Hasta La Ideas

On Friday, my grandmother turned 100 years old. She is an amazing woman, and turning 100 is just one more accomplishment in her incredible life.

My grandmother’s birthday has me thinking about a phrase that I often repeat to myself:

Even if you live to be 100, life is short.

It’s a reminder to me to not procrastinate and to stay focused on what matters most. There are only 24 hours in a day, and I want to spend those hours focused on what is important to me — sharing with others my passion and knowledge of simple living, embarking on new adventures with those I love, and nine other priorities for my life.

Uncluttering is about clearing the distractions that get in the way of your remarkable life. Once the distractions are gone, you can pursue your priorities and make the most of your life.

My life’s motto is to Carpe Vitam — Seize Life — and my grandmother is a testament to this form of living. I’m glad to have such a happy reminder of this concept as we celebrate her birthday.

I recently devoured Muriel Barbery’s book The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The novel, originally penned in French, follows a woman and a child who live in the same building in Paris. Both female characters are incredibly intelligent, and both go out of their way to hide that fact from everyone they encounter.

In the fifth chapter of the book, I was intrigued by a conversation between one of the book’s main characters, Renee, and a cleaning woman named Manuela. In the following dialogue, Renee and Manuela are discussing the apartments of residents in the building — a French family, the Arthens’, and a retired Japanese man, referred to here as Ozu. Renee begins:

“I’ve never thought about it. But it’s true that we tend to decorate our interiors with superfluous things.”

“Super what things?”

“Things we don’t really need, like at the Arthens’. The same lamps and two identical vases on the mantelpiece, the same identical armchairs on either side of the sofa, two matching night tables, rows of identical jars in the kitchen …”

“Now you make me think, it’s not just about the lamps. In fact, there aren’t two of anything in Monsieur Ozu’s apartment. Well, I must say it makes a pleasant impression.”

“Pleasant in what way?”

[Manuela] thinks for a moment, wrinkling her brow.

“Pleasant like after the Christmas holidays, when you’ve had too much to eat. I think about the way it feels when everyone has left … My husband and I, we go to the kitchen, I make up a little bouillon with fresh vegetables, I slice some mushrooms real thin and we have our bouillon with those mushrooms in it. You get the feeling you’ve just come through a storm, and it’s all calm again.”

“No more fear of being short of anything. You’re happy with the present moment.”

“You feel it’s natural — and that’s the way it should be, when you eat.”

“You enjoy what you have, there’s no competition. One sensation after the other.”

“Yes, you have less but you enjoy it more.”

I read this passage and couldn’t stop thinking about my own home. All of my shoe storage boxes are identical, I have three matching vases on the fireplace mantel, and every piece of furniture in the bedroom is made of the same type of wood in the same finish by the same designer. Yet, in other areas of my home, nothing matches. The chairs around my dining room table are all different, the knobs on my kitchen cupboards purposefully don’t match, and my filing cabinet doesn’t come close to resembling my other office furniture.

When organizing and decorating your spaces, do you tend toward symmetry in design or do you seek out the one item that pleases you the most? I don’t think that there is a “right” answer; I am simply curious as to your thoughts on a streamlined space. Does uncluttered have to mean symmetrical or repetition of the same? Is different discordant?

On Friday, reader Martin asked for me to write about my ideas on how to promote simple living to friends, family and others, and I instantly fell in love with this topic. So, I moved a few things around in the schedule to write about it today.

(Before I get too far in, though, I want to say that this post concerns people who don’t live in your house and who are adults. We’ve talked in the past about spreading simple living concepts on to children and how to live with others who aren’t unclutterers. This post is about spreading simple living concepts to people outside your home.)

I wholeheartedly believe that there is only one way to introduce others to simple living:

Lead by example.

If other people see how relaxed you are, how stress-free your home and office are, how clear your life is of clutter, and how focused you are on what is important to you, they will ask you how you do it. When they ask, you can pass along the resources you have found helpful for your life.

You can recommend books, websites (Unclutterer!), workshops, listings for professional organizers (NAPO), and suggestions from your personal experience. Be helpful, but try not to be overwhelming. You don’t want to make the person feel even more stressed than she is already feeling.

In my mind, forcing someone to follow simple living practices is futile. I think that living an uncluttered life is amazing, but it’s a personal choice. As my Quaker friend often proclaims, “let your life speak.”

Last Thursday, Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos made an official apology for the way Amazon deleted unauthorized George Orwell books from people’s Kindles.

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

When I read Bezos’ apology, I was impressed by how direct, sincere, and uncluttered it was. It didn’t contain an excuse. It didn’t shift blame to someone else. And the statement in its final sentence wasn’t an over-promise or an out-of-proportion exaggeration, it simply said that they will try to do better in the future. The apology also came pretty quickly, while consumer feelings were still riled.

Everyone makes mistakes. Apologizing when those mistakes are made isn’t a sign of weakness, but a sign of personal responsibility. I try to apologize when I mess up or hurt someone’s feelings or forget something important, but I don’t always get the apology right. So, I’m going to take a few lessons from Jeff Bezos and try my best to give uncluttered apologies when they’re necessary:

• Be sincere with your contrition. If you don’t feel sorry and you say that you are, you’re just lying to the person — which is yet another wrong.
• Be prompt. The longer you wait, usually the worse a situation spirals out of control.
• Take responsibility. If you are responsible, say so.
• Leave out the excuses. If the other person wants to know why you chose to do what you did, he or she will ask. An excuse doesn’t belong in your apology.
• Match the apology to the mistake. If you wrecked your friend’s car while you were borrowing it, offer to fix your friend’s car when you apologize (and do it). If you yelled at your child without warrant, apologize and explain what you will do in the future to try to prevent it from happening again.

What do you think about apologies (in general, not necessarily Bezos’) and their ability to be uncluttered? Are they better with or without excuses? What do you think of this example? I’m interested in reading your musings in the comments.

1. If you have pets, make your bed. You can make your bed even if you don’t have pets, but people with pets can’t miss this uncluttering step. Pets have litter, dirt, fur, dander, dust, and/or a bunch of other yucky things on them that don’t belong on your sheets. Plus, a made bed is easy on the eyes.
2. Know where you’re going. Before taking to the road, make sure to know the travel conditions and best route possible for your destination. Getting lost or sitting in a widely-reported traffic jam is nothing but time clutter.
3. Plan your perfect day. We’ve written quite a bit about this task, so I’ll simply direct you to our previous post.
4. Clean out your desk’s inbox. File papers, enter items onto your to-do list or into your project management software, scan papers you don’t need in physical form, sign documents — just be sure that your inbox is clean by the time you leave work at the end of the day.
5. Set your desk for tomorrow. Right before you head home from work, be sure to clear your desk and have it ready for tomorrow. If you have an early morning meeting with handouts, make sure that the handouts are easily accessible and ready to go. In case of an emergency, it should be simple for a co-worker to come into your office and quickly find the materials. Even if you don’t have an early meeting, your desk should be set so that when you arrive to work you can get right to work.
6. Sort, open, and act on your mail. When you immediately walk into your home, sort through your mail. Recycle all junk mail that doesn’t include any identifying information. Shred all junk mail (like credit card applications) that someone could use to steal your identity. Open and act on all other mail. Your action may simply be to scan and then shred the information, file papers, or pay a bill — but doing it right when you come home keeps it from being clutter in your home.
7. Load (and, if necessary, run) the dishwasher or hand-wash the dishes. Dirty dishes on the counter, sink, and anywhere else in your home are invitations to bugs, pests, and bacteria. Additionally, they clutter up your kitchen and make preparing meals a pain. You’re more likely to save a few bucks and eat at home if your kitchen is clean and ready to be used.
8. Get ready for bed an hour before you plan to go to sleep. Doing this means that your dirty clothes are more likely to be returned to a hanger, dropped in the hamper, or put in a mesh bag for dry cleaning, hand washing, or repairing. Also, a set bedtime routine signals your brain that it’s time to relax and prepare for sleep.

If you paid careful attention, you noticed that there are only 8 items on this list even though the headline proclaims 10. I did this because I want you to add two more things that are specific to your life as the other two items. Tell us about your items #9 and #10 in the comments.