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- Skurt, on 07/03/2009, -0/+31Here's the only simple tip you need.
Throw your crap away! Do you really need all that stuff you've been hording in your attic that you haven't looked at since you put it up there?
How about all that stuff in cabinets and drawers?
Toss the crap and no more clutter. - cogitocogito, on 07/04/2009, -0/+17Rules to Dump By
1) Everything gets examined ONCE. It either gets DUMPED (trash or donation) or SPARED. There is no in-between.
2) CLOTHING: did you wear it happily the previous season? If not, DUMP it, no matter how “good” it is. (possible exception: favorites that are one size step too big or small)
3) HOUSEWARES: has it been used regularly this past year? If not, DUMP it. (exception: items which are occasionally needed (e.g., nice stuff like china))
4) DOCUMENTS: is it obviously critical to keep? If not, DUMP it. Also, DUMP everything that can be easily replaced or looked up online. - DouglasQ, on 07/04/2009, -0/+125: Divorce.
- Llanowar, on 07/04/2009, -0/+8It's the best way, but it's hard to convince people that they don't need all their crap.
You'll often get reasoning like "but I might need it some day".
When it has been in some box for 5+ years and you haven't missed it, chances are you won't miss it ever. - inactive, on 07/04/2009, -0/+8i throw my crap away and only keep stuff i use and stuff that is not junk.
in my room i have, a bed, a desk, a computer ,clothes, 2 plastic drawers, a chair, a tv, and a shoebox of miscelanious things, i had so much junk when i moved away from home but i threw it away.
im like the opposite of a packrat, its like a clinical sickness, i'm constantly looking for things to throw away and will even throw away stuff i need sometimes.
i like to keep my life simple yet with quality items, quality not quantity try it - fightingforair, on 07/04/2009, -2/+9Here is my guide to declutter your home/apartment.
Ingredients:
1 bottle of tonic (not that diet tonic crap!)
1 bottle gin (Bombay Sattfire is my favorite).
1 lime (optional)
1 Fire. (Pref. Large)
Directions.
1. Mix gin and tonic to make one gin and tonic. Add one wedge of lime if you want.
2. Consume gin and tonic.
3. Add fire to your clutter.
4. Burn well.
5. Mix gin and tonic to make another gin and tonic. Add another wedge of lime if you want.
6. Consume gin and tonic.
There you have it! All that clutter is gone! I hope that helps! - AD7GD, on 07/04/2009, -1/+7I just started a project to convert all my paper files to PDFs. I've ordered a Fujitsu Scansnap S1500 which has a sheet feeder and scans both sides at the same time. It comes with some organization software which will OCR pages and extract keywords, but I'll probably end up rolling my own. There's some neat software out there for OCR now. I've tried tesseract which works okay, and cuneiform, which works pretty well but has the disadvantage of being written by Russian programmers and commented/documented only in Russian. There's a company selling "appliances" with a bunch of open source software (including cuneiform) to do this kind of thing called Archivista. You can also skip the scanner and use a digital camera to archive documents, but I haven't found any free software to automatically deskew the results. There are several shareware/commercial programs to do it, though. And a typical digital camera will easily get you more than 300dpi on a sheet now.
Anyway, ever since I started thinking about throwing away all the odd little bits of paper I always shuffle from stack to stack when cleaning I've been really psyched! It turns out you only need half decent OCR since you'll only use the OCR text for keyword searches and still view the original scan. - fightingforair, on 07/04/2009, -0/+5Keep your hands off my crap!
- EnergyGeekCa, on 07/04/2009, -0/+5I hear so many of you saying to throw the crap out... but I challenge you to recycle it instead! Take anything you can to a recycling facility, donate things that are still in good condition, or sell them in garage sales, on kiji.com or craigslist.com
Just a suggestion. Will set a good example if you have kids too.
Now I need to declutter my desk... big time :-) - bipolarruledout, on 07/04/2009, -0/+5Actually the key is not to buy it in the first place. But then what would you spend all your pay check on? Got to keep the economy moving.
- supermanly, on 07/04/2009, -3/+7"Simplify You Grocery Shopping"
Simplify YOU, Grocery Shopping! - bipolarruledout, on 07/04/2009, -0/+4If you drink so much soda pop that you need a home carbonation system I think you might have other issues.
- vurdillac, on 07/04/2009, -0/+4The library's free, so there's no financial deterrent to exploring something. Plus I always liked books as objects - the tactile feel of pages and the sometimes interesting bindings.
- bipolarruledout, on 07/04/2009, -0/+4It makes me wonder how much money each perspective mind set waists on re buying things because they got rid of it or can't find it.
- sirjoebob, on 07/04/2009, -0/+4Not a big fan of expensive tech to read books... I just don't "get it." Not knocking it, just not my kind of thing.
- kspanks04, on 07/04/2009, -0/+4trying to make sense of your comment...
- bdbr, on 07/04/2009, -0/+4Or donate it, if its something usable. No reason to pile up landfills with usable goods.
- bipolarruledout, on 07/04/2009, -0/+3Your forgot repeat step 5-6.
- inactive, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Buried because the junk mail suggestion is the only one that could potentially help with my clutter, but it didn't.
- skipvt, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Thank you Capt. Obvious
- NMRgentleman, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Go to the library? Kindle my friend, Kindle. (Or Sony Reader in my case, but to each his own.)
- kspanks04, on 07/04/2009, -1/+3I hate tips like these, completely obvious things to do..not always practical and that's why clutter exists.
- Shadic, on 07/04/2009, -2/+4How about shelves? While it doesn't help in the "Not having a bunch of ***** you don't need" sense, it certainly helps you organize it.
And if you're a packrat, or something that fears you may need something you want to throw out, it can be really, really helpful. I recently added another shelf-thing to my room, and I'm able to store more things in my room with less space and clutter. - db50, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Thats what I'm talkin about..!!
- inactive, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2When I stopped buying shelves I stopped having clutter.
Only in America will people leave two new 40k dollar vehicles out in the weather while their garage is filled with worthless crap you can't even sell on ebay... - benroy, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Suck a bag of dicks.
- bluekangaroo, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Simplify YOU grammar.
- 2h3px, on 07/05/2009, -0/+1It was supposed to be a response to kewlmiketowelies's comment but apparently my late-night iPhone clicking skills aren't too good... I'll consider myself lucky if I simply reply to the right comment this time.... (im trying for kspanks's, you know, just in case I screw up again lol)
- suprememilo, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1I threw away a lot of crap in my apartment last week, felt so good.
- fightingforair, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1I did. Dugg for that observation. Plus I drank another. Any excuse to drink another G&T will do.
- Xenon2434, on 07/04/2009, -1/+2This is a ***** article...its not about decluttering at all!
Instead, its secretly about how to be more green..***** that. - MtheoryX, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1In Soviet Russia, Grocery Shopping simplifies YOU.
- bipolarruledout, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Definitely.
- 2h3px, on 07/04/2009, -0/+15 & 6 respectively: clear out the bodies and use your bathroom for storage. After all, you can ***** outside with the other animals
- inactive, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Useless info. My house isn't cluttered because of junk mail, that ***** gets tossed into the trash bin before I walk into the house.
- bipolarruledout, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1It's green to fill land fills? It's really more about borderline OCD. We all have our own problems and admittedly I could use a little of that OCD. I'm really glad your home is spotless but I'm betting other parts of you are far from it.
- bdbr, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1That will certainly declutter your bank account.
- bipolarruledout, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1But it moves page hits.
- Nothlit, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Spend a few hundred bucks on an e-reader and then $10-20 each on books that I will probably only read once.
-or-
Spend nothing and check out any of the same books available in the public library system.
Hmm, I think I know which I will choose. - beabis, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1One might think that digg could devise a system to block any comment that contains more than 50 or so links because it just might be spam.
- MtheoryX, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1No, you still have clutter taking up space.
It's just that now it's on a shelf, and it's easier for you to ignore it. - bshock, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Number 5: Get rid of your pack-rat wife.
Think I'm just a jerk? Well, you're probably right about that. But let me give you an example of what a pack-rat is like.
In some areas of the US, PepsiCo briefly test marketed some of their products -- Pepsi and Mountain Dew -- with real sugar, rather than high fructose corn syrup. This was their "Throwback" series, apparently. My wife took all of the money she could scrape together, drove around to every store in town, and bought out this stuff. She now has mountains of these soda cases in our kitchen, living room, and her office.
This stuff is of course right next to her Star Trek memorabilia, which fills three quarters of our living room. Years ago I thought it would be great to use that room as a library, and so I covered the walls in bookshelves. "Would you mind if I put a few of my things in here?" my wife asked. When I said I didn't (foolishly), she filled the place with hundreds of boxes of Star Trek action figures, toys, and everything else that Paramount had conned her into buying over the past three decades.
Being an atheist, I don't believe in Hell. How did I end up living there anyway? - dmax801, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1You are not what you own.
Don't buy it. Give it away. Sell it. Trash it.
Not only are you still you, you have less distractions and less stuff to ego trip about. - bdbr, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Those things produce soda water, not soda pop.
- benroy, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Your mom goes to college!
- Nothlit, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Seriously, who spends 10 seconds deciding whether something is junk mail or not? It's pretty obvious.
- saltydawkins, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Q: Being an atheist, I don't believe in Hell. How did I end up living there anyway?
A: You chose poorly. - MtheoryX, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1That's just a difference in mindset, not any indication of your skill in dealing with clutter.
I have the "unix-y" mindset where I prefer numerous applications which each do one thing extremely well.
Then there's the "suite" mindset that wants "all-in-one" type programs.
Regardless, keeping icons off your desktop is all you have to do. Currently I have over 172 applications, not counting CLI-only apps, and I feel perfectly organized. - Shadic, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Not if you organize the shelves.
- 2h3px, on 07/04/2009, -1/+1You and my kleptomanic neighbor would get along
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