Next week Tuesday, STUFFology 101: Get Your Mind Out of the Clutter, will be the featured title for Train Your Brain Day. Starting with the unofficial fall season (Labor Day weekend), STUFFology 101 was the top-ranked title in three categories (including self-help and stress management) for five days and then the top-selling nonfiction audio (sold […]
Retired psychiatrist and fellow Toastmaster, Harald Krueger leaves us on tenterhooks with his parody of STUFFology 101. He says, “Throw it out. Throw it all out!” But does he really mean it? See for yourself as he rips through each of the cluttergories – physical, mental, digital, temporal, and sensual. It’s just too funny to […]
Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up takes a Samurai’s approach to ridding ourselves of physical clutter. Written before the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake in Japan her book was released just in time to fill an urgent need of thousands of displaced families in Japan who needed to decide what to keep and what to […]
For nearly three years, Eric and I had been working together without nuptials on S.T.U.F.F. “What,” you ask? “You’re not even married.” Weeeaaaall, in a way we are. You see when you commit to work with someone, it becomes like a marriage. Three years ago, we made the commitment to collaborate on writing a book […]
Life Lesson: Most THINGS don’t Matter Unexpected Gifts Do Oftentimes, we are caught up with THINGS. We collect things. We clean, organize, and display them. We feel a loss when things go missing. Yet, if we let go of some of these things or even better, don’t bring them into our homes, we’ll receive unexpected […]
I disagree with Joe Pinsker’s article in the Atlantic that “Those who can comfortably ignore unread notifications, and those who feel the need to take action immediately.” A Third Type of Person There’s a third kind of person when it comes to email messages and I find myself among them. We are those who check […]
What does our STUFF mean? Better yet, what does our STUFF say about us? Throughout our lives, we accumulate STUFF for diverse reasons. We aspire to make a statement. Years ago, while I lived in Wisconsin, an Indiana-based consultant asked me why I don’t wear a Rolex watch. I told him my Seiko works just […]
“I’m cheap,” said my friend as she pulled the empty bottle of shampoo out of the trash. “I can get another two shampoos out of this.” “No you’re not,” I replied. “You’re ecologically minded. You’re green!” I added. She smiled, unbelievingly. Raised by Depression-era parents, she also saved everything. You never know when you’ll need […]
When one part of our lives grows cluttered, so do other parts of our lives. Hence, the term we’ve coined to describe various areas of clutter – cluttergories. When we think of clutter, it often deals with physical clutter—the stuff that makes us fear judgment by others. What kind of person do we become when […]
About a decade ago, I came upon “Nature abhors a vacuum” in a book on feng shui. It left a lasting impression upon me. If we resist this force of nature, we may gain control over the cycle of clutter in order to enjoy the unexpected gifts in life. At this time, I needed to […]