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Clutter Disrupts Routine

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I find comfort in the routine of daily life. But the cluttergories of life can easily disrupt your routine. What do I mean by that? Simply that physical, mental, and/or temporal clutter often disrupt our everyday routine and weekly plans in both simple and profound ways.

Consider Physical Clutter

It can be an eyesore, a trip hazard, or an emotional drain every time you see it. Perhaps all three! When my young granddaughter visits us, I am almost guaranteed to step on or trip over a toy she neglected to put away.

Consider Mental Clutter

As we note in STUFFology101: Get Your Mind Out of the Clutter: “Clutter of the mind includes emotions, regrets, and worries that drain us.” Fatigue makes it challenging to focus, and may lead to apathy, or even depression.

Consider Temporal Clutter

We each have various tasks to complete every day that are important to us. That routine can be interrupted by things ranging from overtime at work to a plumbing problem at home.

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Any combination of these cluttergories can and will disrupt your routine. A sense of being overwhelmed may result. At least that was the case for me over the last few weeks. For example, I neglected writing a blog post last Monday for this website.

Sometimes all we can do is keep up, and that’s okay. I was reminded of this by my co-author in a recent phone call. Not surprisingly, she has written on this topic before. ICYMI: “What HAPPENED? Too much Time STUFF!”

Take Action

Be aware that clutter is disrupting your routine. Take a few minutes for yourself. Maybe a short walk outside or a call to a friend. Go out for a family dinner. Do something to help your own mental attitude. Simple but not easy as the pace of life steadily moves faster and faster. Take action today and your routine will refresh itself anew.

Move Away From Clutter

Move Away From Clutter

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Are extra storage boxes clutter? That depends on what you define as clutter.

In this case, no they are not clutter. My oldest daughter is moving out of state soon and I am on the lookout for well-constructed moving boxes. Yes, she can always purchase moving boxes from a variety of sources when it is time to pack her belongings. But I look at it as a challenge to find good quality boxes until then.

It can be fun too. Just keep your eyes open during your regular shopping trips. For example, the boxes from Urban Jungle left me curious about the name. Now I know that the company sells houseplants to Lowe’s.

While gathering moving boxes in this fashion may lack uniformity, it gives me the opportunity to expand my knowledge base as well as provide me with random topics for conversation, making it a game of sorts.

Another example is the box from hōmz. This box was from another member of the household that was ready to recycle. It will find new life as a moving box and I found another source for storage and organizational items by accident. Always handy for a STUFFologist!

The final example is a box from Hello Fresh. This company provides home delivery for pre-portioned meal kits. A handy and healthy way to cook for a busy family. I learned something new while talking to the neighbor about food and time-constraints for cooking dinner.

Moving and the preparation for same can be a tedious and time-consuming process. Why not throw in some fun while you move away from clutter? Gathering boxes from random sources is a cost-effective and entertaining way to ease at least a small amount of tension from the moving process.

 

 

Kitchen Gadgets and Junk Drawer Clutter

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Kitchen gadgets can make food preparation easier unless they lead to junk drawer clutter.

My wife is in charge of our kitchen and I asked her to pull six random gadgets from the junk drawer, then quiz me to see if I knew what they are used for. If I didn’t know, she would explain their use to me. I managed to get three out of six correct.

How many of these kitchen gadgets do you know?

If you don’t know what a kitchen gadget is used for, is it clutter? The very name “junk drawer” conjures an image of chaos. Since she uses these items throughout the year they are not clutter.

If you have a junk drawer in your kitchen, beware of clutter creep. That is, accumulation of gadgets that never get used. If you have trouble opening your junk drawer, it might be time to start de-cluttering that drawer.

How many gadgets did you get correct?

The item list and purpose of each:

  1. Egg separator – a tool used to separate the yolk of an egg from the egg white.
  2. Cake tester probe – a kitchen tool designed specifically for use in baking to test the doneness of cakes, a crucial step in the baking process.
  3. Biscuit cutter – a kitchen tool used to cut dough for the North American definition of biscuits (similar to English scones but without the higher amounts of sugar.) They are round, with a taller cutting edge than a cookie cutter.
  4. Citrus zester – a kitchen utensil for obtaining zest from lemons and other citrus fruit.
  5. Egg piercer – a tool that pierces the air pocket of an eggshell with a small needle to keep the shell from cracking during hard-boiling. If both ends of the shell are pierced, the egg can be blown out while preserving the shell (for crafts).
  6. Butter slicer – A tool that makes cutting butter easier and cleaner. Made of metal and wire. Also referred to as a “butter cutter”.

Kitchen gadgets can make food preparation easier, just be sure to use them.

Organization Options for Your Closet

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What do you do after you have cleared the physical clutter from your living space? Maybe now is a good time to better organize some frequently used spaces like your closet. Since I am frequently at Lowe’s for various household projects, I’ll share what I discovered yesterday.

Lowe’s carries a wide variety of closet organization items both in store and online.

I am a fan of wood and Lowe’s carries wooden closet organizers, perfect for when I am ready to reorganize my closet space. If you don’t want to go full project changeover, then they have cost effective options available as well. For example, neatfreak! offers items ranging from hangers to shelf organizers.

Closet organization can be fun. Make some time to tackle that project today!

For smaller random organizing challenges in your living space, consider plastic storage bins for a quick fix. ICYMI, here are some suggestions from January 2021, “What’s in Stor(age) for You This Year?”

 

Digital Clutter Causes Computer Confusion

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How much do you rely on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smart phone? More than you may realize since they are heavily integrated into how we live day to day. The lines between work and leisure are blurred. And any of these devices have quick access to family and friends via social media.

I am old school with respect to technology. I use a desktop computer with a regular sized alpha-numeric keyboard, and a large, easy to read screen. Much like your car, it requires routine maintenance. Similarly, it will not last indefinitely, as much as we might want it to. Worse, the rapid pace of technological change quickly makes these items obsolete, or at least incompatible with the newest software for a given device.

What does that have to do with clutter? That depends on you and your preferred device. I strongly dislike the smaller screens of a smart phone, or tablet. And am less than enthusiastic about the usually compressed keyboard of a laptop. Hence my preference for my older desktop. But I allowed digital clutter to accumulate, causing unforeseen issues with my favorite device. That is, my desktop experienced Digital Clutter Confusion.

The wide variety of cloud storage options should give us the ability to work across devices when technology fails, but only if we use them. I am sorry to say that I had not kept up to date with my important files and am still dealing with the fallout for my lack of diligence.

You may have noticed a gap in blog posts for STUFFology101.com. That is my fault, and I sincerely apologize. Most of my information for the website is on my desktop. When my hard drive began to fail, I had difficulties accessing the information I needed to even login to the site. As with so many things in life, I learned the hard way to run regular backups and keep important passwords on physical paper in a safe location.

Equally important is keeping your software up to date, and ensuring your firewall, anti-virus, and/or malware programs are running and current. Self-evident I know, but random things happen in life. I have again learned the hard way that one should double check such things before you work or play on any device. Here is a handy list of computer maintenance tips you can reference to keep your device operating smoothly.

The benefit of computer or other technology problems we experience is discovering solutions that prevent them from occurring again. For me, I had time to reflect on my reliance on one specific piece of technology, my desktop. AND take a hard look at how much time I spent online working on a project or playing on social media. Too much screen time is a bad thing. More on that topic for a future post.

Luckily for me, I have recovered my important data. I have saved it to my cloud storage and a new portable external hard drive (just in case). Like physical clutter, I encourage you to take a moment TODAY to clear out those files you no longer need and lessen the digital clutter on that device. Hopefully, you learn from my mistake and avoid the inconvenience and frustration of device failure.

Time for Yourself

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Time goes by each day. How do you spend your time? Time management is important for our general health and happiness.

In STUFFology 101: Get Your Mind Out of the Clutter we note that, “All of us have 168 hours each week. How we fill those hours determines the quality of our lives.”

Are you busy? Probably. Life can be hectic for many of us. Temporal clutter often keeps us from taking time for ourselves.

Do you make time for yourself? If you don’t, your body will eventually protest.

Here are a few resources that may help:

The picture I chose for this blog post is a digital clock with a slightly off-kilter display. A useful metaphor for how we spend our time each day. That is, we can be off-kilter if we don’t take time for ourselves.

A quotation from Diane von Furstenberg reinforces this point well,

“It is so important to take time for yourself and find clarity. The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.”

Take time for yourself today!

Bonus quotations to further help you remember to take time for yourself.

Cluttered Garage - ER

Constant Clutter Conspiring to Constrict Your Life?

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Help is on the way!  During this COVID-19 period of limiting travel and social contacts, STUFFology 101, co-author, Eric Riddle and I met to discuss reinstituting regular STUFFology 101 decluttering tips to help you while we’re all spending more time at home.

With all this time, we have the cleanest homes, right?

Nooooo?

Cluttered Garage - ER

 

While we try to set a good example as STUFFologists, we’ve also been dealing with our mental and physical clutter, while balancing the temporal cluttergory of our lives.

Months from now, WILL WE regret wasting away our days and weeks, not having used this valuable time to get things done?

Why have regret, when we can take steps, starting now?

Eric and I will post short digestible tips each Monday at 8:00AM PST.  Visit us for real-life tips you can apply to the cluttergories in your life.

We invite you to join and engage with us by sharing your own experiences.

Together we will get our minds out of the clutter.

Clock face

What HAPPENED? Too much Time STUFF!

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Clock facePHEW! What happened to 2016?

We’re 11/12 of the way through the year and if you’re saying this, it could be due to too much temporal clutter!

Even I, a STUFFologist – an expert in decluttering the cluttergories of our lives – have lots going on and feel involved in too many things!

Sometimes, we go through periods like these and all we can do is keep up… barely! A family emergency?  We have to fit it in as we set aside other important tasks. Fortunately, there are only 24-hours in a day! Otherwise, we’d be busy, Busy, BUSY for Many MORE hours!

You may recall one of the cluttergories defined along the left side of the page is:

Temporal CluttergoriesTemporal clutter is when we fill our days with so many activities we can’t focus on any one. People who say they’re too busy are often suffering from temporal clutter.

We fill the open slots in our days with seemingly interesting diversions.

I’ve been reviewing author Dorothea Brande’s two-million copy selling 1936 book entitled, Wake Up and Live where she writes about successful people heading toward goals while those who fail head away from goals. In other words, failures engage in self-sabotage. Brande employs an elegant example in the first chapter. (Bracketed “you” replaces use of male gender.)

Suppose [you] had an appointment a hundred miles north of [your] home, and that if [you] kept it [you] would be sure of having health, much happiness, fair prosperity, for the rest of [your] life. [You have] just time enough to get there, just enough gas in [your] car. [You] drive out, but decide that it would be more fun to go twenty-five miles south before starting out in earnest.

Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Yet, how many of us take a break or worse, explore a diversionary route when faced with eventual success? If toward the end of this year, you’re finding achievement of your goals elusive, take an honest look at how you’re spending your time. Brande expands on how we justify our decision to fail.

When failure comes about through devoting precious hours to time-killing pursuits, we can all see … by looking more closely, by discovering that this work gets us nowhere, that it both tires us and leaves us unsatisfied, that we see here again energy is being devoted to the pursuit of failure.

This year, I took steps to focus more on the things that will help me to reach my goals.

Fewer and Better Quality Speaking Engagements
I’m surprised to find fewer potential clients who are prepared to partner in co-creating a stellar program. When I find that rare person who is willing to work to produce an optimal program, I accept the invitation and together we create a memorable and rewarding program.

Reduced board service
For those who know me, I bring everything to the table and more. Surprisingly, there are too many board members (unfortunately) who want/need the prestige but are not prepared to fulfill their fiduciary duties. An example is corporate board membership where board members serve in 9 or more other boards receiving fees of $245,000 or more for each board. Seriously? If your board meets quarterly and you’re a member of 10 boards, you’re needing to prepare for 40 – 80 days of meetings in a year let alone trying to fulfill your primary job as a CEO. Not gonna happen… effectively.

Let go of the temporal clutter in your life. 

Take these final weeks of the year to focus your efforts toward your goal(s).

So often we justify interim failure by saying we’ll start anew in the New Year. Why program yourself toward failure? Work toward success! Dorothea Brande believes success takes just as much energy as failing. I’ve found I feel much better when I test out strategies as the year comes to a close. By the time the New Year arrives, I’m on a roll having already taken steps toward success. I feel much more confident about tweaking my approach as I go along. Try it. NOW! Don’t you deserve to feel better than you do, right now?

Harald Krueger Parody of STUFFology 101 Cluttergories

Throw it Out or Keep it All?

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Harald Krueger Parody of STUFFology 101 CluttergoriesRetired 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 resist. He even breaks into song!

This video of Harald’s presentation was taken with a smartphone during a Thursday evening High Desert Toastmasters club meeting at Robertson’s Honda in Palmdale.

I hope he feels better now that he got this off his chest.

I think he wants to keep it all!

We’ll definitely find out when we invite him to speak at our next community event.

Thank YOU, Harald!

If the video does not play below, click on this link: http://youtu.be/SynvPpov5v4

Most THINGS don’t Matter Unexpected Gifts Do

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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 gifts that may surprise us.

Brenda Avadian in Mexico Drinking la Leche fresca de CocoWhile on a trip to Mexico, my husband and I lived high on the hog, we also lived along the middle of the hog, and under the hog. Okay, I’m stretching the cliché a little.

We returned home appreciating that we had a shelter even though it was a fixer-upper. We questioned if we should proceed with remodeling.

Even now, in our information-rich world, the more things we acquire, we run the risk of creating physical clutter, which soon grows into toxic mental clutter that takes time away from what matters in our lives.

Ever ask a person a question and not get a straight answer?

C’mon, what is it? Yes or No?

It’s hard to decide with a clutter-filled mind.

Instead, when we declutter the various cluttergories in our lives, we feel lighter, more focused, and are more decisive.

At around 7 minutes in the video, you’re invited to do an exercise. Click on link for an overview of the STUFFology 101 Cluttergories. Print a copy and then write your notes (from the video) on the reverse.

And the hog?

We finally ate the hog, but carnitas are not part of this story except for an unexpected gift.

I crossed one item off my Bucket List—a goal I’d had since I read stories in the 5th or 6th grade recounting family gatherings in Mexico.

What was it?

Watch the end of the video for my unexpected gift.

Yours will be different, and that’s what makes these gifts unexpected.

ENJOY.

If the embedded video does not display below, click on http://youtu.be/ViA9Xdsvz2g