STOP in the name of love… Love of clear spaces and love of room to breathe. Can you prevent clutter from even walking in your door? I’m glad you asked, because today I am discussing the A-B-C’s of clutter and how to master them (really it’s easy as 1-2-3). So, next time you are faced with clutter at YOUR door- watch today’s video and think-it-owover! (Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/TCDPrevent.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, and today’s Clutter Video Tip is about the A-B-C’s of preventing clutter. People talk to me all the time about reducing the accumulation of clutter they already have- in their closets, their garages. But they don’t think enough about preventing clutter from coming in the door in the first place. So let’s talk about the three ways that clutter comes into your life.
“A” is for Acquiring. Acquiring means you haven’t spent any money to bring this into your door, but it’s something that maybe has been given to you. Maybe it’s a gift or inheritance. Maybe it is something that just came into the mail or came from school or came from work. And maybe it’s the free hotel soaps that you’ve picked up on your travels. So I want you to think about when that stuff is offered to you, the fact that you can say “yes” or you can say “no” and that if you want to accept a lot of hand-me- downs or inherited items, you can take them, take what’s useful to you, and relevant to your life, donate the rest to help other people. So make sure that you’re aware that you’re the gatekeeper of what comes into your door.
Secondly we have the letter “B” for Buying. This is stuff you actually paid money to bring into your house, so you really want to be conscious of that. To help you with that we have a great tool. This is a bonus item when you sign up for our Thursday newsletter at clutterdiet.com/freetips. This is our Clutter Prevention Wallet Reminder Sleeves. You cut these out, there are two of them on the printable page, and you can just fold them up according to the instructions, and they become a sleeve for your favorite debit or credit card in your wallet and on it are the five questions you should ask before buying anything. So right there at the point of purchase, in your wallet, every time, you’ve got these questions to remind you to be mindful of what’s coming in the door of your home.
So the letter “C” then is for Consenting. This is the invisible clutter that is coming into your life that’s from time, information, communication, all of those forms of non-physical clutter that you also are the gatekeeper for in your life. It may be email, it may be phone calls, it may be that you are saying “yes” when you should say “no.” And we actually have a blog post about this I wrote about over-doers anonymous. People that are saying “yes” too much and it’s a little joke about a twelve-step program for people who want to reduce that in their lives. But I think it’s an insightful post, and I hope you’ll enjoy it and you can see the link for that on your screen here. And again for the wallet sleeves you can go to clutterdiet.com/freetips.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
You may have been searching for how to prevent clutter or too much stuff.
Great ideas as usual! Love the A-B-C idea – easy to remember, easy to implement – easy as ABC!
Thank you, Evelyn!
Great summary! This is really helpful.
Another “C” source I thought of is creating. All the doodles and notes I make for myself start to pile up. I’m trying hard to collect them into their overall categories for later retrieval, such as my calendar, a master project notebook, or EverNote.
But your “C” is very pertinent. I’ve learned to be wary to saying yes to other people’s junk! I suppose that’s both a A+C example. Thanks for the insights!
Thank YOU for sharing your “C” with all of us, Marie.