Hasta La Ideas

According to the article “Stress and the Decision to Change Oneself” in a 1994 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly, there are six factors that significantly improve a person’s chances of making a change in his life:

1) A stressor disrupts or threatens to disrupt a valued role-identity, 2) one attributes responsibility for the stressor to an aspect of self that one believes can be changed, 3) one has access to structural supports for self-change, 4) one believes that one can effect self-change, 5) the perceived benefits of self-change outweigh the perceived costs, and 6)others provide social support for self-change.

Since this quote is from a professional journal article and not written in Unclutterer-speak, let me rework it without the jargon:

1. You don’t like how you’re behaving.
2. You know you are responsible for making the change; no one else can do it for you.
3. You have access to information that can help you change.
4. You believe you can change.
5. You believe making the change is worth it.
6. Your friends and family support your change.

Thinking about my transformation from a clutter bug into an unclutterer, I realize that all six of these factors were present. I was stressed out and overwhelmed all the time and I hated it. I knew I needed to sort through my stuff and that I would be upset if someone else just dumped it. I did research to find out how to unclutter my life (if only Unclutterer.com would have been around back then, this would have been a much easier process). I varied my intensity, but most days I believed I could change how I was living. I also believed that making the change would help my marriage, friendships, stress levels, and time management issues. And, everyone around me was willing to lend a hand if I would have asked for it.

If you’re having difficulties on your path to becoming an unclutterer, is it because you’re missing one of these six factors? What is keeping you from changing? Do you agree with this list? Share your views in the comments.

Today we welcome back Unclutterer programmer, Gary DuVall. In the In the first, second, and third posts in this series, he discussed how to prepare yourself and your home in case of a disaster and what to do if it unfortunately happens. This is his final post in the series. He is writing for us based on his personal experience of losing everything he owned in a fire.

By January, life started to feel normal again. The fire, the struggles with the insurance company, and finding a new place to live were all behind us. We were rebuilding and moving on.

We realized we hadn’t given much thought to the loss of our things but had spent all of our time worrying about our general predicament (Where will we live? I can’t believe this happened. How do I go to work tomorrow?) We discovered just how little the material stuff meant to us. This realization presented us with the peculiar ability to remain positive (for the most part) during the process. We talked about this being an opportunity rather than a devastating blow. (Losing intimate, irreplaceable items from our families, friends, and shared experiences did, for a time, bother us; however, that also faded.)

Thumbing through the more than 30-page inventory that listed what we once owned made us realize just how much we had, and, perhaps more importantly, how much we didn’t want to replace. So far, we have only replaced 20 percent of what we previously owned. To be comfortable, we don’t need a lot of stuff. Everything we have repurchased, we have been very thoughtful about quality and where everything will live in our home. No clutter.

Did we make mistakes along the way? Sure we did. We didn’t have an inventory prepared ahead of time, despite telling ourselves we’d “get to it one day.” Receipts we had kept prior to the fire weren’t filed in our records box, resulting in their loss. We hadn’t read through and understood completely our insurance policy, which, had we lost it in the fire, could have left us at a vast disadvantage. Knowing what we do now, these aren’t mistakes we’ll repeat in the future.

When we look back at what happened on June 27, 2008, we look at it for what it is: an experience nobody should ever go through. But, at the same time, it was an experience that afforded us a rare “reboot” button. We were able to re-examine and take stock of what we had, and act decisively toward a new beginning.

As strange as it might be, considering the setbacks, inconveniences, angry phone calls and other problems I’ve written about during the course of this series, I like to think we ended up better for it in the end.

Today we welcome back Unclutterer programmer, Gary DuVall. In the first and second posts in this series, he discussed how to prepare yourself and your home in case of a disaster and what to do if it unfortunately happens. He is writing for us based on his personal experience of losing everything he owned in a fire on June 27, 2008.

After having spent the prior three weeks trying to process what had happened, it was nice for life to slow down a bit. My wife and I found a temporary sublet north of the city to live in for a couple of months, and we tried to regain some sense of a “normal” life. While it wasn’t the most comfortable situation -— nothing in our furnished sublet belonged to us and we were 15 miles from our neighborhood -— it was still a place we could call home.

The next step in the process was to build an inventory of what we lost. Between the photographs my wife Stephanie had taken and many hours of trying to remember what we owned, we constructed an inventory we felt good about and sent it off to the insurance adjuster.

Now would be a good time to point out a vital distinction in your policy when it comes to how much money you’ll receive for the items you’ve lost: Actual Cash Value (ACV) vs. Replacement Cost (RCV). Under ACV, your items are subject to depreciation and as such you’ll only receive enough money to replace the item at that depreciated price. Under RCV, you receive the full amount necessary to purchase an item of like quality without a depreciation in value. While your first check under a policy that contains a RCV rider is likely to cover actual cash value only, it’ll be up to you to repurchase the items you’ve lost and send in the receipts to recoup the difference. (Learn more.) Needless to say, we were both thankful we purchased a RCV rider.

The hardest part after submitting the initial inventory was waiting for that first check. Come September, when we finally moved into a new apartment, we still hadn’t seen anything but excuses from both the insurance and claims adjusters. In the meantime, my wife and I ended up having to sacrifice the savings and credit we’d built up in order to buy the essentials. In our case, it ended up taking over three months -— October 2008 -— to obtain the completed appraisal document and our ACV check.

Considerations:

1. Compile your inventory before a disaster occurs and keep it updated quarterly. Had we done this before the fire, it wouldn’t have been necessary to spend 40+ hours compiling an inventory. While a video inventory provides you with visual evidence of the items you own, a spreadsheet containing the purchase price, date of purchase, and the store where purchased (along with receipts when possible) will serve as hard evidence. Ask your insurance provider for a copy of their inventory spreadsheet; in most cases, they’ll be more than happy to oblige.
2. Consider a Replacement Cost Value (RCV) rider. While it may come at a premium, it’s worth it. The difference in what you receive may be thousands of dollars. Some providers (such as USAA) now default to this type of coverage in order to ensure policyholders aren’t left at a disadvantage with very little money to rebuild.
3. A tip from the many insurance adjusters I spoke to while roaming the building after the fire: When calculating the replacement cost of an item for your inventory, use the MSRP. Relying on a sales price is likely to result in you receiving a check far below the value of what’s necessary to rebuild.
4. Think about your options. In our case, we found “starting from zero” to be a liberating experience of sorts; we could chart exactly how we wanted to rebuild without, ironically, the process of having to sell or get rid of existing furniture and items. Once the initial shock of having lost everything fades, you’re left with what we considered to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
5. If you’re financially able, don’t wait for that first check to arrive before making purchases. You may be left waiting months and, in the end, could end up moving into a completely empty home. It’ll be up to you and your family to take action and prepare your new home with furnishing and essentials whether you have a check in hand or not. If you’ve purchased a RCV rider, organize your receipts, match them to your inventory, and have them ready to submit as quickly as possible after the first check arrives.
6. Take charge, and don’t be afraid to press for action when every side seems to have an excuse and you’re caught in the middle. Many people end up waiting considerably longer than three months for results because they don’t want to rock the boat.
7. Your initial inventory isn’t the end-all-be-all when it comes to making your claims. Should you discover additional items that were lost, you can make subsequent claims. In our case, we ended up making three separate claims: The initial inventory and two more addendum inventories.

In the final part of the series, I’ll discuss how the experience has affected us in the long-term.

I quote lines from the movie Office Space at least once a week. I saw the movie almost 10 years ago, and it’s still running through my head. It’s a good bet that at some point today, I’ll tell someone they have a “case of the Mondays” in a high-pitched, super grating tone.

Researchers in Britain have found, however, that it’s not Mondays we should dread, but Tuesday mornings at 11:45. This is the most stressful time of the work week. We zoom through Monday still on weekend mode and don’t really get down to business until Tuesday.

Graham Waters, whose firm polled 3,000 adults for the study, explains in The Telegraph:

“Traditionally people associate Monday as the worst day of the week, but this doesn’t seem to be the case – coasting through Monday means we’re worse off on Tuesday – both in terms of workloads and stress levels.

“We lead such fast-paced lives that stress naturally runs side by side with this – especially when it comes to work.

“Tuesday at 11:45am seems to be the time in the day when the real workload for the week hits employees and as a result stress levels rise.

“The study also revealed Tuesday as the day when workers are most likely to work through their lunch break due to the realisation they have a busy week ahead.”

The best way to avoid the 11:45 Tuesday stress pile up is to get down to business on Monday. Regular routines can help you be productive even when you’d rather be surfing Facebook.

Do you agree or disagree with the poll’s findings? Will knowing this information change your behavior? Do you have an established routine? Tell us what you think in the comments.

Image from the movie Office Space.

Reader Lucia submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I like following a lot of websites in a RSS reader — I use Google Reader — but sometimes it’s too much. I check it and there are more than I can read. Now the count is 1000+. Help!

This is a great question and a problem that I’m sure many of us have faced in our online lives. Here are two tips that I hope will help:

1. Declare RSS Reader bankruptcy. If you have more posts than you could possibly read in two hours cluttering up your RSS reader, it’s time to start fresh. In the left-hand column of your Google Reader homepage, click on the link to “All items.” Then, in the middle column, click on the “Mark all as read” button. Poof! Instantly you are all caught up with reading your RSS feeds.
2. Create prioritized categories. Once you are out from under the slew of unread posts, you can set up a system to prioritize future readings. Instead of organizing your RSS feeds by content, order them by priority. I have three: Must Read, Really Like, and Fun. My “Must Read” category is filled with blogs I need to read every day for professional reasons. For instance, my Unclutterer feed is in this category so that I can make sure our RSS feed is functioning properly. “Really Like” is filled with close friends and favorite business, writing, and organizing blogs. And “Fun” is filled with silly, but low-priority blogs.

   When I’m pressed for time, I go to the “Subscriptions” list in the left-hand menu and then click on the “Must Read” folder to only see the most important posts. If I get through this list quickly, I’ll click on the folder for “Really Like” and get through as many as I can before my scheduled blog-reading time has expired. Whatever I don’t get to, either gets marked as read (see tip #1) or just sits unread if I know I’ll have more time later in the day to do some reading.

   To create categories, click on the blue “Manage subscriptions >>” link in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen. Select the “Subscriptions” tab in the orange menu bar. Then, click on the drop down menu next to one of your feeds and highlight the very last option “New Folder.” Create your Must Read, Really Like and Fun folders and then assign all of your blog feeds to those three categories. When you’re finished, choose “<< Back to Google Reader" in the orange settings bar to return to your feed reader. Whenever you add a subscription, you need to manually assign it to a folder.

When reading RSS feeds, I like to set a timer and only read blogs for a set amount of time. If not, I can spend hours cruising through the internet. Obviously, I hope that Unclutterer makes your “Must Read” list! And, for anyone reading this post who doesn’t know what an RSS reader is, be sure to check out Matt’s post on this subject “RSS feeds: A primer.”

Thank you, Lucia, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.