Simplifying

How clutter hurts your life

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I want to start the week off looking at some ways clutter makes our life harder, besides what Flylady calls CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome).  I think that’s the first and most obvious reason people want to unclutter their homes.  But what about other problems it causes?

  • Unnecessary complications and minor irritations:  I’ve had two little socks tucked into my laundry room cabinet for months, waiting for their mates to turn up.  Load after load has been done in my washer, and still those little socks sat.  Doing a deep clean-out of my laundry room closet resulted in me locating the missing socks—tucked away, at some point, waiting for their mates to turn up.  (Argh.)  Another perfect example:  each time I try to stuff one more plastic cup into my kids’ “cup drawer.”  If I just got rid of just one cup out of here, things would fit better.  Instead, I’m playing Tetris each time I unload the dishwasher.
  • Missing out on what is truly important to you:  Each time you buy a new widget or goo-gah, you’re spending money you could have spent on something truly important to you.  Avoiding even a few $20 impulse buys results in almost $100 worth of money that could be earmarked for something magnificent.  Think of it:  One $5 thingy that you discover during your weekly grocery trips; maybe one $20 item you discover “on sale” each month, and one more “oooooh, I love it!  I don’t do this very often, so it’s okay!” $100 splurge every, say, four months ends up totaling eight hundred dollars in a year.  Eight hundred dollars.  (And sixty-eight things that you have to figure out what to do with.)  Don’t whine at me about not having enough money to do [fill in the blank] when you’re up to your ears in stuff.
  • Wasted time:  This is huge, and I’m thinking about this because I just cleaned out the laundry room closet.  Again.  It appears to remain clean for about three days in a row, and I’m starting to think the only way to truly keep it clean is to take the door off and have it all on display.  By tucking things in there (out of sight) to deal with later, I’m skipping the less-than-five-minute route of dealing with something now, instead piling it up gradually into a morning-long project.  Less stuff, less time to deal with it.  This also covers the time you lose looking for things you’ve lost, because there’s no designated place for them or because they’re buried in all the other stuff you own.  More wasted time.
  • Wasted money:  This may be a reach, but in the piles of papers stacked on your desk there could be old forgotten checks or gift cards waiting to be dealt with.  There’s also the more common occurrence of buying things you already have (but can’t find), or not returning things you don’t need (once you get home and realize you already have one).

I’m sure there’s more; I’d love to hear your ideas.  I think that once we recognize how much harm we’re doing to ourselves and our lives, we finally have the reason to change.

 

A Different Kind of Clutter

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I was sitting on the sofa at the end of the day when my husband asked me if I was feeling all right.  “No,” I admitted, “I’m not.  And I have no idea what’s wrong.”  We’d had lots of sickness in the house at that point, and I just attributed it to “maybe I’m starting to come down with something.”  I let it go.

As I lay in bed later, though, it finally hit me.  I’d had no time alone in….let’s see….I began to count back.  I hadn’t been alone in the house for almost three full weeks.  I’d had something to do, places to go, or the kids had had days off school for three weeks.  As a full-fledged introvert, it’s no wonder I was feeling so “off.”  Once I’d made that realization, I immediately started feeling better; just knowing what was the matter helped me improve, and I could start thinking forward to when I could make “alone time” a possibility in my future.  (Even knowing it was almost a week away gave me something to hope toward.)

I realize there are millions of Type A people out there, who thrive on “lots to do” and “busy-busy-busy!!”  I am not one of them.  So when I got to that point of being overwhelmed, I didn’t even recognize it for what it was.  I had too much “stuff” in my life:  not material, tangible possessions, but “stuff” on the calendar, which had filled up so gradually I hadn’t really noticed it.  I’d joked with other moms about how each “kid-free” morning had filled up with something to do; how quickly it went from “Gosh, both the kids are in school!  Freedom!” to “Gotta run!  Too much to do today!”

When things get too bad, too busy, I try to remember a quote referenced in Celebration of Discipline:  “I find He never guides us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.”  (pg. 128; from Thomas Kelly.)  I need to remember:

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.”  (Psalm 23:2-3)

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”  (John 14:27)

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”  (Isaiah 26:3)

“Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”  (Psalm 34:14)

I challenge you to evaluate your calendars.  Do you see “peace” or an “intolerable scramble?”  I pray “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  (Philemon 1:3)

From Yahoo: “Banker’s $350K Pay Not Enough”

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Sometimes blog topics just fall in your lap.

This headline made me roll my eyes–but isn’t that what it was supposed to do?  The article (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bonus-withdrawal-puts-bankers-malaise-050100338.html) was an interesting read.  Some quotes:

“[Andrew] Schiff, 46, is facing another kind of jam this year: Paid a lower bonus, he said the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country’s top 1 percent by income, doesn’t cover his family’s private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.”

 

“Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.

‘It’s a disaster,’ said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. ‘The entire construct of compensation has changed.’ ”

 

“M. Todd Henderson, a University of Chicago law professor who’s teaching a seminar on executive compensation, said the suffering is relative and real. He wrote two years ago that his family was ‘just getting by’ on more than $250,000 a year, setting off what he called a firestorm of criticism.

‘Yes, terminal diseases are worse than getting the flu,’ he said. ‘But you suffer when you get the flu.’ ”

 

” ‘I wouldn’t want to whine,’ Schiff said. ‘All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had.’ ”

 

(My personal favorite is the “it’s a disaster” quote.  But that’s beside the point.)

What I want to think about for a moment is how each one of us, from billionaires to people making nearly nothing, are faced with choices every day.  (Alan Dlugash, an accountant quoted in the article, states, “If you’re making $50,000 and your salary gets down to $40,000 and you have to cut, it’s very severe to you… But it’s no less severe to these other people with these big numbers.”)  We each have to decide how we’re spending our money and our time, and all of us can sometimes be forced to make decisions and slash certain items, regardless of our total income.  Where do we choose to live?  Do we choose private school or public?  Do we choose cable TV or no?  Do we choose a restaurant meal or eating in?

This is our biggest and most important choice, though:  Are we recognizing our income and our ability to earn it as a gift from God, or are we looking at it as something that we worked hard for and earned on our own?  (America loves the idea of the “self-made man.”)  How we view the source of our finances should make a big difference in what we do with them.

Richard Foster defines “Inner Simplicity” in Celebration of Discipline:

First: receive what we have as a gift from God.

Second:  know that it is God’s business (not ours) to care for what we have.  We can trust Him.

Third:  have our goods available to others—“if our goods are not available to the community when it is clearly right and good, then they are stolen goods.”

“If we truly believe that God is who Jesus says he is, then we do not need to be afraid…the almighty Creator and our loving Father…we can share because we know that he will care for us.”

Are the financial choices I make as a believer reflective of God’s work in my life?  Am I allowing him to lead my use of our resources, putting Him first, and trusting him to faithfully provide?  Hopefully I will let God guide my choices, as I start with the choice to be thankful to Him for the gifts He has given my family.

One parting thought:  “There are two ways to get enough:  one is to continue to accumulate more and more.  The other is to desire less.” (–G.K. Chesterton)

Out of sight, out of mind

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We’re gearing up to replace the deck on the back of our house.  After talking about it for a year, demolition begins this weekend.  I joked with the contractor that this was not a “Gee, I’d really like a new deck” job, it was more of a “Hey!  Be careful, that railing isn’t actually attached anymore” job.  It’s pretty bad back there.

What’s worse, though, is under the deck.  There is a storage area under the upper tier of the deck, about five feet high.  There are exactly three items we are storing there:  a large lawn cart, a lawn mower, and the (ahem) “scooper” for cleaning up the yard.  Unfortunately, the previous owners left us with a vast assortment of “goodies,” stretching back even under the lower part of the deck.  Plant pots, tomato cages, old fencing, a rusty old wheelbarrow…the list goes on and on.  I told the contractor I couldn’t guarantee we wouldn’t find a body under there somewhere.

That’s the problem with a storage area like that:  out of sight, out of mind.

The truly sad part is that some of that might have been usable before it was left to rot in a not-really-all-that-covered area.  Now it’s nothing but trash.

Our new deck plan involves getting rid of the built-in benches, the two levels, and the trellis, and instead putting in a simple landing with stairs leading to the large deck below.  No storage under the bottom level; it’s too low.  Covered storage under the stairs, where I’m measuring to ensure things fit exactly.

Once it’s done, though, it’s our job to make sure that area is not where things go to be forgotten.  There will be no more blaming it on the previous owners; it’s all on us.  I hope I’m ready for the challenge.

“Better a little…”

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“Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.”  –Proverbs 15:16

“Turmoil” is such a strong word.  When I read about “great wealth with turmoil” I tend to think in a “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” sort of way; of people with indescribable amounts of money making poor choices and ending up in the headlines on a regular basis.  What I think we forget is how, compared to so many others on this earth, we have “indescribable amounts of money,” which we’re using to buy things, which are in turn sometimes causing us “turmoil.”  Or, at the very least, the Message version:  “a ton of headaches.”

For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our second apartment.  It was a tiny two bedroom, but I loved it:  it was nearly new, so it was incredibly clean, and it had a south-facing sliding glass door in the living area that looked out on the street, not another apartment.  In hindsight, I keep thinking about how small it was, but it was just exactly right for our needs at that time.  A living room, a kitchen big enough for a card table and two chairs, a bedroom, and a “bedroom” we could use as an office.  (Also a big bonus:  a laundry room, which was the deciding factor in moving there.)  That apartment represents simplicity for me:  small, clean, sparse, basic, yet pleasant–the sunny living room guaranteed that.  We didn’t have a ton of extra “stuff” because we didn’t have a ton of money (insert “we didn’t need money, we had each other” type of quote here), which kept the place clean and simple.  No turmoil, no headaches.

Let’s be real, though:  that was before kids and dogs.  If we had to fit our current family in that apartment, my feelings about it would be very different.  It wouldn’t be simple anymore; it would be cramped, crowded, and difficult.  (Where on earth would we seat everyone for dinner?)  So I’m not about to complain about the space we enjoy now.

What I need to be careful of, though, is how we fill that space.  More space doesn’t have to be filled.  What’s wrong with just enjoying….space?  Less turmoil, less headaches.

I asked my kids the other day, if they could keep just three things in their rooms, what would they be?  My pack-rat son answered immediately and decisively:  “My bed and my stuffed animals and my books.”  Even he, who is loathe to get rid of things, knew exactly what was most important to him.  (I won’t talk about how many stuffed animals and books there actually are.)  If we can keep the “stuff” in our spaces limited to what it truly important to us, keep it pared down to “a little,” we can hopefully save ourselves “a ton of headaches.”

Paper Clutter

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Our desktop computer is in the shop….again.  The problem with the “again” part (aside from owning a clearly defective computer) is that it was taken someplace new to be repaired.  The “someplace new” required proof of purchase.  Of course I have the receipt, right?

Well, yes, I did have the receipt.  Unfortunately, it took me approximately fifteen to twenty minutes, looking in no less than ten spots in five different rooms, before I located it.  (It turned out to be exactly where it was supposed to be….long story.)  As I was digging through files and piles of paper, I was getting more and more irritated.  I really did clean out when we moved!  I thought I’d been staying on top of this!  How can we possibly still  have a Windows ’98 start-up guide?

In fairness to myself, we’ve been moving the “office” to an area of the kitchen, and so things are spread out much more than they normally are.  I don’t mean that to be an excuse, but the perfectionist in me needs to recognize that transitions are difficult.  It’s made it obvious to me, though, that even if I purged three years ago, it’s clearly time to do it again now:  especially if things are going to work well in the new area.

Why is paper so hard to deal with?  I think that the amount that comes into our homes, and the rate at which it comes, stacks the deck against us.  Even if I’m great at throwing junk mail into the recycling bin immediately (which I am), that still leaves “important” financial papers to be filed.  I’ve managed to curb most of those by going paperless, but somehow a few still come through.  And heaven forbid we get rid of anything pertaining to taxes; I feel like we’ve been brainwashed into thinking we’ve all got an audit looming just around the corner, so you’d better not throw those records out!  Paper clutter is the worst, I think, for the idea that “This is important!  You might need it someday!”  At its base is an issue of security; feeling safer because you have a file cabinet full of “just in case.”

I did a quick search on my Bible app and discovered that the word “trust” is used in the Psalms sixty-nine times.  None of those verses say anything about trusting in files and paperwork.  (But you knew that, right?)  The first three references that come up:

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”  (Psalm 20:7)

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”  (Psalm 56:3)

“In God I trust and am not afraid.  What can man do to me?”  (Psalm 56:11)

I’m closing with the words of Christ in John 14:1:  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in me.”

(If you’ll excuse me, I need to clean out some files.)

 

The 100-Item Challenge

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I remember reading a few months back about a “100-item challenge,” where minimalists were encouraging each other to pare down to only one hundred possessions.  Upon first reading, I burst out laughing—I have a hundred items in my two china cabinets!  (Turns out I only have fifty-six, but you get the idea.)  The more I read, the more I had to laugh.  Except for a few people who truly took this idea very seriously, it seemed that there were addendums and caveats around everything.  I understood how two shoes could equal one pair, but things started to get fuzzier when a set of plates—either four or eight—could be counted as “one” item.  My favorite exception was to not count the things the family shared.  Um…..that’s pretty much my entire house.

I appreciate the idea, though; the thought that the less we have, the more freedom we have.  And I was reminded of the challenge when I was reading the “Simplicity” chapter of The Pursuit of Discipline, by Richard Foster.   “De-accumulate!  Masses of things that are not needed complicate life.  They must be sorted and stored and dusted and re-sorted and re-stored ad nauseum.  Most of us could get rid of half our possessions without any serious sacrifice.”  (p. 92)

That, to me, is a challenge.  That is a concrete, specific, doable idea, with very little “fuzziness.”  That means half our books…. half our CD’s….half our shirts, pants, sweaters, etc…half the stuff in the china cabinets…..[Sentimentality enters, stage left:  “But, but, but!!!!”]  There are a concrete number of things we own, which can then be divided by two.  Is it possible?  Could I actually get rid of half of all these things “without any serious sacrifice”?

Richard Foster reminds us, in that same chapter, that “if our goods are not available to the community when it is clearly right and good, then they are stolen goods.”  Keep that idea in the back of your mind the next time you open a cabinet or closet.  I will be.

Ronald McWho?

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I had one of my proudest parenting moments ever last week.

I was driving the kids to school in the morning, and they were discussing possible substitute teachers for my daughter’s class.  My son mentioned that it might be our neighbor across the street, Mrs. McDonald.  He then immediately got the giggles.  “Whose husband’s name is Ronald,” he laughed.  (It actually is…. we’ve mistakenly gotten their mail before.)

My daughter didn’t get it.

“You know!”  My son continued.  “Ronald McDonald!”

My daughter remained oblivious.

“You know!  Ronald McDonald!  From McDonalds!”  One last valiant effort to make his sister “get it.”

She still, really, didn’t get it.  My six-year-old daughter had no idea who Ronald McDonald was.

Words cannot express how unbelievably excited I was at that moment.  All my attempts to keep my kids from advertising, which seem to be rapidly crumbling the older they get, have, apparently, made a difference.

Now, I do think that if you gave my daughter a picture of Ronald McDonald, she would likely know who he was affiliated with.  And she definitely recognizes the “Golden Arches.”  But the fact that she didn’t know his name is a fact I will hold near and dear to my heart for a long time.

I think we’re starting to think we’re immune to the lure of the ad, since they’re everywhere.  We think we’re “above” that, and not affected by them anymore.  It comes down to this, though:  usually, if you don’t know something exists, you don’t want it.

I’m sure an argument could be made for “I could really use a [insert made-up useful item here],” but for the most part, no one wants something until that little seed of desire is planted in the back of their mind.  And then it grows.  I like that…I could use that….I want that….I need that.

I don’t know how much longer I can shield my kids from that creeping desire for “more” that ads give, but I’m not giving up without a fight.

 

Thoughts on Thoughts

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Philippians 4:8:  “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” 

The Bible Reader’s Companion defines the words this way:  “the true, which is the reliable and honest; the noble, or worthy of respect; the right, which conforms to God’s standards and merits approval; the pure, which is moral and chaste; the lovely, which is pleasing and agreeable; the admirable, which is worthy of praise.”  (p. 809)

Look around at your surroundings for one minute.  Do they contribute to your ability to think such positive thoughts?  Are the rooms around you worthy of respect?  Do they merit approval?  Are they pleasing, agreeable, and worthy of praise?  It’s hard to think true, noble, and admirable thoughts when you are continually surrounded by “I need to” and “I should have,”  “I hate this” and “what a mess.”

One of the best benefits of getting rid of overwhelming clutter is the freedom in your mind:  the weight, the burden that is lifted off of you, where you are suddenly able to focus on better things.  Instead of drowning and being dragged down, you’re light, free and clear.  The negative thoughts are gone, and you’re able to think on the right, lovely, and admirable.

Can you imagine what this world would be like if everyone could live by this verse?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Happy Valentine’s Day!  Yeah, I know, it was a week ago….but think back for a minute.  What did you do for Valentine’s Day?  How did you celebrate?  Are those two dozen roses starting to smell a little…off?  Did the chocolate look a lot better in the box, instead of on your hips?  Are the cute balloons deflated and the stuffed animals starting to get dusty?

The only reason I ask is because of a story a friend brought up.  I’ll let her tell it:

At Wal-Mart, on Valentine’s Day, the woman two in front of me in line was bemoaning the amount she was spending on “all this junk.” Her cart was piled high with cheesy stuffed animals, heart-shaped candy boxes, and other gimmicky wares. She said to the lady behind her in line, “You know, none of it means anything.”  I so wanted to say, “So why are you buying it?!  If it means nothing, then do something for someone that does mean something instead of wasting money on things people don’t need, that mean nothing to you or to them.”

Maybe it’s time to reevaluate our “celebrating.”

I still remember our coffee maker dying right around one of those “romantic” days; it was Valentine’s Day or our anniversary, I don’t recall which.  I just remember when my husband asked me what I wanted, I said—in all seriousness—a new coffee pot.  He told me later how completely horrified his female coworkers were, that he would buy me a coffee pot on such a special day.  Guess what?  Years later, I am still using that coffee pot, often more than once a day.  One of the best gifts ever.

I don’t mean to say chuck it all, I don’t mean to say you shouldn’t be getting gifts for your loved ones and I definitely don’t mean to be some miserly witch trying to hammer all the fun out of any holiday.  I just mean to encourage everyone to take some time to think:  about what is truly important, about how you really want to celebrate, about what you want to take away from this “special day” a week (or a month or year) later.  I’m actually a big fan of flowers (though roses aren’t my favorites), and who’s not a big fan of chocolate?  Let’s just make sure that we choose to “do something for someone that does mean something instead of wasting money on things people don’t need, that mean nothing to you or to them.”