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By Mom Unplugged, October 5, 2010 12:02 pm

Yes I am still here on planet Earth!

What a long blog break I took! Actually I have been way too busy to write lately. I, a confirmed pack rat, have been organizing, sorting, and “de-junking” my house.

I wish I had taken before and after photos. Clutter and mess was creeping in and threatening my sanity. So far two whole pickup truck loads of stuff have left my life and it feels GREAT!

I am not done yet. I have a big house and lots of things pack ratted away, but I am nearly done with the downstairs and then I will move on to the upstairs.

It took me a whole year of sitting around and procrastinating to finally get going with this enormous undertaking!

If you are feeling bogged down by stuff and need some tips to get moving to eliminate it, here is what I have learned:

• Start small. Don’t think about your whole house or you will just want to curl up and take a nap instead. Be sure to make each goal achievable in a short time, preferably a day or two.

• Pick a closet, drawer, cupboard or something easy for your first tidying session. Once you see how great it looks, you’ll be inspired to tackle the bigger jobs.

• Make a deal with a friend to help each other sort and organize. When you have someone else there to help you work, you can’t just go take a nap instead! Plus, it is way more fun to do it with some pleasant company.

• If you don’t have a friend available to work with and you can afford it, hire someone to help you. This might sound extreme, but that is what I did. Hiring a helper is the only reason I have been able to accomplish all that I have accomplished so far. My helper is a friend of a friend who needed a part-time job. It is a definite win-win for us both. She has a job, I have help and motivation, and we both have found new friends in each other (never having met before).

• Set a schedule and stick to it. For example, Every Monday 9AM to 3PM at your friend’s house. Every Thursday 9AM to 3PM at your house. If you are not strict about your schedule, you’ll find a way to procrastinate. Trust me. I KNOW.

• Be ruthless, it will feel good in the end. Do you really need five pie plates? If you haven’t worn your out-of-style, navy blue interview suit in ten years why are you keeping it? What about that tacky porcelain cow that your aunt gave you for Christmas twelve years ago and that you keep only because you like your aunt (not the cow). Someone out there will find that cow in a thrift store and think it is the most wonderful piece of art and you (and, indirectly, your aunt) will make their day if you only just give it away!

• Unless you are a regular Ebay seller, don’t hang on to things thinking that one day you will sell them on Ebay and make a fortune. Ebay takes time to do right and if you tend to procrastinate about sorting your house, you will almost certainly procrastinate about listing your things on Ebay. Just get it all out of there and let a “real” Ebayer find it in the thrift store. The good feeling of letting go is probably worth more than you would have made anyhow!

• If you have sentimental feelings about any of your give-aways, don’t put them in your own yard sale. Seeing strangers handling your precious belongings and haggling with you over prices will be distressing. Either give them away to a thrift store, or find a good friend who will sell them for you.

• Once you decide what to toss out and what to donate be sure to get all of it out of your house right away. This avoids second thoughts, nosy children, and clutter simply moving to a new location such as a garage or attic. Plus, you need the immediate reward of feeling the positive energy that moves in to replace the stuff that leaves.

For more inspiration as well as some ideas for where to donate your cast-offs, read my old post Sort, Junk, Donate. Good luck!

(Thrift shop photo courtesy of Wikipedia - license information here)

Comments (8)

By Mom Unplugged, May 14, 2008 10:58 pm

This past month I have probably spent close to 60 hours sorting through other people’s castoffs while my 2 year-old rolled around in the dirt.

Every year my children’s small but worthy, financially challenged Montessori School holds a giant yard sale, and every year I volunteer to help sort. I never work the sale because, although I find the sorting process rather fascinating in an odd way, I simply can’t deal with the actual feeding-frenzy atmosphere and depressing desperate bargaining of the sale itself.

The sorting experience is really quite enlightening however. I can share a few tidbits here.

What I have learned from five years of sorting through other people’s junk:

1) People all have different tastes:

This year I had the pleasure of discovering the number one most revolting looking and smelling giant “hand-dipped” candles I have ever encountered in my life (picture “chocolate - cinnamon - banana - lavender - cat pee” fragrance in candles looking as if they had been lovingly hand-dipped in vomit). Resisting both my gag reflex and my urge to toss these misplaced treasures into the trash, I optimistically priced them at 10 cents for the pair (other candles of that size, more acceptable to my taste, went for $1.00 each). Guess what? A lady stopped by and excitedly purchased them WHILE WE WERE STILL SETTING UP!!!

2) Sorting other people’s castoffs day in and day out makes one a little weird:

Another item that sold during set-up was our mascot: The lime green teddy bear in sunglasses and fancy flowered hat who, when you squeezed her paw, sang the Beatles song: When I’m Sixty-Four. Unlike those candles, I was a bit sorry to see her go. After hearing so many repetitions of When I’m Sixty-Four, I was beginning to think I NEEDED that bear. Perhaps it is a good thing that she was sold to someone else.

3) If you give desperate Christmas gifts to someone unlikely to appreciate those gifts, they WILL end up, unopened, in a sale like ours:

Some examples of obviously desperate Christmas gifts that the poor recipients were eager to dispose of: a John Wayne coffee mug new-in-box (NIB as they say on Ebay), several ornate photo frames with syrupy, sentimental sayings (also NIB), an electric quesadilla-maker (isn’t that what frying pans are for?), dubious-smelling candles (nothing like the 10 cent candles though!), and an actual nose hair trimmer (I don’t think I have ever seen one of those before), among others.

PS. Check out the Christmas Unplugged posts for more information on how to avoid that “have to give something” feeling.

4) Check the titles of the books you turn in (unless you plan on dropping off the box anonymously after hours):

If you have a whole box full of self-help books along the lines of How to Live With a Cross-Dressing Husband, or How I Overcame My Gambling Addiction, whether they are your books or your long lost cousin Debbie’s, then you might want to consider dropping them off after-hours. Although my friend and I who were sorting the sale were nice enough not to take notes on who made the revealing self-help book donations, others might not be so kind!

A fascinating fact: people’s books reveal a lot about themselves. Amateur psychoanalysis is a fun way to pass the time while sorting and pricing stuff.

5) Americans have A LOT OF CLOTHES.

Gold lamé jacket in East Podunk Arizona anyone?? Didn’t sell.

6) Simple donation etiquette:

Please don’t just tip the toy bin into a garbage bag and hand it over. Usually there is a considerable amount of useless junk and trash in there that needs to be thrown away. It is WONDERFUL when people bag up small pieces of toys and tie or tape the bag on to the main toy. Ziplock bags are perfect of course, or you can recycle grocery store produce bags. They are transparent, fairly large, and free. Please wash clothes before donating. If puzzles and games are missing pieces, or you only have one sock in a pair…please don’t donate. Make the sock into a puppet instead, or toss or reuse the remaining game/puzzle pieces somehow. (Unplugged Project anyone?)

7) (Warning: cliché ahead!) “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

Very true. A lot of people found treasures at our sale last weekend (“chocolate/cat pee candles” for example) and we made $5,000 for our school!!

++++++++++++++++++++

I believe that everyone should spend 60 hours in 3 weeks sorting other people’s junk. I felt like an earthworm. Not only was I helping recycle all that we humans consume, but I had a lot of time to think about how much “stuff” we have in our part of the world, and how disposable it all seems.

This year, the amount of clothing we acquired is what struck me the most. I have many thoughts on clothing (enough for at least one thorough, or several “chapter” posts). Beware: I might inflict those on you soon.

Photo thanks to Wikimedia Commons.