant to engender guilt or shame; they're meant to offer perspective, which can be helpful when we're trying to answer those difficult questions.

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Photojournalist Brian Sokol created a project entitled The Most Important Thing. It features portraits of incomprehensibly impoverished refugees who have crossed the border between Sudan's Blue Nile state and South Sudan's Upper Nile state, with their most important personal possession.

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Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti’s project entitled Toy Stories presents photos of children from around the world with their most important possessions: their toys. Galimberti explores the universality of childhood and concludes, “At their age, they are all pretty much the same; they just want to play.” But he discovered significant cultural differences, too. In wealthy countries, the children were inclined to be possessive; in poor countries, even when they had only a toy or two, the children were inclined to share.

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JeongMee Yoon's Pink and Blue project "explores the trends in cultural preferences and the differences in the tastes of children (and their parents) from diverse cultures [and] ethnic groups, as well as gender socialization and identity." The project began as a result of her five-year-old daughter's insistence on wearing only pink and playing only with pink toys.

I've posted about this project in the past, but it seems appropriate to reference it here again, not because it demonstrates the power of marketing, but because of the comparatively large quantity of toys that are displayed. Could a child with this many playthings identify only one most important possession? Does that matter? Do these pictures represent joyful abundance or thoughtless acquisition? How can we know? Are the gender issues more important than the issue of quantity?

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How much is enough? How much is too much? ~ It's easier to know how much is too little.

Musing About Minimalism

One of the misconceptions about minimalism is that it requires giving up "everything," suffering with only the most basic requirements for comfort met, and generally embracing a life of sacrifice. Not necessarily. I like the explanation offered by Ryan Nicodemus, co-author with Joshua Fields Millburn of the book Minimalism: Leading a Meaningful Life:

I had an interview this morning . . . where the guy asked what does a minimalist's life look like and I didn't know what to tell him because it's really not that different from anybody else's life. It's just more deliberate. If you were to walk into my home, you wouldn't think oh something's wrong with this guy. You'd just think he's tidy. . . . [Minimalism is] more about living deliberately and more about asking what adds value in your life and cutting out the superfluous stuff.

Defining "superfluous" is, of course, most challenging. Akiko Busch writes in "The Art of Shedding Possessions:"

There are many factors ruling our choices about what to surrender. A force equal and opposite to the impulse buy is the precipitous urge to give something up, which can spring from some combination of regret, disenchantment, a sense of failure, even fatigue.

But beyond such hasty and impetuous housecleaning are the simple facts that we outgrow things, our tastes change, and, maybe most of all, our desire for material belongings wanes. Parting with them may only be a matter of recognizing that we need to end certain relationships and understand how the physical objects around us have served as their emotional accomplices.

 

Sometimes simplified circumstances can be imposed on us by chance. John Stark wrote of discovering "The Zen of a Small Kitchen" when he moved to a new city:

For the first few weeks, I felt as if I were in one of those PBS reality shows where people are made to live in a house from a bygone era. . . . First, I had to acquire the right mindset. 'The original owners of the house had four children,' my landlord told me. If that kitchen was good enough for a family of six, surely I, one person with a Doberman, could make do.

 

And that, of course, is the answer to all uncluttering challenges: the right mindset. If one commits to simplifying, to mindfully letting go of unnecessary possessions and thoughtfully dealing with the mundane, life will begin to feel ordered, to flow instead of bump along.

 

Peter Lawrence, author of The Happy Minimalist, demonstrates the extreme minimalist point-of-view in this post from Treehugger. In the 14-minute video at that link, Peter explains that minimalism requires "constantly examining what resources are needed to achieve your objective."

 

Most of us will feel that we need more than Peter Lawrence does, but how much more? Well, that's always the question, isn't it?

 

 

Photo Credit: "Tranquility 4" by Ove Tøpfer, stock.xchng

Uncluttering: Stuff vs. Art

One of my new, small drawings: graphs created from
significant numbers in someone's life or numbers
derived from musical patterns in favorite songs.

Anyone who's attempted to unclutter understands that our relationship with our stuff is complicated. But too often uncluttering is misunderstood as a process that leaves one bereft of possessions, forced to live an uncomfortable, minimalist existence. Of course, that's not the case at all. Uncluttering just means letting go of things that no longer serve a purpose in your life. Defining what's necessary and unnecessary is a personal, often difficult, decision.

Sometimes having very little is the correct choice for some people. "Vagabond minimalist" Andrew Hyde has chosen the ultra-minimalist route. You may have heard about him last year when he was being publicized frequently as "the guy who owns only fifteen things." Most of us wouldn't be comfortable trying to live with so little and, in fact, I wonder if Andrew might have had a stash of at least a few items awaiting his return from the road. But he certainly seemed content living with his stripped-down-to-the-bone possessions.

But what if you have a huge collection of stuff? It's not just "stuff," and it's certainly not clutter, if it's really a collection, if you display it proudly, if you enjoy it and want to share that joy with others. Jacinta, true collector, has some 5,000 snowmen figures that she cheerfully displays every holiday season. In this video, we see that there's nothing cluttered about her home. Crowded, yes, but cluttered, no! She obviously adores her collection, so even though it may seem a bit much to most of us, if it's affordable for her family, why not continue to celebrate it?

Sometimes people redefine their relationship with "stuff" in a way that minimizes clutter. If you're fed up with our consumer culture, you think long and hard about what you need before you make a purchase. That alone would make accumulating clutter difficult. Katy Wolk-Stanley, who bills herself as The Non-Consumer Advocate, has particularly stringent requirements: she's vowed not to buy anything new. It began when she heard about The Compact, a social and environmental movement that started in 2006 in San Francisco when ten friends promised not to buy anything new for a year. Katy adopted the plan in 2007, but decided to continue -- indefinitely. It's been five years. Again, not everyone would be comfortable making this kind of commitment, but it works for Katy.

Now let's talk about clutter and art. Most artists I know (myself included) have an uneasy relationship with clutter. One major challenge is that almost everything we see has creative potential. Heaven help the poor artist who specializes in collage -- the most extreme example of someone who sees potential art everywhere, even in stuff that's been discarded, often for good reason!

You might think that the very fact that I make art, which is "stuff," is a contradiction: on one hand, I advocate getting rid of stuff and, on the other, I make it. But I never advocate getting rid of something that you find useful or beautiful (to borrow the classic explanation from William Morriss of how to choose what things to have in your home). I can't imagine living without art, so if you find it an important part of your life, I understand completely. That's why I continue to make art and that's also why I've decided once again to have a holiday sale of my original work. If you're interested, click here to go to my art blog for more information.

As we approach the end of the year and that time when we make New Year's resolutions, maybe this year we don't need to resolve (again) to unclutter. Maybe we need to resolve to work on understanding our relationship to our possessions and finally figuring out what we need and love. Then we can apply that understanding not only to what we have now but also to what we buy in the future. Let's start by asking ourselves, about everything that we own: Is it beautiful? Is it useful? If it is, let's be grateful that we have it; if it isn't, let's gratefully let it go.

Too Busy to Unclutter?

© awitikoski at stock.xchng 

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately by all of the stuff I need to do and I want to change that. I've fallen behind on some things that are current, but what nags at me is the stuff that's been unresolved for ages -- the "postponed decisions" that organizer Peter Walsh says are at the root of clutter: little piles of notes with information on them that I perceive is worth keeping; artwork that needs to be stored rather than stacked; items that need to be donated, not left in a holding area. In an effort to get a grip on my situation and stop beating myself up over it, I reread two articles that I've saved because I think they're so insightful. (And, yes, I have some digital clutter that needs to go, too!)

John Tierney offers this observation in "Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?":

"Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. . . . Once you’re mentally depleted, you become reluctant to make trade-offs, which involve a particularly advanced and taxing form of decision making. In the rest of the animal kingdom, there aren’t a lot of protracted negotiations between predators and prey. To compromise is a complex human ability and therefore one of the first to decline when willpower is depleted. You become what researchers call a cognitive miser, hoarding your energy."

While the article focuses on how how decision fatigue depletes your energy to make choices while shopping or trying to stay on a diet, I'm convinced that it also contributes to an inability to tackle clutter effectively. When you postpone decisions about your clutter, it's not simply because the decisions are difficult to make; there are also probably too many of them for you to handle comfortably and they probably fall into too many different categories -- papers, clothes, sentimental items, etc.-- each with their own unique excuses that trap you and prevent you from moving forward. Thus, you feel decision fatigue, and it becomes easier not to decide, and go do something else. Like write a blog post.

As the article points out, there is a biological price extracted -- it's not just "all in your head." So perhaps the best way to handle dealing with those postponed decisions (assuming you're not hiring a personal organizer to blast through the process with you) is to tackle them in very small quantities. Forgive yourself for having allowed the clutter to accumulate and tackle only a decision or two a day. Work on uncluttering when you're rested and well-fed, so you'll be less likely to succumb to feelings of pressure or despair that you'll ever complete the job. If you have an average clutter problem, not a clutter crisis, eventually you'll gain the upper hand.

There's another related issue that many people face and Tim Kreider calls it "The Busy Trap." From his article:

"If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: 'Busy!' 'So busy.' 'Crazy busy.' It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: 'That’s a good problem to have,' or 'Better than the opposite.' . . . The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it."

I've known plenty of "crazy busy" people and many of them don't seem to get much joy out of their busyness. Some don't seem to get much done, either, other than treading water. The things they say they want to do are always put on the back burner to enjoy sometime later, but also on the back burner are their problems, including dealing with their clutter. Being productive is the focus of their lives and uncluttering, while they might acknowledge as a useful task, is low on their list of priorities. The idea of doing nothing is incomprehensible to them.  Kreider says all this busyness is to avoid an existential problem: the feeling of the meaninglessness of everything we do. Maybe, but maybe it's not quite that bleak. Maybe it's just another way to avoid making decisions about things that make us uncomfortable.

I fall into the "being productive" trap sometimes and, when paired with decision fatigue, that can result in doing things that are faux productive. For me, that usually means reading and looking at interesting things online. It's engrossing and can feel like I'm doing something important when I'm learning something new, but I'm really just entertaining and distracting myself. I don't truly need to know all those obscure facts about esoteric subjects. (I'm delighted that you're reading this blog post, but if you have a clutter problem, please go do something about it as soon as you're done!)

It seems that if we want to take control of our excessive busyness, we need to make choices that allow us some genuine down time. Not paralyzed by decision fatigue time, not distraction time, but quiet time that allows us to regenerate our enthusiasm for life. As Kreider points out:

"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done."

Tim Kreider thinks that life is too short to be busy. I'd add that life is too short to live it surrounded by clutter, whether it's in your living space or stowed away in closets, drawers, and storage units where it remains as clutter in your head. So, fortified with a decent night's sleep and a good meal, I'm off to make a decision or two about my supposedly important scraps of papers. Then, I'll allow myself a little quiet idleness. It should be a genuinely productive evening.

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"All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone."

~ Blaise Pascal

Stuff in Quantity

Letting go of unnecessary stuff is usually a process that evolves over time. Not many of us can slash our possessions to the minimum on the first try. Here's some motivation to continue to rethink how we relate to our stuff: Click here to read about Japanese artist Hiroshi Fuji's exhibition of 100,000 unwanted toys collected over the past thirteen years. The pictures are thought-provoking.

Click here to learn how one New York City Sanitation Department worker has turned a collection of trash into a gallery of sorts. “It doesn’t matter what it is. As long as it’s cool, I can hang it up and I’ve got a place for it,” says Nelson Molina, the collector.

Click here to see a list of the top five collectibles you may have bought in the '90s -- not necessarily the best investments if you were expecting to retire about now with the money you'd make from selling your Beanie Babies!



Cluttered Life in the 21st Century

Regular readers know that both The Thoughtful Consumer blog and my book, Sorting It Out, were inspired by my own uncluttering efforts several years ago. Like many people, I had been busy working and living and accumulating stuff until one day I had to acknowledge that my formerly simple, uncluttered home had become crowded and uncomfortable.

I'm a firm believer in a philosphy held by Blaise Pascal: "All of man's problems stem from his inability to sit quietly alone in an empty room." I wanted that quiet, empty space again -- or at least a room that was uncluttered enough to feel relaxing. That meant facing some "postponed decisions," as professional organizer Peter Walsh calls clutter.

The process of achieving a reasonably uncluttered state was challenging, and those challenges continue. I still hold on to some things that I honestly can't justify keeping. I still face temptation to buy things that I don't need. I still haven't conquered all of my organizing dilemmas. And, judging from the popularity of uncluttering books and workshops, and the burgeoning field of professional organizing, a lot of people have the same issues.

So, let's take a look at three recent, useful links to posts on that basic topic of clutter:

From the L.A. Times: "Clutter and Other Family Problems of the 21st Century"

"An interdisciplinary group of researchers — archaeologists, anthropologists, psychologists and other social scientists — found that mothers who described their houses as messy or cluttered experienced higher rates of a depressed mood in the evening. This correlation was one of many findings on human relationships and behavior with material possessions in the book Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century, which was published in early July...Among the many findings, researchers discovered that families are generally over-scheduled, with less time being spent outdoors or eating dinner together. The families paid a lot of money renovating and remodeling a house, only to spend much of their time in front of a TV...About 75% of the garages in the study held so much overflow from the main house that a car no longer fit."

From Yahoo Homes: "Why Clutter Matters and Decluttering is Difficult"

"Clutter matters, [pro organizer Jennifer] Hunter says. It matters because it takes up space — not just in your surroundings, but in your head. Of the two, the psychological effect of clutter is the most important. 'When we clear the clutter out of a space, people breathe a sigh of relief.' The mood changes instantly. People feel lighter, more serene, more focused."

From Parade Magazine: "Is Your Stuff Weighing You Down?" Adapted from Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen. Published by Random House, a division of Random House Inc. © 2012 by Anna Quindlen.

"At some point desire and need became untethered in our lives, and shopping became a competitive sport...I fooled myself into thinking that House Beautiful should be subtitled Life Wonderful...Now that I’m nearing 60, I understand the truth about possessions, that they mean or prove or solve nothing. Stuff is not salvation."

In the uncluttering workshops that I teach occasionally, I always ask my students to identify what they would save if they had to leave the house immediately because of a disaster (in earthquake country, that's a particularly salient concern). They usually answer in the same general way that Anna Quindlen did in her article in Parade: grab some photos and the dogs and go. Protecting your family and the family pets is primary on everyone's mind in a crisis, so I have no doubt that even the photos would be abandoned, if necessary.

And yet we cling to so much more -- not just the necessities, not just a few important sentimental things, not just comfortable little luxuries we enjoy, but stuff that's useless, worn out, and weighing us down. "Possessions mean or prove or solve nothing." Will we ever understand that? When we do, and when we accept it wholeheartedly, we'll finally be able to stop postponing our decisions and act.
  

Digital Clutter

Although I have no statistics to back me up, I suspect that digital clutter plagues as many people as physical clutter does. Crowding on our desktops or in our e-mail inboxes may not take up physical space, but it does take up space in the most important location we all deal with daily: our heads. We're inclined to notice the discomfort if we're lugging around an overstsuffed backpack, but too often we dismiss the nagging weight of too much burdensome stuff on our minds. Digital clutter at its worst is evident in hoarding behavior.

Wall Street Journal: Hoarding Goes Digital

"Digital clutter doesn't beget mice or interfere with walking around the house," says Kit Anderson, past president of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, a nonprofit in St. Louis, that studies hoarding behaviors. "But it's more insidious because no one else is going to insist that you get help."

Hoarding behaviors in the digital world are likely to be as difficult to handle as in the physical world, but most of us can tackle our digital clutter in the same way we tackle our real world stuff. If you Google "digital clutter," you'll find many links devoted to solutions to the problem. Some of them require mastering software that's designed to help you get organized. But using this software is rather like buying more storage containers for the stuff that's cluttering your home: it doesn't deal with the problem itself. The real solution: let it go.

After you've tossed the excess, some of those organizing programs can help you sort what you've decided to keep and prevent digital clutter in the future. But, just as in real life, the real trick is to avoid accumulating more stuff that you don't need. And if you do slip, remember that the delete key is your friend.

Clutter and Collections

Most people define clutter as too much stuff, which is certainly accurate, as long as you can define what's "too much." Quantity is flexible; function is the more important issue. Is it physically in your way? Is it a constant annoyance in the back of your mind? I'd say that you have too much when your stuff gets in the way of living your life the way you want to live it.

Some people can amass a ton of stuff and be quite content: collectors. They enjoy what they own, they care for it, display it (as much of it as they can), and are eager to share it and their experiences collecting it with others. Here are two completely different examples of collectors: one is quite traditional, while the other collected cast-offs to create art.

Archaeologist Andrea Ludden’s collection of over 40,000 pairs of salt and pepper shakers is housed in two museums, one of them created by her and her family. Click here to read more and be sure to view the excellent slide show of examples from the collection.

High school teacher, writer and artist Victor Moore constructed his Junk Castle from salvaged items such as sheet metal, tin, washing machine parts, dryer doors, miscellaneous housings, bedsteads, and the door from a '52 Oldsmobile. Another interesting slide show is at this link.

Is your stuff as well cared for, as beautiful, or as useful as the items in these collections -- or is it just clutter?

Cluttered Space: That's Outer Space

Sometimes we may feel overwhelmed by the amount of clutter we have in our homes, but it's always helpful to get perspective. At least most of us don't have to face anything comparable to NASA's mess:

"There are 22,000 objects in orbit that are big enough for officials on the ground to track and countless more smaller ones that could do damage to human-carrying spaceships and valuable satellites. The International Space Station has to move out of the way of debris from time to time.

'"We've lost control of the environment," retired NASA senior scientist Donald Kessler said in a recent report about space trash.' Kessler also suggested that it may become necessary to clean up some of our orbital junk."

The solutions to the clean up are still being debated:

"[I]deas range from a $1 billion U.S. Air Force 'Space Fence' radar tracking system, to a proposed European Space Agency probe that would spray loose rockets with protective foam, to an Italian spacecraft equipped with robot arms to help de-orbit the biggest pieces of debris."

More ideas:

Scientists at the University of Surrey in Britain have unveiled a 6.6-lb. miniature satellite fitted with a “solar sail” that can be deployed to de-orbit equipment left floating in space.

Russia is looking to build a $2 billion orbital “pod” that would sweep up satellite debris from space around the Earth.

The problem in space is the result of years of ignoring the situation. Now it's significant; it's hazardous and will be expensive to clean up. You've probably ignored your situation for a long time, too. But unless your clutter is so far out of control that it's jeopardizing your health and safety and will require hiring a professional crew to clear it out (see help for hoarders here), you'll be able to handle the job yourself with time and effort. Compared to NASA's mess, that's not so bad.

Ursus Wehrli Tidies Up

For the first time, both of my blogs, "The Thoughtful Consumer" and "Art by Cynthia," are showcasing the same thing -- or more precisely, the same person: Ursus Wehrli. Never before has art overlapped so perfectly with uncluttering and organizing!

From a post on PSFK:

"Swiss artist and comedian, Ursus Wehrli, known for his Tidying Up Art books (where he tidies up famous artwork, such as Van Gogh’s Room or Botticelli’s Beach by carefully rearranging them) returns with a new project. In his forthcoming book, The Art of Clean Up he brings his passion for sorting things to everyday life and objects."

See his TED Talk for more about tidying up art.

I find his work to be creative and hilarious. But, in real life, at what point does "tidying up" become obsessive? From the point of view of the readers of this blog, I suspect that's not much of an issue. And yet, in order to avoid tackling the large clutter issues in your life, do you ever obsess over a small area that you can control by making certain it's orderly? Does this somehow prove to you that you're really not living a cluttered life -- you just don't have enough time to be neat and tidy everywhere; just look here (wherever it might be) where you've clearly demonstrated that you can succeed at uncluttering! I know a woman who was overwhelmed by the clutter throughout her home but, whenever she tried to tackle it, she'd end up cleaning only the kitchen. The rest of the house was untouched, but that clean kitchen reassured her that she hadn't lost control completely.

I don't feel compelled to tidy up everything and I'm very fond of some messy art, but Ursus Wehrli provides amusing proof that order can be made out of all manner of "chaos." Just watch the video to see how he cleverly resolves the "mess" in a Jackson Pollack painting. As I said: hilarious!

How to Get Dressed . . . Without Driving Yourself Crazy

From the Amazon.com listing for my 22-page downloadable article:

"Fashion challenged? So is Cynthia Friedlob, author of 'Sorting It Out: One Disorganized Woman Solves the Problem of Too Much Stuff.' In this article, she focuses her uncluttering and organizing spotlight on simplifying any woman's wardrobe. She speaks from baffled personal experience, having made the majority of her clothing decisions guided by the wisdom of Gilda Radner: 'I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.' But Cynthia lives in Los Angeles, a city that judges your character by your logos, so eventually she had to devise a fashion system so basic that it would be guaranteed to work, even for her. Find out what she learned about how to avoid clothes closet drama and how to get dressed with a minimum of fuss and bother!"

Yes, "How to Get Dressed Without Driving Yourself Crazy" is available once again, now exclusively for the Kindle. Only 99 cents! Click here for the link to purchase. Don't have a Kindle? Click on the link and scroll down the page a bit. On the right side of your screen you'll see free downloadable software that will let you read any Kindle book or article on your PC, iPhone, Blackberry, iPad or Android phone. It's a great deal that gives you access to a huge library of Kindle publications.

I hope you enjoy the article! Please feel free to leave comments or questions here on this post or on Amazon.com. Thank you!

Charitable Donations After a Disaster

Responding to a natural disaster brings out the best in most of us. We want to help, we're eager to donate, we may even organize a drive to collect items that we'll send to the affected area. But sometimes our donations can cause even more problems for the recipients. AP writer Jay Reeves reports on the situation in Tuscaloosa after the recent tornadoes (After Tornadoes, Junk Donations Become a Challenge):

"...with storage space scarce, most [charities] say they can't handle any more used toys or cast-off clothing. 'That becomes the disaster within the disaster,' said Salvation Army spokesman Mark Jones. 'When people make those mass donations . . . it causes the community to be overrun with them and have to deal with that in addition to the storm damage.' . . . Temporary Emergency Services of Tuscaloosa County already has ten warehouses full of donations, but too many of those items are broken toys, dirty stuffed animals and used underwear that has to be thrown in the trash, said agency director Karen Thompson. While the warehouse space was also donated, Thompson said storing all that stuff is still costly because the organization must pay liability insurance to cover the operation in case someone is hurt on the job."

I have no idea why anyone would donate items that are in such bad condition that they have to be trashed, but obviously even the well-intentioned donations of usable goods can backfire.

So, what should you donate? Cleaning products, new underwear, nonperishable foods, pet food and sports drinks are usually safe bets, but if you can check with the charity first, that's advisable. Cash is always welcome.

An interesting thought to ponder is why it so often takes a disaster to get those donations out of the hands of their owners. It's obviously stuff that's not necessary and it could have been donated before the disaster occured. So why hesitate? Why not let go sooner, before an emergency happened?

And what will happen to all the stuff that's currently overflowing at the relief centers?

"'We hate to tell people 'no,'" [donation center volunteer manager Beth] Rhea said. So any left over water, clothing, baby food and other items will be donated again, possibly sent to other parts of the state that may be short on supplies. "We will box it all up, label the boxes and send them to another disaster."

Let's put our good intentions to work and donate what we can right now. Then let's set aside some cash to help out when the next disaster hits, as it surely will. We can think of it as just another good way to practice emergency preparedness.

© 2011 Cynthia Friedlob

Image credit: Laura Griffith at stock.xchng

Artfully Organized

I've mentioned before that our brains are hardwired to create order out of whatever we encounter, so it would be reasonable to assume that the less work our brains have to do to figure it out, the faster we'll get to a mental state we find comfortable. If we constantly assault our brains with chaos, we'll become stressed, exhausted, perhaps numb. We won't be able to function at our peak, nor will will we be able to fully enjoy ourselves because our poor old brains will be preoccupied trying to make sense of things. This is why empty beaches at sunset are relaxing -- and why uncluttered homes are less stressful.

We can use this information to help us get inspired to organize our possessions. What if we tried looking at beautiful images in which "stuff" is organized and displayed in such an appealing way that it becomes art? Once you've pared down your clutter to a manageable amount, it's helpful to change the way you look at what you're keeping. If you think of it as art and think of yourself as the curator of your own personal museum, you'll approach organizing it in a different way.

Check out "A Collection A Day, 2010," a blog by artist/illustrator Lisa Congdon in which she uses photographs to beautifully document her many collections.

Then go to Things Organized Neatly, a blog featuring photographs submitted by its readers, with each photo representing things that are well-organized. [Hat tip to Dina at Discardia for this link.]

So, how many things should you keep and organize? That's up to you. But you might want to take a look at one of my favorite books to get some perspective about how many possessions people have in other parts of the world. Material World by Peter Menzel, Charles C. Mann, and Paul Kennedy features photographs of families from all over the globe, standing outside their homes, surrounded by their possessions -- many or very few. It will help you decide that maybe your personal museum doesn't have to be quite as large as the Met!

© 2011 Cynthia Friedlob

Image credit: Gavin Mills at stock.xchng

Clutter and Stereotypes

It's probably no surprise to most of us that a cluttered space can make a person feel uncomfortable. Our brains are hard-wired to create order out of whatever we encounter. That's why we often can see faces and figures when we look at clouds. It's why we try to create understandable patterns when we're really dealing with random information. We want to interpret the abstract and the unpredictable in ways that are familiar, comfortable, something that makes sense to us. So a disordered environment just doesn't sit well with the way our brains work. Obviously some of us are able to function in more of a mess than others, but it's an unusual person who doesn't find order to be more calming than disorder.

However, a fascinating recent study has found that disorder also can have another effect on our brains. According to an article by Amina Khan in today's LA Times:

"People in messy environments tend to compensate by categorizing people in their minds according to well-known stereotypes, researchers from Tilburg University in the Netherlands say."

The idea is that we fall back on the comfort of "orderly" stereotypes when we're made uncomfortable by a chaotic environment. The study used a train station during a time when cleaners were on strike and compared responses to questions and situations to the responses received when the station was neat and clean. They also experimented by questioning subjects in front of a house in an affluent neighborhood when a few items made the exterior look uncared for and again when the house looked as tidy as would be expected. In both cases, responses revealed significant differences in the amount of stereotyping done by the subjects. In addition:

"Lab experiments further confirmed that when faced with images of chaos — be it a messy room or a random scattering of triangles and circles — volunteers rated themselves higher on a scale measuring their personal need for structure. When they were allowed to express stereotypical feelings immediately after seeing those disordered pictures, however, their 'personal need for structure' scores were lower. Stereotyping satisfied that need, said [social psychologist Diederik Stapel, the study's lead author]."

The conclusions: the need for order matters even more than we knew it did and it can have unexpected effects on our thoughts, perhaps even our behavior. Does this mean that if we could unclutter everyone on Earth, we might at last find world peace? Well, that may be stretching it a bit, but it couldn't hurt!

© 2011 Cynthia Friedlob

Image: Hazel Bregazzi at stock.xchng

The Cloud Collector's Handbook and Clutter

You may think this topic is a bit off-base for The Thoughtful Consumer, but stay with me!

Yesterday I read an article in the Science section of the NY Times entitled, "A Guide to Entice Heads into the Clouds," by Cornelia Dean. It's about Gavin Pretor-Pinney's new book, The Cloud Collector's Handbook:

"The book teaches readers how to identify clouds they have seen and gives them a place to record the sightings, just the way birders create life lists of the birds they have spotted. It even has a scoring system, in which cloudspotters receive 10 points for ordinary clouds like nimbostratus, the more or less featureless rain clouds people typically have in mind when they say clouds are depressing; 40 points for a cumulonimbus storm cloud, the anvil-shaped 'king of clouds'; and more points for more exotic formations.  His goal, Mr. Pretor-Pinney said in an interview, is to help readers escape the tyranny of 'blue sky thinking' and to understand and appreciate the beauty of a cloudy day."

I happen to like looking at clouds, so I would have enjoyed the article anyway. (I think even sunny day lovers will like the spectacular photos in this gorgeous related slide show.) But there are two observations in the article that I want to share with you. First (italics are mine):

"True, [Pretor-Pinney] acknowledges, clouds are ephemeral, 'magicked into being' by the atmosphere and constantly changing. And, of course, they cannot actually be gathered up and stored away. But as Mr. Pretor-Pinney sees it, you don’t have to possess something to collect it: 'You just have to notice it and record it."'

Learning to look at something you'd like to have for yourself and then walk away from it is a skill that's mandatory to develop if you don't want your home to be overrun with stuff. But I'm particularly fond of the idea of recording something as an alternate way of collecting. A collection without a collection!

I've been doing something similar on Facebook. Because I'm interested in vintage advertising and packaging, I've collected many photographs of old fashioned typewriter ribbon tins. The graphic design on such a small package is clever so I decided to use them as profile pictures. My collection exists only in digital form but, like any true collector, I'm enjoying sharing it with my Facebook friends.

And here's another wise observation from Mr. Pretor-Pinney's cloud collecting handbook:

"'Happiness does not come from wanting to be somewhere else,' he said. 'Happiness comes from finding beauty and a stimulation or interest in the everyday surroundings in which you find yourself."'

How can we find beauty, stimulation or interest in our everyday lives if we always want more stuff and our lives are filled with clutter?

Let's live uncluttered lives so we can take time to look at the clouds!

© 2011 Cynthia Friedlob

Image credit: MarcelTH at Stock.Xchng

Just a Little Bit More About Clutter

Sandy Banks is one of my favorite columnists at the Los Angeles Times, so I was particularly interested to read about her struggles with clutter:

"But I finally hit rock bottom last weekend, as I pawed through my collection of boxes in search of a receipt my tax man needs. My problem isn't containers or labels or color coding. It's the fact that the thickest folders in every bin are MISCELLANEOUS and TO BE FILED."

Oh, how I sympathize!

Her solution was to hire a professional organizer, a great idea for someone who feels overwhelmed by the tasks ahead of her. Of course, she was embarrassed, like many of us would be, to let the organizer see things in a state of chaos, so she cleaned up a bit first, in spite of the organizer's request to let everything remain just as it was. This is about as silly as cleaning up before the cleaning lady comes, but it has the added disadvantage of not giving the organizer a true picture of your problems.

I suspect that a professional organizer would have some useful insights about my clutter, whether I cleaned up a bit first or not. But I also suspect that the ultimate solution would require adopting the famous Nike slogan: Just do it. As much as I'd like to believe that there's a short-cut to improving the situation, I doubt that the useless papers will leap into the shredder on their own nor will the clothes choose to fly from the closet and into the nearest charity collection box. However, like Sandy, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed right at the moment, too, thus this short blog post. So, I'm adopting the viewpoint of Scarlett O'Hara instead: Tomorrow is another day.

Read the entire article by Sandy Banks here. Clean up tomorrow!

© 2011 Cynthia Friedlob

Image by datarec at stock.xchng