Hasta La Ideas

The March 2010 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine just hit newsstands and it is dedicated to the theme “De-Clutter Your Life!” The uncluttering articles begin on page 142, but most of the content in the rest of the magazine is tangentially related to the topic.

If you turn to page 158 of the issue, and search diligently, you can even spot a quote from me (hunting for it is like playing a game of Where’s Waldo?). This was my first time being quoted in O, and I was thrilled they thought of me for their big “De-Clutter Your Life!” issue.

For one of the uncluttering stories, Oprah let camera crews into her closet to see how much clutter she had stored on her rods and shelves. Her closet seemed to me to be in decent shape, but she talked frankly about her decisions to keep and purge items with Adam Glassman, O’s creative director:

OPRAH: “I bought a lot of little bags when I thought I was going to be a ‘lady who lunches.’ I’ve never been one, but I’ve always liked the idea and longed for that life. There’s something about dressing up and being ladies–it’s like playing house.”
ADAM: “Fashion can help you create an image, but be honest about your lifestyle. Do you really need yachting clothes when you never set foot on a boat? When buying an item, if you can answer ‘Where am I going in this?’ with at least four legitimate places, you have my blessing.”

One of my favorite features in the issue is a chart on page 153 “The 10 Habits of Highly Organized People.” From the list:

9. FORSEE (AND AVOID) PROBLEMS. You wouldn’t leave the house on a gray day without an umbrella, right? People who appear to sail through life unruffled apply this thinking to every scenario, says [Dorthy] Breininger [president of the Delphi Center for Organization]. Have a cabinet packed with leaning towers of Tupperware? Organized folks will take a few minutes to short-circuit an avalanche before it happens. (In other words, rearranging that cupboard now is easier than chasing after wayward lids as they scatter underneath the fridge.)

There are many great tips to be garnered from the March issue of O. Also, the items that Oprah decided to pitch from her closet are being auctioned on eBay starting March 1, and proceeds with benefit her Leadership Academy.

Do you have five minutes? If so, try one (or more) of these quick uncluttering tasks:

1. Check the expiration dates on all the food in your refrigerator and freezer. Is anything past its prime? Has something been lingering for longer than it should? Check out StillTasty.com and/or call the manufacturer’s customer service line if you have any questions about a food stuff’s safety. Toss any food that could potentially poison you and your family.
2. Help your child to gather all the tiny parts of his toys that often get lost or fall to the bottom of their toy chests. Once you have the items collected, use zip-top bags to store these itty bitty pieces. Put doll shoes in one bag and single Lego Blocks in another. Label the bags with a permanent marker and store all the zip-top bags in a basket or bin.
3. Walk through your living or working space and return as many out-of-place objects as you can to their proper storage place. Set a timer and get moving. Any items that don’t belong or lack a permanent home, decide if you can get rid of them (trash, recycle, donate) or if you need to make room in your home and/or office for the object. When the timer sounds at the end of five minutes, return to your regular activities.

Were you surprised by how much you were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time? What uncluttering tasks do you tackle in five minutes? Tell us your ideas in the comments.

In last week’s post “Discover your style to keep clutter out of your closet,” I introduced the concept of thinking about your wardrobe as an exclusive club that only the best of the best can get into. Consider yourself to be the bouncer, and you get to decide what items make it past the red velvet rope, and what items don’t.

This exclusive club concept is how I think about most physical objects and obligations in my life. For something to come into my house or occupy my time, it has to pass the red velvet rope test. Your home and life aren’t places for junk, they are privileged places for the things you truly value.

If you have a difficult time thinking like a bouncer, ask yourself: “If I wouldn’t give an object to a friend or ask a friend to watch over it, do I really want it in my house?” For example, I wouldn’t give a friend my junk mail or a rusty potato peeler or a broken washing machine. My friends don’t deserve these objects in her house, and neither do I. Also, I wouldn’t ask a friend to keep track of early drafts of my book, but I would ask a friend to keep an eye on my cats if I were to go on vacation. Early drafts of my book are clutter, but my cats are prized possessions. Drafts should go, but cats can stay.

When we treat our homes and lives with respect, when we think of them as exclusive clubs instead of dumping grounds, it’s easy to determine what is clutter and what isn’t. Put a trash can, recycling bin, shredder, and donation box near the main entrance to you home to temporarily hold the things that shouldn’t be fully welcomed into your space. Then, as needed, trash, recycle, or donate to charity these collected items. You’re the gatekeeper to your life. Be a bouncer and ruthlessly decide what is exclusive enough to make it past the red velvet rope and into your life and your home.

Except for when a kind neighbor drove me to the grocery store in his all-wheel drive station wagon on Monday, I haven’t left my house in 10 days. Since I declared February as Super Simple Month, I guess I should think of this time as Mother Nature’s way of helping me to keep to my plans. (We’ve received about 4′ of snow in the past two weeks.) But, unfortunately, being shut up in my house for so long has negatively affected my creativity. I haven’t been able to run (usually this is my time to be alone with my thoughts each day), and I’m finding nothing in my house inspiring right now.

Instead of reading about my cabin fever, I thought you might enjoy checking out some links that have more valuable insights into uncluttering, organizing, and simple living than I can produce right now. Trust me, this is what is best for all of us:

• “Diary of a Mad Hoarder: Uncluttering Your Life” by Betsy Lowther for the Washington Post Express
• “Downsizing: New-to-D.C. lawyer starts from scratch in small condo” about an amazing 600 sq ft condo by Jura Koncius for the Washington Post. (Be sure to check out the photo gallery.)
• “A Roomy 178 Square Feet” by Penelope Green for The New York Times
• “Cool ideas to streamline your home office” on CNN.com. Select Get Started to make the advice in the image interactive.
• “Is Lindsay Lohan a Celebrity Hoarder?” “Lindsay Lohan Gets Ready to Clean House!” and “Lindsay Lohan Cleans House.” A final video aired in the series showing before and after of Lindsay’s closet, but haven’t been able to find it yet. Anyone?
• “Waste Not” by Monica Ricci
• “Nina Garcia’s Shopping Tips” from Marie Claire magazine
• Finally, “How to organize cats” to put a smile on your face.

Today we welcome Brett Kelly, who blogs about technology, new media and whatever else the voices tell him to at http://brettkelly.org. He’s also a really swell guy.

A few months back, I was gingerly tip-toeing across the room where my children napped in an effort to get some laundry put away. After taking a few steps into the dark room and reaching the edge of the light cascading in from the hallway, I stepped into the darkness and, instead of finding the soft carpet currently being enjoyed by my other foot, I planted my size 13 squarely onto a plastic ambulance. The ambulance then began loudly announcing that it was on its way to some type of emergency situation and that its ETA was “2 minutes!” And, it wasn’t just dumb luck that brought us to this “look to the heavens and sigh deeply” moment. A quick glance around the now-illuminated room informed me that any next step I took would have caused the same result, but with the help of a different toy. The carpet was barely visible beneath the sea of kid crap.

I wrote the first paragraph in the past tense because things are better now. We managed to institute a few procedures to help ensure we’re slightly less overrun with children’s toys. I honestly couldn’t tell you the origin of these tactics, but somehow they worked their way into our parenting routine and they’ve ended up paying dividends.

Obviously, the sheer number of toys and games in your house will take it’s biannual leap during the holidays and around your child’s birthday. While Junior (age 0-4) is tearing the wrapping off of the newest noise maker, take this opportunity to stealthily pack up what you believe to be the least used toys in the pile of old toys. Put them into a plastic bag and stick them in the garage. Now, wait a couple of months. If by the time the bags have been out of sight for 90 days your child hasn’t asked about the contents, shuffle them over to your local Goodwill or Salvation Army location and get rid of them. Less fortunate kids can benefit from practically new toys that were hardly touched by their original owner and you’ll have some of your precious floor back. With older children (4+), have them participate in the entire process.

Our favorite way to keep the toy supply fresh without having to drop a bunch of money and sanity on more toys is to do a personal “toy swap” with our son’s friends. They come over to play and bring their favorite toy waffle iron or abacus or whatever and they leave with what has historically been a popular toy around our house. The exchange usually lasts a week or two. To turn this tip a little dark (and this requires that you have a pretty close relationship with the other kid’s parents), you can even arrange for a particularly annoying toy that they’ve borrowed to “have an accident” while it’s out of your house. I like to call this maneuver Mafia Toy Management.

It would be quite correct to point out that the best way to handle child clutter is to never let it get out of hand in the first place. Kudos to anybody who has been able to pull this off because we certainly haven’t. It’s especially difficult when generous and caring grandparents, aunts, and uncles are all too happy to help fill out Junior’s apparently dwindling stack of plastic trebuchets. That said, being able to keep your kid’s toy stockade under control without sending anybody into a tantrum is among my most treasured abilities as a parent (besides having them in stitches with my fantastic array of celebrity impressions).