Hasta La Ideas

The New York Times ran an incredibly well-researched and informative article this weekend on the current state of the self-storage industry. The article gives insight into how the downturn in the economy is affecting storage units in terms of capacity and purpose of use. Additionally, the article confirms that the majority of units remain full of clutter, but it paints a vivid picture of people who are using the spaces for other, non-clutter reasons.

Some of the more powerful quotes from the article:

The Self Storage Association, a nonprofit trade group, estimates that since the onset of the recession, occupancies at storage facilities nationwide are down, on average, about 2 or 3 percent. It’s not a cataclysmic drop but enough to disorient an industry that has always considered itself recession-resistant, if not outright recession-proof…

“Human laziness has always been a big friend of self-storage operators,” Derek Naylor, president of the consultant group Storage Marketing Solutions, told me. “Because once they’re in, nobody likes to spend all day moving their stuff out of storage. As long as they can afford it, and feel psychologically that they can afford it, they’ll leave that stuff in there forever.”

After a monumental building boom, the United States now has 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space. (The Self Storage Association notes that, with more than seven square feet for every man, woman and child, it’s now “physically possible that every American could stand — all at the same time — under the total canopy of self-storage roofing.”)

A Self Storage Association study showed that, by 2007, the once-quintessential client — the family in the middle of a move, using storage to solve a short-term, logistical problem — had lost its majority. Fifty percent of renters were now simply storing what wouldn’t fit in their homes — even though the size of the average American house had almost doubled in the previous 50 years, to 2,300 square feet.

Maybe the recession really is making American consumers serious about scaling back, about decluttering and de-leveraging. But there are upward of 51,000 storage facilities across this country — more than seven times the number of Starbucks. Storage is part of our national infrastructure now. And all it is, is empty space: something Americans have always colonized and capitalized on in good times, and retreated into to regroup when things soured. It’s tough to imagine a product more malleable to whatever turns our individual life stories take, wherever we’re collectively heading.

Be sure to check out the article, which tells a fascinating story.

Professional organizer extraordinaire Monica Ricci returns to Unclutterer to offer us advice on curbing shopaholic practices. You can follow Monica on Twitter, Facebook, and her blog for more organizing tips.

Ahhhhh, the siren song of the mall. Doesn’t it feel nice at the mall? Isn’t it pretty in the mall? Doesn’t the mall smell all yummy and delicious, thanks to Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and Cinnabon? Doesn’t being at the mall just make you wanna get a Starbucks latte and go buy stuff? AAAARGGGHH STOP IT! That’s what got you in trouble in the first place!

If your clutter issues stem chiefly from shopping, here are a few helpful tips to change that reality so you can conquer your clutter once and for all.

1. Be aware of how you feel. If you use shopping, and specifically BUYING to alter your mood, notice it! If buying something new gives you an emotional high that temporarily takes you away from your troubles, makes you feel safe, worthy, loved, or gives you some other rush, it’s important to be aware of it. Once you’re aware of why you’re buying, you can take other steps to make yourself feel better besides buying. I would recommend a few sessions with a counselor, a hypnotist, or therapist to get to the root of your buying.
2. Imagine yourself at home. When you’re OUT of your cluttered home and inside the gorgeous four walls of Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel, it’s easy to forget how stressed your home makes you. Again, that’s the idea. They WANT you to forget about your house and just open your wallet. And listen, when you really need something, great. Go buy it! But before you do, vividly imagine yourself back at your house with your new “thing”. Where in your already cluttered home will your new thing live? Who will clean it? How much space will it consume? What will it give you back? How long will it be valuable? Asking yourself these questions will help you make better buying decisions.
3. Calculate the TIME cost. If money isn’t a motivator for you, and unnecessary spending doesn’t inspire you to reduce your shopping, think of how much TIME your new “thing” will cost you. Let’s say you make $20 per hour, and your new “thing” costs $100. In time currency, your new thing will cost you FIVE HOURS of your life. Thinking of new purchases in this way will help you decide if you REALLY need it or if you just want it to make yourself feel better.

The next time you’re out shopping, try these simple tips and see if it doesn’t help shift your shopping mindset so you can make better, more powerful choices and reduce the clutter in your life.

There are many reasons why I have chosen to live an uncluttered life, and one of those reasons is that I’m lazy. If I need to do something I’m not super excited about doing, I want it to take the least amount of time possible and I want it to cause me little or no stress. I’ve created simple routines for things like cleaning and getting ready in the morning because I need to do these things but don’t want to waste mental energy on them.

An example of this is processing mail when I come home: I instantly shred, recycle, or respond to the mail right when I walk in the door. This routine usually takes me two to three minutes, and then I don’t think about the mail or see it again. I used to just collect it and place it on the dining room table, then I would have to touch it again to move it so that we could sit down to dinner, then I would see it after dinner and think about it again, and then I would have to deal with it after worrying about it some more. In the past, I would spend 15 to 20 minutes thinking about the mail each night. Being “lazy” and organized with my mail saves me quite a bit of time over the course of the year. That, and I never have to worry about paying bills late.

Back in January, Leo Babauta wrote a post on this issue on his blog ZenHabits titled “The Lazy Manifesto: Do Less. Then, Do Even Less.” I like his perspective on doing less to increase productivity:

Do Less: The Ultimate Simple Productivity

It may seem paradoxical that Do Less can mean you’re more productive — and if you define “productive” as meaning “get more done” or “do more”, then no, Do Less won’t lead to that kind of productivity.

But if instead you define “productivity” as a means of making the most of your actions, of the time you spend working (or doing anything), of being as effective as possible, then Do Less is the best way to be productive.

Consider: I can work all day in a flurry of frenetic activity, only to get a little done, especially when it comes to lasting achievement. Or I can do just a couple things that take an hour, but those are key actions that will lead to real achievement. In the second example, you did less, but the time you spent counted for more.

Let’s take the example of a blogger: I can write a dozen posts that really say nothing, mean nothing, but take up my entire day … or I can write one post that affects thousands of people, that really reaches to the heart of my readers’ lives, and takes me 1.5 hours to write. I did less, but made my words and time count for more.

If you’re lazy, as I often am, then the choice is simple. Do Less.

But do it smartly: Do Less, but make every action count. Send fewer emails, but make them important. Write fewer words, but make each word essential. Really consider the impact of every action you take, and see if you can eliminate some actions. See if you can achieve a great impact doing less.

This doesn’t mean “less is more”. It means “less is better”.

I don’t agree with everything in his post, but his viewpoint speaks to the heart of uncluttering. Read his post and then come back here to share in our conversation. I’m interested in reading about what your views are on lazy productivity.

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?