clutter

With an influx of holiday gifts and trinkets, now is the perfect time of year to ask some tough questions about your things. Erin at the blog Unclutterer has a list to get you started. In an effort to make more conscious choices about the objects she shared her home with, Erin began aggressively asking questions [...]

Many of us have had our share of exposure to and experience with clutter, either our own or others’ — a messy working area full to the brim with paperwork, a hallway littered with personal belongings and household appliances, shelves stacked with valuable collectibles, closets filled with clothes that don’t fit anymore, or [...]

Do you ever feel like you have a hundred things to get done and not enough time to do half of them? We are all busy people, but sometimes we get so caught up with ‘catching all the falling plates’ that we sacrifice doing the things we really want to be doing, the things that align [...]

We have an island in our kitchen. It's a big island that one of the carpenter who installed it called it a peninsula instead of an island. My hubby likes to bake and so eh likes this big space to work on. the problem is it can easily become a clutter collector, especially when we get so busy that we just throw stuff on top and never get a chance to sort it out. Well, tonight I had enough of it

Tracklist: 01. She's A Day Later 02. Signals 03. How Dare You 04. Weighed Down 05. Velcro 06. No Motion 07. I'm Talking 08. Seagull's Nex 09. Zeuhl 10. To Be Seen 11. Me 12. You 13. Everyone 14. Bumble B Genre: Minimal Electronica/Alternative Electronic Website: Myspace | Buy! Release Date: 2008-03-31 Label: Rhythm Of Life Bringing wisps of minimal electronic songwriters such as Milosh (iii),

It’s no secret that clutter gets in the way and reduces creativity and productivity. A basic tenet of any organizational plan is to reduce clutter. There are two types of clutter…physical and mental. Physical clutter speaks for itself and I plan to devote a fair amount of attention to this in future entries…today I want to focus on mental clutter. We can’t see mental c

It could just be winter fever setting in early. Or maybe it's almost two months without a working vacuum. (I finally broke down and borrowed someone's because I couldn't stand it anymore.)Whatever the reason, I've been going absolutely bonkers in our apartment.Combined with Ramit's 30-day challenge, it's an excellent reminder about one of the best ways to save money: De-clutter.There are actually

Sentimental attachment, old ideas you can’t let go of, familiarity—all these things and more can keep you from truly getting the junk in your house and in your workspaces out of the way. A column in the San Diego Reader chronicles a two-person effort—one holding on for old times sake, the other coaxing for change—to [...]

The Pile of MailIf you can't finish the mail, don't start the mail. You can't slice chicken for dinner and sort your bills at the same time, so when you come in the front door with a stack of mail, put it in the basket, box, or whatever container you have handy for this purpose. You don't have such a container? No wonder there are so many piles of mail around your house.When you're ready, take you

Today's clutter is devoted to my Mom!! Angela - if you are reading this, print it out for MOM!!!The Crammed Kitchen.Your kitchen is a food preparation area, not a storage space. The idea here is to weed out what you're not using, then put similar items together and in the best places.Appliances: Machines that are broken or aren't used are just taking up space. If your Crock-Pot has a missing lid t

I can be a pack-rat sometimes. But, then I go through a clean-it-all-up stage and out it goes. Or .... more than likely, we move & I have to take a hard look at what I've accumulated!! Since I don't see any moves for us in the future, I need to begin to "un-clutter"! Here are some tips I've gotten (from Oprah magazine) that I thought everyone could probably use. They are from Andrew Mello

With all the financial guidance hoopla focused on ensuring that you are diversified enough, it’s easy to forget about the problem of overdiversification.  I admit that it’s not something I’ve had to think too much about yet as I am still building my portfolio.  But it occurred to me today as I was doing some [...]

I am a big fan of garage sales. Growing up, my mother and grandmother would wake me up early Saturday morning to start hitting garage sales. It's so funny how they were always able to find the best garage sale buys. We would come home with a car load of stuff and they'd each manage to spend less than $20. I used to hate it back then but now I love going to garage sales. This past Saturday, I dec

The sky was cluttered with Stars!

In today’s world, with so many products and services being launched every minute it has become hard for many companies to try and break the clutter. A very few campaigns break the clutter these days and here is one of those campaigns - Kotak Credit Card. The pics show the way Kotak has reached the customers through the middle-upper class restaurants in Mumbai. You cannot get a better time rat

The illustrationfriday.com challenge word this week is “clutter”. Sylvia Frumkin was the pseudonym given to Maxine Mason, the subject of the 1982 book “Is There No Place On Earth For Me?”by Susan Sheehan. Maxine was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The content of her speech revealed what was going on in her cluttered mind. There’s no such thing as [...]

Fellow designers, I ask you, why do I always see font clutter and lack of kerning in graphic design? Over the years, I have noticed artists and designers moving away from using materials and methods to do their design work. Too often, the project brainstorm time, design time, and iterative process time is replaced with [...]

Part of having good feng shui is clutter management. If anything, clutter is the biggest hindrance you can have for the best flow of chi, prosperity and goodness in your life. However, few people are able to manage their clutter wisely. On a daily basis, we get tons and tons of stuff we won’t be really using for a long time. Here are some tips for you to help reduce clutter and invite good Feng

Returning to the concept or philosophy that money is energy and that money is what you trade your life energy for, doesn’t it follow that if clutter gets in the way of your life energy, that clutter also gets in the way of your potential for cashflow, and ultimately, wealthbuilding in general? It’s intuitive, after all. [...]

While searching for back to school ideas, I came across lots of different ways to get organized and get the kids ready for the daily grind. Here are some submitted ideas by Tip Junkie readers and some via searching.Jill submitted this idea on how to manage school cutter. Have a magnetic board in kids rooms to post current art, take picture at end of month and discard.Laura the Organizing Junkie su

by: Andrew Porter Closet organizing indicates that you value the simple home improvement of added closet space. Below you’ll find simple ideas to get your closets organized: A good suggestion for... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

by: Andrew PorterCloset organizing indicates that you value the simple home improvement of added closet space. Below you’ll find simple ideas to get your closets organized:A good suggestion for starters is to plan your closet with hanging rods nearest the outside walls. In most cases, this will give you the optimum access to shelves and drawer spaces.For reach-in closets with double-folding door

If you asked what the two curses of the modern-day home theater were you'd probably be told the clutter of years and years of accumulated DVDs and VCRs and the inability to save TV shows on DVDs. We've just found an easy solution to both problems.

A frequent theme on Awareness * Connection is productivity and organization in service of making life simpler and reducing the spillover from work, bills, home and car maintenance, etc into the truly important areas of our life, our relationships and our passions. The Getting Things Done approach is fantastic for managing all those areas that like to take over, so that they can be dealt with effec

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - We've all seen it: The house that's overrun with kids' stuff because the kids run it. Disorganization is everywhere. Homes strewn with toys in every room on HGTV horrify would-be buyers. Your neighbor's living room is like an obstacle course filled with video games, dolls,... Tech Tags: children's newswatch children's news kids news children kids youth

The trucks, teddy bears, dolls and Barbie Dream House may be history. But their fading from favor doesn't mean you're off the hook. Next comes the hard-core electronics. Desktop and laptop computers. Video games. CDs. DVDs. Xbox. Nintendo's Wii. Cables and more cables. Tech Tags: children's newswatch children's news kids news children kids youth

You can bring harmony and balance in your life, simply by getting rid of clutter around you. Bringing some simple changes around your surroundings can help you achieve what ever you want from your life according to “Feng Shui” “Feng Shui” literally means wind and water. It is an ancient Chinese study of the natural [...]

Attend any trade show, and you’ll come home with hundreds of business cards. And if you’re like me, you’ll eventually lose them. We’d like to think that wireless technology, Microsoft Outlook, and the Internet are making much of the old-school paper pushing obsolete. Yet when we meet a new business acquaintance, the [...]

Clean out your couch! (Reminiscent of the “Bring out your dead!”, Monte Python-style.) I actually DO clean out the couch cushions at least on a monthly basis. So keep that in mind when you behold the following: That’s right, we’ve got one foam bath toy (the road sign) one letter B one crayon one pencil one headband one Lego man one Mommy Peoples (Olivia’s [...]

You all know that the Windows Operating system leaves a lot of temporary files on your hard disks, and that can slow your system down a lot. CleanAfterMe is a small freeware program that promises to take care of all those files. Let's see how it works.The download and installation process will take about... 5 seconds I reckon. The program doesn't need to be installed, it's just an executable. And

Does your system run slow at times or does it take forever to boot up? You are not alone, many of us face this issue at times and our computer may require some “spring cleaning” to get it running faster and more stable. If you run Windows 9x/Me or Windows XP/Vista you can start speeding [...]

I got down and dirty this weekend decluttering the basement. There have been these storage bins sitting in one area since we moved here. Some of them have been unopened since we moved across the country 3 years ago. I decided to tackle all of them on Friday night. I had a vague idea of what was inside the bins, which is a pretty bad sign to begin with. Nonetheless, I grabbed a garbage bag and an e

Piles. Piles of papers. Piles of toys. Piles of laundry. Piles of whatever. Piles of junk make me shudder. Seriously, I can't stand clutter. It has to be some kind of phobia. I can't stand to see all kinds of junk just piled up around my house. Now, my house may not be the cleanest on the block, but I strive for it to be the most clutter-free. Why? So I can breathe easy, relax, enjoy my

This morning, my hubby and I had a great, pretty intense conversation over coffee. Reminded me alot of our dating years and how we used to have Bible study on our dates. Grew us deeper as well as closer.This morning we were discussing God's grace and forgiveness versus religions approach to either excuse sin or overcome sin. Like I said, we were passionately involved in this conversation...Well, h

Wrangle your desktop cables with the cheap but effective Keep-a-Cable plastic cable organizers. The Keep-a-Cable attaches to the edge of your desk and holds onto and organizes your loose cables. Best of all, it’s probably the cheapest solution of its kind that we’ve seen, for as little as $12 for a 10-pack of 5-wire holders [...]

Last weeks WMLSPOTD were all pretty mild. We’re going to the other extreme this week. Again, from our friend in Utah. Sometimes, I guess, NO PICTURES AT ALL is a viable option.   The only thing worse than a bad picture is NO PICTURES AT ALL! Bookmark to:

i'm not sure where all of the crap we've accumulated came from, and am even less sure of how we're going to get all of it home. 7 days left before we're gone, and we've only made a small dent in our closets and have filled two suitcases. i'm guessing saturday's going to be a whirlwind of creative packing and perhaps the first-ever fire-priced yard sale in india. step right up, everything must go!

Last week I talked about the document I keep of cut passages from each of my screenplays and the nega-writing process. While I'm on the topic of peripheral files for a screenplay, I may as well touch on the other things that I accumulate during the writing of a first draft.I keep a folder on my desktop that share their names with different writing projects I'm working on. In each of these folders

Do you find yourself wishing you had more room in the closet for a new pair of shoes? When you actually do all your laundry, do you have enough space to store your clothing? If you can not fit your clothes in the closet because there is too much clutter stuffed in it, then a [...]

A how to guide on de cluttering ones home or office. From how to approach a messy situation to what products may help in achieving your ultimate goal. More: continued here

I have a theory. If your desk or dining room table is piled with paperwork, you are not going to be completing a food journal anytime soon. You are also not going to be planning your menu. Am I right? So let’s conquer this paper monster so we can get down to the business of getting healthy. What you’ll need: 1 black fine tip sharpie 1 box or more of file folders – Any color A large trash can A shredder A legal note pad to use as a Master List (a list you will use daily to write down any unfinished business) A pen Schedule appointments with yourself for one hour blocks of time. Go through every paper in every pile in every corner. Make a decision on every piece of paper. Write any unfinished business on the master list. Throw away what you don’t need. Shred paper

Many homes are built with an attached deck in the back yard but its available space is not utilized by the homeowners. Generally, if you see a home’s deck, you will notice stuff lying around everywhere. More: continued here

Note: Yoono is in private beta. We’ve got invites set aside for Webware readers. To get yours see the link at the end of the post. Tonight Yoono, a browser add-on for discovering and sharing Web content is launching several new features designed to help you track what your friends are up to online. The tool now [...]

Click on the image to be directed to the Moonfruit Mind Map download page This Guest Post, written by Paul Foreman, presents us with very simple, yet extremely effective solutions on how to de-clutter our environment and mind in ways that will bring about a greater sense of balance, freedom and fulfillment into our lives. Introduction to [...]

Take Pictures to Dispose of "Sentimental Clutter" [Organization] There's nothing wrong with holding on to keepsakes of a life's great moments, but many marginal items often fall in with one's treasures, creating a good deal of hard-to-place mess. The Unclutterer blog highlights advice from an organizational expert on how to figure out what's really important to you and what to do with the rest. Her tips include at least one serious space-saver:Items that have a strong sentimental attachment should be organized in a manageable system — taking a picture of an item still retains the visual memory but not the actual bulk of the item.A picture won't substitute for everything you hold dear, but most of us probably hold onto a good number of items out of habit rather than any value we

Is your financial documentation clutter getting too much to deal with? Signs of this include bills piling up, statements in random piles and your desk barely visible under all the stacks of paper. Most of us have, at some point, experienced this and need to get organized. Start now by making "Financial" spring cleaning part of your future using the four simple steps provided here that I myself have followed for a number of years.1. Assess the situation. Where do you need to focus your energy? One way to get to the root of your organizational challenges is to ask yourself questions like: What are most important financial documents? Which ones do I need to action regularly? Are any over due bills? What do I always have trouble finding? Then think about how you want things to be and identify

Most children have heard the phrase “Go clean your room” many times in their short lives. But what do they really do once they are sent off to complete this task? Learn some easy ideas to help your child clear the clutter from their rooms. More: continued here

Previously: Spring Home Selling Tip #1 - Curb Appeal Spring Selling Tip #2 - Clean, Clean, Clean The third tip in this series is to clear the clutter.  We all have it - mail stacked up on the kitchen counter, old magazines, too many knick-knacks and photos on the end tables and shelves.  When it’s time to put your [...]

A kid’s room can get messy in the blink of an eye. Parents really want their kids to avoid clutter and keep their rooms nice. So how do you teach a child to clean their room? It’s all about the details. This article will show you how to give your child [...]

The Organized Home: Design Solutions for Clutter-Free Living (Paperback)By Randall Koll Buy new: $15.99$15.9920 used and new from $3.36 Customer Rating: First tagged “interior design” by J. Korte “jck” Customer tags: home [...]

I decided that the bedroom is still in dire need of de-cluttering. The shelves that are still full of Beanies even though I've pretty much stopped collecting now. They sit there and gather dust, and take up space. So I decided that it is time to put them away, or as much as could be managed. First we consolidated the video tape collection which lives on top of the wardrobe to make some extra

Home is the place where you can get cozy and comfortable and de-stress yourself from the worries of life. It should help you to relax instantly and thus, any stress due to clutter and junk [...]

Keeping important documents in a regular space make sure that you can easily locate them whenever you want to use it. You can track your important documents and objects both at workplace and at home with the help of filing cabinets. A top quality filing system can save your valuable time and even money. More: [...]

Having trouble with a messy home? I understand — I’ve been there. I got past it, though, and you can too! Here’s a simple step-by-step approach to quickly and easily make a great start on getting your home organized and livable. More: continued here

When your home is filled with clutter, it can be overwhelming. But if you start with just five minutes, it will at least be a start. You can take another five minutes tomorrow, and another the next day. Before you know it, you’ll have cleared a whole closet or a room. Here are some ways to get started, five minutes at a time. Designate a spot for incoming papers. Papers often account for a great deal of clutter. Designate a single spot and don’t put papers anywhere but that spot. Start clearing a starting zone. Clear one area. Make it your no-clutter zone. Schedule a decluttering weekend. Maybe you don’t feel like doing it right now. Take the time to schedule it for later this month, and prepare for it. Pick up 5 things, and find places for them. These should be things that you actua

In the most recent April issue of Martha Stewart Living, there is an article by Mary Duenwald in the Wellness section about the various aspects of hoarding. I found it very interesting, considering that I'm a bit of a hoarder myself. It says that it usually runs in the family and that people who hoard are "more intelligent" than non-hoarders. Check out the article by clicking on the images

Do your pets get hopelessly trapped in the tangle of cords and cables behind your desk? You may need help. And we’ve got it. The problem with being connected in the consumer electronics world is that it can create quite a mess, from the precarious pile of gadgets on your desk to the snarl of cables [...]

There have been days when I have visited homes or business that needs assistance with their computer, on visiting their residences or business the first thing that gets my attention is the clutter of cables all over the places, and that is when I always stump upon as to why this clutter cannot be rectified. I have tried using those little plastic clamps that help you to knot all the wires together but recently I had read on PC WORLD, that there are these new gadgets that allow you to get rid of the clutter. I am sure that once you get your hands on these few gadgets life would be without the wires of clutter. (C) Joseph Meagher / PCGURU... All Rights Reserved

Take a look at your TV. How many devices do you have nestled on top of (below, next to, etc.) it? If you're anything like me, you're wondering just how many devices you can fit up there before the whole thing comes crashing down in an expensive electronic landslide. Here's some good news for you living room minimalists out there: now you can buy TVs that are certified to play DivX videos right out of the box. Some of these TVs simply include disc drives that support DivX videos (think TV with a DivX Certified DVD player inside) while others offer USB inputs to let you play DivX videos stored on thumb drives. Some even offer Ethernet connectivity to let you play DivX videos stored on your home computer or networked hard drives. The exact feature sets vary, specifically around inputs so

A while ago we cleared out our kitchen. This was in preparation of the arrival of a new oven, my Grandmother had her kitchen remodelled and offered us her three year old gas cooker, a big upgrade on our thirty year old gas cooker; and also the eventual arrival of our new fridge/freezer, delayed by the necessity of purchasing a new tumble dryer when the old one broke down and also my Xbox 360! We

The MLS lockbox belongs on the DOOR!           The only thing worse than a bad picture is NO PICTURES AT ALL! Bookmark to:

Time, life, culture, history, beauty, memory, communication, imagination, habit, nature, art, entertainment, discovery, curiosity, success, knowledge, pleasure, relief, joy, self expression, glory, death, future, adrenaline, vanity, competition, coexistence, eternity, insight, and so many more, all elements of our existential clutter...

One sign of a good business is that it has respect for its customers. Although I use the free version of Clustrmaps, I am still a customer. On Wednesday I began to remove clutter from my sidebar, and decided to start with Clustrmaps, see Removing Clutter from the Sidebar. By Thursday I received this comment from the ClustrMaps Team:Aw, shucks...

If you find your home in need of freedom from simply too much stuff or maybe just not a very good plan on how to keep things where they belong. Do you you have a place for everything that everyone has access to? This is a key factor in home organization. More: continued [...]

I think I have too much clutter in my sidebar. After almost two years I will be removing Clustrmaps which graphically displays the locations of visitors to my site. Here is the full map which depicts 1,193,472 visits from 4 Apr 2007 to 1 Mar 2008. If you click on any continent you will see more detail....

Well I started working on finding paperwork for taxes. I spent about 30 minutes Tuesday night sorting through a few piles and could literally feel the psychic cobwebs shifting in the room. I still feel overwhelmed by the tasks ahead but … I know that we can pull through this because I know other people [...]

Kitchen Cabinet - Kitchen Cabinet ClutterThe last time you opened one of your kitchen cabinets did things fall on your head, were you afraid to venture behind some old boxes of Noodle-Roni, because of what might be living back there? It doesn’t have to be this way. You can eliminate clutter from your kitchen cabinet with just a little fortitude and a bit of time.First of all, don’t let the enormity of the task overwhelm you. You don’t have to tackle the whole job all at once. Break it down into sections and work on one section at a time. For instance, you can decide to do all the drawers first. In your cutlery drawer, get rid of flippers that have seen better days and the broken serving spoon you have been saving. In your junk drawer, get rid of old receipts and telephone numbers wit

Don’t you hate websites that are full of so many different icons, ads, and links everywhere, that it looks like one big mess? I sure do. I find these sites very annoying and usually I don’t give repeat visits to them. The only time I’ll come back to these sites, is if the [...]

I found this article in my personal files that I keep for moving and I have no idea where it came from or how old it is, but I love the message and wanted to include it because it's so important. While those of us who live in cluttered environments may have developed some numbness, meaning that we no longer consciously notice or see the chaos of clutter, we are still affected at some level.

I had an amazing experience yesterday; I was working from home and was able to use my desk! Not such a big deal you may think, but this time last week you couldn't have seen the wood for the piles of papers and rubbish on top of it.As J's computer is in its death throes he had been using mine and complaining about the state of my desk, telling me I will develop RSI from all the twisting I had to do to fit in amongst the rubbish. So a couple of days ago while I was making dinner, he cleared it. He then lectured me about what a pig I am (bit of a cheek really, as he is untidy too, although I can't post a picture of my beautiful desk as I have lost the camera battery charger - it is in a pile of stuff somewhere, I'm sure).I must admit that it is a big improvement and it was great to have the

I recently went on a listing appointment in Irondequoit where the sellers had done all the right things. In the five or so years that they owned the property, they had installed new energy-efficient windows, replaced the old oil fired furnace with an efficient natural gas model plus added central air. The roof was newer, the interior was painted in tasteful colors and the yard was meticulous

Clearing the clutter is the first thing you should do to improve your environment around you. After all, Feng Shui is about creating beautiful and supportive environments in which you can thrive. ... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Clutter and feng shui are connected, according to Jayme Barrett in this segment from MyStyle.com's Dress My Nest. On today's Lucire home page.

Here are five simple ways to reduce the clutter that’s crowding your closet. These tips can also be expanded to include whole rooms, but I feel the closet is a great space to start. Photo by Dan 1. Remember the 80/20 rule As with most things, you will find you wear 20% of your clothing 80% of the time. That means you have a whole bunch of clothes hanging around that you don’t actually wear very often. Use this fact to motivate yourself. You don’t want to have your closet so full of things you don’t wear that you can’t locate your favourite items, do you? No way! 2. Top of the pile This is a great method to sort the useful 20% of your clothing from the remaining 80%. It takes some time, but it’s so easy that it’s well worth it! Stack up folded items like t-shirt and jeans into piles. Every time you wear and wash an item, place it on the top of the pile. Do this for a month. Over time, you will quickly see that the items you wear all t

Is your desk crowded with cables? Your computer, your monitor, a lamp, your speakers, maybe your iPod dock, these all have cables that take up room on our desks and make our space seem messier. Cable clutter is a big issue these days. We all have more and more gadgets, and these gadgets tend to have cables. This is the first in a series of posts on how to beat cable clutter in various areas of your home and office. Here’s a handy tip I came across today. Simply use those big black binder clips (found in any office supply store for less than 50 cents each) to tame those cables. You can pop one of the little metal handles off the clip, put a cord through it, and pop it back into the clip. The clip can then be attached to the edge of your desk, keeping the cords neatly out of your way. Simple Binder Clip Cable Organizer! - Watch today's top amazing videos here If you try out this method, take a photo and submit it to the Clutter Cubed Flickr Pool! Thank you for reading m

A PLAN OF ATTACK * start with the area of your life that causes you the greatest pain * create a list of the areas you want to work on in order of priority * include a deadline for completing each project * try to tackle one small area at a time — drawer, cabinet, shelf, etc. * set aside some time each week to work on a different area * move systematically throughout your home * completely finish one area before beginning another * find the organizing style and pace that suit you * recruit some organizing “assistants” — friends, family, neighbors * if no volunteers, consider hiring a professional organizer to help ASKING THE HARD QUESTIONS * When was the last time you used it? * When will you (realistically) need it again? * Why would you need it again? * Who might ask for it? * What would you need it for? * Is it easily replaceable? * What’s the worst thing that would happen if you got ri

The “clutter” folder just keeps swelling in size. The folder is starting to be like the clutter itself. Once it starts, it takes a real dedicated effort to clean it up. I think the best time to do it is just before the agent takes the pictures for the MLS. Sadly, I think I’m the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

I guess if you have to show some clutter, then it’s best to really show it. Why not 2 shots of the kitchen, and for good measure, throw in a shot of  the over family room and the seller in the kitchen. The listing remarks say “shows very... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Photo by mandolin davis on FlickrI recently read Peter Walsh's book, It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff. Peter is an organizer on TLC's Clean Sweep, one of the few shows that could make me consider having cable tv in our house. I love watching people clean out their homes and get rid of stuff that just weighs them down and gets in their way. Peter is a master at not just showing you how to declutter, but explaining why you save the things you do. Knowing why can help you let it go and prevent the collecting of it in the future.Even though most people say our house is not cluttered, I think it is. We just do a good job of hiding and STORING the clutter. Those people also don't look in our closets, cabinets and drawers. Like so many people in America, we have too much stuff.So, I'm in the middle of a major clean sweep of our house. I've done this before as the boys outgrew toys and our needs changed, but I'm going even deeper now.

Did you know that simply having excessive clutter in your house can actually cost you money? It can! If you’re like me, one of the “reasons” you have clutter is actually to try to save money. I put reasons in quotation marks because it’s not really a proper reason so much as an excuse, but that’s a post for another day. You keep some things around because you feel you may need them in the future. You don’t want to pay for a new item, so you keep the old one around so you’ll have it at the ready the next time you need it. Makes sense, right? You have good intentions, but if it ended up as part of your clutter, this means it is either being stored in the wrong location, or that it doesn’t even have a proper place in your home at all. And clutter can cost you money just by sitting there. Every so often I re-learn this lesson, but I hope that by writing it down in this blog it will actually sink in once and for all. It’s quite s

Clutter Fairy Cartoon. As all the best ideas, this is inspired by real life. Just had a massive clear out at home. It's this evil fairy that created the years of collected clutter, but she has been banished from this house. 70% of useless clutter has been disposed of, and it feels great. I have new trousers I didn't even know I had!

In a perfect world your master bedroom should be a haven in which you and your spouse can retreat from the world and enjoy each other. Unfortunately, the same type of clutter and dust that invades every other room in your house can spill over into your master bedroom. One of the easiest ways to spiffy up your master bedroom on a daily basis is make the bed. It's a simple as that. If you aren't

The minimalist approach to interior design is all about clearing the clutter and reducing the elements of a room down to the bare essentials whilst at the same time retaining an aesthetically pleasing appearance in a room. Functionality therefore is extremely important as everything that exists must have a reason to be, a purpose to serve, a valid function. Minimalism works on the principle that less is more so it is all about reducing the elements in the room to a bare minimum, including any patterns, frills and fuss, to create a streamlined, clear and uncluttered look. The minimalist room will feel spacious and airy because it is filled with few items of furniture, which are usually spaced quite far apart and perhaps with only one or two ornamental pieces or paintings to add character and act as a focal point. There are little or no patterns to the fabrics, if fabrics feature at all, and no bright colour contrasts or clashes to disturb the eye so the over all appearance is one of el

A lot of controversies are being written about Page Rank and the websites that has been slapped very hard. Yesterday I wrote about WidgetBucks being Pimp Slapped, and that is not an ordinary slap. Andy Beard has sphunn a post which was written by Vlad. The post simply says the search term is unsearchable for “WidgetBucks,” because other websites rank far above the specified term. There is a lot of commotion with angered bloggers and webmasters out there about the raid on websites and pageranks. But what is all the commotion all about when page ranks do not even matter. I wrote a post about the case study that Jonathan Leger was doing. Does Google Page Ranks really affect your Google SERPs? Well the study showed it necessarily did not. Other with lower page ranks or even zero were ranked higher than those of the ones that received a higher page rank. Jonathan Leger’s past emails stated: PageRank has been all the rage since Google first introduced that little green lin

Closet organizing indicates that you value the simple home improvement of added closet space. Below you’ll find simple ideas to get your closets organized: A good suggestion for starters is to plan your closet with hanging rods nearest the outside walls. In most cases, this will give you the optimum access to shelves and drawer spaces. For reach-in closets with double-folding doors, it’s often

(I shamelessly stole this entire post from unclutterer.com)Reader Vicky writes in to ask: I was wondering whether you might have any thoughts on what to do with the empty spaces left behind from de-cluttering. Specifically, we have decided that two full rooms of our house - the guest bedroom and the formal dining room - are serving no purpose and we would like to get rid of everything in both rooms. But what should we do with these new wide-open spaces? Having a blank formal dining room right as you walk in the house is a bit of an eyesore, and moreover it creates a temptation to fill the space with new purchases we don’t need. Now, you should take what I’m about to say to you with a grain of salt, because you’re talking to a serious unclutterer here, but I would take the opportunity to do something radical. Sell your home and move into something smaller. American home sizes have more than doubled since the 1950s, yet we constantly complain about not having enough space. The

Open your fists and release what you’ve been hanging on to. Let go. Your prosperity can only come into an open, empty hand. Get rid of the clutter and congestion. It’s blocking the flow of prosperity to you More: continued here

This is the premise for the article I wrote for online travel magazine: Brave New Traveler! Check it out!

Blogging really is a feast-or-famine kind of thing, isn’t it? There are times when your brain is empty, and you go days fearing you may never be graced with an inspiring idea again. And then other times, your brain is so busy blogging all.the.time that at any given time, you have half-composed posts oozing out of your brain, begging you to get to a keyboard and release them to the Interwebs. This is one of those times. I have a lot of ideas rattling around, but nothing cogent enough to form a full post. Thank goodness for the existence of random bullets! We woke up this morning to what appears to be a brand new double mattress delivered to our front lawn. Problem is we didn’t order a new mattress. I have no idea where it came from or, more importantly, what to do with it. It’s garbage day today, so maybe one of the neighbours put it out and some prankster dragged it down the block to our lawn? But seriously, have you ever dragged a full-sized mattress anywhe

Brian Morgan has been served an eviction notice from us to move his tent off NHS Exposed blog. Morgan has been disguised as a little pixie hovering on our logs for a while now. Morgan is now squatting on servers he has not rented. Life is becoming a never ending escapade for beleaguered freelance "journalist" Brian Morgan. Fresh from sending me obscene messages through the blog some weeks ago, Mr Morgan continues to plague the NHS Exposed Blog with his Mac. Indeed, the whole of today has seen him set up tent on the blog itself. Morgan's bum seems to be superglued to his chair has he hasn't even gone for a loo break. Our webmaster recently sent me this message with the log times of the Welsh King of Cybertents Mr Brian Morgan. "Would visitor BM from NTL Cardiff using Netscape 7.2 on Mac OS X PLEASE move along! We appreciate your fascination with the NHS Exposed blog, but fair's fair - you're putting undue wear and tear on our words, and making our logs look untidy. And no, I am not

I just finished reading a fantastic article about all the "stuff" we accumulate and how it ultimately controls our lives! Here's a sample (but you really should read the whole thing!):"...a house full of stuff can be very depressing. A cluttered room saps one's spirits. One reason, obviously, is that there's less room for people in a room full of stuff. But there's more going on than that. I think humans constantly scan their environment to build a mental model of what's around them. And the harder a scene is to parse, the less energy you have left for conscious thoughts. A cluttered room is literally exhausting. . . ."And to avoid the "complaining but failing to do something about it" error, I give you this suggestion...check out this website for practical help:http://unclutterer.com/feed

Hello again. Last months post was about the meeting between my 2nd son and I had hoped to continue the story of our visit this month, but alas, life has kept me busy this summer. I thought I would just take a few moments to share about what God is saying in my life’s journey. Summer is typically a time when I let things go around the house. Have tons of “hang out” days with my boys. Plan our week of family vacation. You know, the usual summer stuff. Unless you count reading home school catalogs by the pool as something constructive, I lead a fairly leisurely life during this time of year. However, this summer God has been speaking to me about getting some things cleaned up and cleared out, in a very literal sense. The journey I have been on is one of clutter and the most unorganized part of my life journey to date. I had to search for the phone number to call the lady I have hired to come help me “dig out”. Thank the Lord she comes tomorrow. Str

I own too much stuff. I am buried in stuff. This weekend I am getting rid of some of my extras. Yesterday I owned 6 couches; now I have 5. I gave away the oldest to a man who is just at the stage of acquiring his household goods. This afternoon I will be giving away my largest bookcase. I still have seven others, not counting shelves and nooks here and there. This is not much, I know, but I once owned around 3,000 books, so this process of purging has been long, slow and painful.This afternoon's selection means I must part with some beloved friends: Books that have traveled with me since college and through countless moves. It isn't easy. All the art and travel books stay; all fine literature stays; and all my Jane Austen and history books of the era remain. Gone are the "Dutch" books I inherited from a Dutch uncle, gone are the best sellers from previous years. (Does anyone read Michael Crichton any more?), and gone are the ancient books I purchased at book sales. I will take them t

When you do a fresh installation of Firefox, the contextual menu (which appears when you right click) is tiny and pretty containing only the most essential menu items such Save Image, Copy Email Address, View Page Source, Copy Link Location, Search Google for, etc.But things change as you add new Firefox extensions.For instance, I have six Firefox extensions (FireBug, DownloadThemAll, JSView, ScrapBook, Yoono, FlashGot) and they have all added several new items to the right-click menu.The contextual Firefox menu wore a cluttered and extremely confusing look until I installed Menu Editor - a must have Firefox extension.As the name suggests, Menu Editor lets you rearrange (move) existing menu-items, group similar commands or remove items that you rarely use (e.g., View Page Source is useless for non-techies and they can safely hide it).You can also use the Menu Editor extension to re-arrange and trim your Firefox Menu bar on the top (that has the File, Edit, Help commands)The extension d

In a recent issue of one of my favorite magazines, Real Simple, there was an article about de-cluttering your mind. The article recommended throwing away 50 things that weigh you down or have negative memories attached (magazines and catalogues only count as one thing no matter how many you throw away). The idea is, only once your home is devoid of the physical clutter, can you clear away your mental clutter. I’m not sure that I have too much mental clutter, but I freely admit that I am a major pack-rat and that I absolutely hate throwing things away. However, given the fact that we’re about to have everything we own packed and shipped to Bangkok, I figure we might as well only go with the stuff we really want. So, I’ve decided to challenge myself and make an effort to get rid of all the things around the house I know (very, very, very, deep down) that I will never need. I’m going to donate them to charity instead of throwing them away, but I figure the conc

As a staff writer at 'Home Based Business' we regularly answer questions submitted by our members, one great topic is online advertising.More and more traditional advertising is losing its luster to companies all over the globe. Online advertising continues to grow, removing other ads from areas of everyday life; television, print media, billboards, and radios. Companies have several reasons for changing their ad campaigns from typical to electronic. It is a phenomenon that will continue to grow depending upon how people treat both advertisements and the Internet in future years.People are spending more time on the Internet every day, which is one of the reasons companies have decided to put more time and money into online ads than traditional advertising. After all, who is going to see an ad for Pepsi Cola on television if people are too busy checking email and watching videos online? People can do virtually anything online; go shopping, talk to other people, send letters, look for