Hasta La Ideas

In observance of Memorial Day here in the United States, the Unclutterer staff has today off from work. We’ll be back here tomorrow with more uncluttering, organizing, and simple living advice.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

In March, I passed my four-year anniversary writing for Unclutterer. During this time, I have written more than 1,650 articles for the site on the topics of simple living, home and office organizing, and uncluttering (our tech team says I’m just shy of 500,000 words in my posts). Add to that the twice weekly column I’ve been writing for RealSimple.com for three years, guest posts on other sites, magazine articles, and my book, I’ve published somewhere around three-quarters-of-a-million words in this specific genre.

To put this in perspective, in four years I have written about as many words on being an unclutterer as there are in the King James translation of the Bible. It’s roughly the number of distinct senses of all the words in the Oxford English Dictionary. And, Shelby Foote’s The Civil War series is roughly 1.5 million words, so I’m somewhere between his descriptions of the battles at Fredericksburg and Meridian.

My hope is that somewhere in that mound of advice you have been able to find a piece of information that has helped you on your uncluttering journey. If you have searched for resources, support, ideas, or solutions, I hope you have discovered a new perspective or answer for your problem.

As I mention every Friday, please feel welcome to send us your questions so we can help you directly in our Ask Unclutterer column. 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.”

It is a joy to be able to write about simple living every day and to have such amazing readers. The Unclutterer community is truly wonderful and supportive, and I love working for you. Thank you so much for a terrific four years, and I’m excited about reaching the five year mark and 2,000 posts by next March!

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

A couple things we want to bring to your attention:

First: When Unclutter Your Life in One Week was initially released as a hardcover, it was also released as a Kindle version through Amazon (and a number of other e-book reader formats, too). Much to my frustration, the Kindle version had numerous layout issues that made some of the pages significantly difficult to read.

I am pleased to announce that these layout errors have finally been corrected by my publisher, and a new Kindle version is available for download. If you have already purchased the Kindle version you will NOT have to repurchase it to get the update. If you were waiting to purchase the digital book until the Kindle version was fixed, now is a great time to do it.

You should automatically receive an update message from Amazon, and all you’ll need to do is select “Yes” to indicate you would like to download the changes. If you do not receive this message, I believe you can do it manually by going to “Kindle” and then “Manage Your Kindle.” Here, you can select “Your Orders” and then on the drop down menu next to the title choose “Deliver to …” and select your device.

Second: I have donated a signed copy of my book to the Red Cross fundraiser through Writers for the Red Cross. My book is part of a basket of books from writers represented by the Sanford J. Greenburger Associates literary agency. All of the books in the basket, except for Dan Brown’s, are signed by the author. If you’re interested in a signed copy of my book and helping out the Red Cross, you can make a bid in the comments on the Writers for the Red Cross website.

Additionally, if you’re a writer putting together a book proposal, my agent has donated a critique of a nonfiction book proposal or novel to the same fundraiser. You can make a bid in the comments on her auction page. Both auctions conclude this Sunday, March 27.

Thank you to anyone who makes a bid!

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

Now that we’re into the new year, let’s take a look at of our favorite Unclutterer posts of 2010:

• Unclutterer goes shopping with The New York Times — I never imagined I would be in The New York Times. It’s a year later and I’m still in disbelief.
• Can your stuff pass the red velvet rope test?
• Setting limits with a Super Simple Month — I’m hoping to do this again in February.
• Is the life you’re pursuing the life you want?
• Solving the mug clutter problem — I don’t know why, but I loved this post.
• Parting with sentimental clutter
• Stumped! — I loved all of the wonderful comments to this post.
• The roots of clutter — external, behavioral, and internal — I haven’t stopped thinking about this post and how I can apply it to my work.

And our favorite Unitasker Wednesday selection of 2010:

• Doughnut To-Go — This one still has me laughing!

Did you have a favorite? What was it and why?

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

This week seems to be all about videos here on Unclutterer (don’t forget our upcoming Ask Peter Walsh anything!), and I’m excited to be part of the collection. For anyone who doesn’t have a television, lives outside the U.S. or Canada, or missed Saturday’s announcement, you can now see my appearance on yesterday’s Rachael Ray Show online:

The clip is just a little over three minutes long, and I’m really happy with how it went. I had a great time on set, and Rachael and her staff were incredibly kind. I also love how Michael Buffer says my name — Erin Roooooooooooooney Dolaaaaaaaand! I hope you enjoy the clip and the closet organizing tips, too.