Faux Decluttering

Today's guest blogger, author Catherine E. McLean, describes her secrets on how she tames clutter in a tiny working space.


Faux Decluttering               
by Catherine E. McLean

I bet you read the title of this piece and thought, "faux" means "fake," so how does one fake decluttering? Clutter is clutter.

Okay, so we writers are sometimes packrats, if not bona fide hoarders. Especially when it comes to juicy tidbits that spark our imagination. We find research so fascinating that we make copious copies of it to keep. And we constantly hear that little devil's voice whisper into our ears, "You'll need it one day."

I am fortunate to have an office in my home. Okay, in reality, it's a glorified closet— eight feet wide by sixteen feet long. The door at the end faces a small window on the opposite wall. Yet, in this space is a big four-drawer desk, a file cabinet (vertical, four letter-sized drawers), a work table for the cutting board and typewriter, my desktop computer, its tower and monitor, two printers, and six bookshelves. My office chair has just enough room to swivel from the desk to the computer station and back. Not quite a knee-knocker turn.

Of the six bookshelves, three are a foot wide (originally they were video towers. Two were placed to form a square base against the back corner wall. One unit is fastened on top of the two, allowing for more books, and a little shelf space— for the alarm clock and Office Minions (cute knickknacks, like a space alien reading a story to a robot).

The three video units, plus the other narrow bookshelf house forty "keepers," the books on writing craft. The books are the top picks out of the four hundred that I have studied. They're handy references when a fellow writer has a question or wants a definitive source on an aspect of writing fiction.

The computer desktop was originally a kitchen countertop, one that had been ordered but, because of an error, was too short. I wasn't letting something that nice go to waste. So, I had shelf units built to the correct ergonomic height for my keyboard, which means I work comfortably at the computer for hours on end.

Those shelf units hold my enormous American Heritage Dictionary and my thesaurus, manuals for my office equipment, and boxes of clipped "settings" (scenic pictures from calendars and magazines like National Geographic). After all, a picture is worth a million words.

Also stored (that is, crammed) into my office space is my writer's "stuff." It lines the walls and tops of bookshelves. Yet, the secret to keeping my office ergonomically unfatiguing and efficient comes from a kitchen remodeling workshop I once attended. The secret is— work centers.

In essence, my office is arranged into work centers. My desk is for the business of writing. My computer station is for creating tales. Everything for the printers and printing is on the bookshelf next to the printers. I don't get out of my chair to reach the reams of paper, card stock, address labels and business card blanks, brochure papers, etc.

When I turn around from my computer, I face the largest of the bookshelves. It holds bulging three-ring binders, half have four-inch spines. Those contain my story worlds. Stacked on top of the bookcase are more binders— copied information, each one on a specific story element, to help me put the story together, revise it, do the synopsis, etc.

The space under the cutting table's legs shelters three old cardboard file drawers sitting side by side. One drawer holds the overflow from the file cabinet. Another holds clear plastic envelopes (within are hard copies of stories that came to life but are missing elements, which keeps them in limbo, at least for now).


The third file drawer holds an assortment of miscellaneous stuff— like inspirational mottoes that can be pinned on my walls. (No mottoes have to do with being neat or tidy!)

Other "work centers" include a drawer of CDs— backups of the computer's story files. You see, I don't believe in "the cloud" for backups or storage. Computers crash when least expected. Nature and hackers are a threat.

All right, I'll confess. I have an external backup drive. Trouble is, I don't trust it either.

Another work center is the vertical file cabinet. One and a half drawers house correspondence (a lot of it decades old, which I really should purge). The other drawers contain alphabetic files of information on subjects like animals, food, runes, weapons, etc. Such material brings stories to life because I can see pictures as well as read descriptions.

Now you're thinking all I've done is organize my office. No, sorry, it's still cluttered because things are stuffed, crammed, and compressed into containers, which are haphazardly stacked, shelved, or hidden in drawers.

But, you know what? That's faux decluttering at its best!



About Catherine
In addition to being a wife and mother, Catherine has ridden and exhibited Morgan Sport Horses. She is an avid clothing and costume designer, an award-winning amateur photographer, a 4-H leader, and a Red Hatter who loves bling.

Catherine lives on a farm nestled in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains of Western Pennsylvania. In the quiet of the countryside, she writes fantasy, futuristic, and paranormal stories where a reader can escape to other worlds for adventure and romance.

Book Launch

Love, vengeance, attempted murder, and a bomb . . .  No reason to panic.

Join Catherine for an online Release Day Celebration at the HEARTS AKILTER BLOG,  1-5 p.m. EST on August 5, 2015.

Participate in the Release Day Celebration and get a chance to win a $50 gift card giveaway and other prizes. See the Release Day Celebration page for more information.

Why Can't I Find Things?

While you work on stopping — or at least slowing down — the accumulation of items, let's look at why they are never where you expect them to be.

There's No Place to Put Things
You need to get rid of some things or you need to find a bigger place. Or both. This blog will try to address both, eventually.


For now, pick one area that's a real problem for you. Clothes? Remember my comment that some people keep buying tee shirts when they already have enough to clothe a third-world country? Maybe you think that's not you.

Okay, try this. Go through your room, apartment, house, whatever, and grab every tee shirt you own, clean or dirty, and put it on the kitchen floor. (Uh, maybe you should vacuum first?)

Make only two piles: Clean and dirty. (Yes, I want you to go through your laundry bag.) Look everywhere: Your dresser drawers, your closets, your gym bag, your suitcase, under the couch, behind the couch  — everywhere. Don't stop until you've made sure that you have every last one. And don't just eye the closet. Pull everything out! Open boxes! Look on hangers.

When you're finished, count the total number of tee shirts in both piles. Now, if you wear a clean shirt every day, how many days of clean tee shirts is that? A week's worth? A month? A year?

How many still fit? How many still fit well? How many are faded, stained, ripped? Why are you keeping them? If they're faded, stained, or ripped, but they have strong emotional ties, here are some ideas:

• Take pictures. You're going to hear me say this a lot, but it's true. Take pictures and write a description of where you got each one, when, who you were with (was it the first time you went to a concert without your parents?), and any other interesting details. If you're a writer, maybe you want to describe the fabric, the color (the color in photos isn't always  true), how it felt (was it thick cotton, or a soft blend?), maybe the size or style (was it back when shirts ended at the waist, or mid-thigh?).
• If you're good with photo manipulation programs, make a cool collage of the tee shirts. Post it on your web site or Facebook page. Or print it out and see if it can stir a remembrance or inspire a short story.
• Know someone who's crafty? Are you crafty yourself? Cut out the good bits and make a quilt or pillow. Check out these cool ideas from Instructables. Or cut out the best part of the tee shirt and make it into an applique for a canvas tote bag. Stretch it over cardboard or frame it.

Now you're down to those that aren't faded, ripped, or the wrong size. Is it still a manageable number?

You Misplace Things Because You're Too Scattered
You have triplets, two jobs outside the home, and you're the president of the local writer's association. You exercise two hours a day and make meals from scratch. Your wife's mother is staying with you while she recovers from hip surgery. Sounds like you need to declutter your schedule. Start thinking about that. I've got some ideas on that for later.

You Keep Misplacing Things Because You Don't Have a System
Unfortunately that annoying adage we heard as a child, "A place for everything, and everything in its place" does have some value. Maybe you never bothered with getting organized before because you knew where everything was.

Well, that was before: Before you had enough income to buy Stuff. Before you had a million other things crowding your mind that were more important than where you put the pack of pens. Before you started getting — ahem  — older, and lost that wonderful memory that you had as a young adult.

You're the Only One in Your Household with a System
If there is more than one of you in the household, maybe you're not the problem. Maybe you have a perfect system, but no one else follows one. Maybe you're the one who picks up after everyone.

I once heard a mother say that she made her teenager's bed because her daughter "didn't do it right." I'm not a mom, so you'll probably laugh at what I'm going to suggest, but I'm going to suggest that you make them do their part and you put up with the bed not looking exactly perfect or them not always remembering which drawer the screwdriver goes in. If they don't get in the habit now, you're giving them the gift of being a clutterbug when they leave the family home. I doubt they'll thank you for that.

I know, I know, it's hard, so hard, being a parent. You've got a lot on your plate. But if you keep doing things for your child, you're adding more to your own plate and you're making it harder to keep things under control. Just try to get them in the habit, and don't stress if you're not successful. Baby steps.

If, on the other hand, you're a parent who has dealt with this successfully, maybe you could leave some tips or suggestions in the Comments at the bottom of this page. I know some of you must have found a system that helps.

You Just Can't Throw it Away
Maybe the main reason you can't find anything is just that you have too much stuff because you just can't throw it away.

I came to some of the same conclusions that Justine did in her guest post The Socioeconomics of Clutter, though I'm sure I won't relate them as eloquently. Did your father "come from poor" and your stepmother raise five children during the depression? Did you pick up the packrat-itis from them because they drilled it into you with "You never know when you'll need it"?

This one is a hard one to deal with. Some of the ways I'm dealing with it is by being realistic, a suggestion from Dear Hubby. Let's say that I discovered that I have 71 pens in the house. I'm a writer, so it's realistic to assume that I will always need a pen one day. But how long does a pen last? (If you want, do an experiment: Use only one pen, a new one, which you mark with tape so you know which one it is. Keep it in your pocket or bag. How long does it last?)

Let's just say a pen lasts a month. That's 12 per year. Those pens will last you almost SIX YEARS. What will be the condition of the ink at the end of six years? Will it flow smoothly, or be so sluggish your hand cramps while you drag it across the page? What are the chances that some new pens will come out, some that you are dying to try, that flow better, fit in your hand better, or have some new feature we can't even dream of now?

Maybe the reason you can't throw things away is that you're living in the past. When you grew up, there weren't many shops nearby, and they were closed on Sundays. There was no online shopping with next-day delivery and mail order took forever. So you keep a stash of all-occasion cards just in case you forget to buy Aunt Tilly a birthday card and the shops are closed. You keep fancy paper and blank notecards because long-distance phone calls were too expensive and that was the only affordable way to keep in touch with friends and family. Or maybe you had three small children and it was just too much to try to get out to the mall or walk to the convenience store.

How many of those reasons are still true? Maybe there's an all-night drug store nearby. Maybe Aunt Tilly prefers Jacquie Lawson e-cards now. Maybe you rarely write letters or notes and the designs and colors of the ones still in your possession turn your stomach. And the young children you had to drag out to the store are now in high school.

Is it that the things you're keeping have an emotional connection, like with the tee shirt from your first concert attendance? Maybe your mother died when you were young. Or maybe you lost a sibling at an early age, and those toys are your only memory because people didn't take as many pictures back then or you lost your pictures during a flood or a move. Or maybe you lost your partner and the smell of him/her still lingers in that ratty old bathrobe.

Those emotional attachments are hard to deal with. Years ago I tried a major decluttering project and failed because I tried to attack those hard-to-release items first. My emotionally connected items are still in boxes in the basement. My new approach is to deal first with the things that have no connection so that I'll have room for the things that do. And at some point, I'll have to even give them up.

For now, I'm starting with the easier things.

The Gnomes Got 'Em
Suspect gnome infestation if things suddenly disappear and reappear. For example, you can't find your reading glasses in your office. You walk out to the kitchen to get coffee, come back, and they're just where you thought they should be. The gnomes got 'em and they're messing with your head. They love aggravating humans like that. So do cats.

Stop Buying Too Much Stuff

So maybe you understand a little more about why you have so much clutter, but what can you do to deal with it?

Here are some possible solutions to buying too much stuff, one of the problems I mentioned in Pens, Morven, Really?

eBay and Overstock.com

Stop it right now. Block those web sites if you have to — There are extensions for your browser and I'm sure there are apps for your phone. As I said when talking about the Mall later in this post, it doesn't mean you can't do it forever, it's just that you can't do it now.

The Home Shopping Network
Is that still even on? Whenever the cable company updates the line-up, the first thing Dear Hubby does is to "hide" the channels we don't want. The Home Shopping Network and its kin are among the first to go. This makes it quicker to find what we want when browsing through the channels. There's a side benefit in that it prevents you from accidentally landing on that channel and getting interested in what's on sale. Find out how to hide channels on your cable setup. If you can't figure it out by "walking" through the menus, do an internet search. You're not the only person who's wanted to do this.

Offers in e-newsletters
Create a special folder for all incoming salesy newsletters. If your email program or app allows you to make rules, you can set it up so your newsletters go there automatically. If not, anytime one arrives, just move it to the new folder without reading it. Yup. Until you get things under control, don't look at it at all! Remember, it's not forever; it's just until you get things under control, which is an excellent incentive for being serious about decluttering. Why didn't I tell you to delete it? If  you're like me, you think, "Oh, but there might be something in there I really need!" You're more likely to put it in another folder where you can get it if you need it than you are to delete it.

The Mall
Okay, the Mall is a great place to do your daily fitness walk during inclement weather, but walk right past those stores! While you're in your decluttering phase, you've got to do that! It's like avoiding carbohydrates completely during the Induction phase of the Atkins diet. Complete abstinence is temporary. It doesn't mean you can never go into those stores again, just don't do it until you get a good idea of what you have and where you can fit it.

Buying Too Many Gifts
Are you one of those people who buy birthday, anniversary, Valentine's Day, Christmas, Hannukah, and Easter gifts for everyone you know? That means you have gifts, wrapping, and cards stashed away, doesn't it? And you can't always find them (or remember you bought them), so you buy more.  And your friends and family reciprocate gifts, buying you things you might not have room for, right? At some point you need to review — with your family/friends — who you'll exchange gifts with and what kinds of gifts they'll be. More on that later. You can start by saying, "Please no gifts. I'm trying to declutter." Or ask for non-physical gifts: Vouchers for movie coupons, gift certificates for a restaurant, a donation to your favorite charity.

Coming Back with More
If you or a family member have the problem of going to the local Swap Shop and coming back with as many items as you dropped off, try this technique. For every one thing you get from anywhere — shops, online, giveaways, gifts — you have to get rid of two. Or three.

No, it won't make a major impact in your pile of stuff, but it can help you stop accumulating more while you get a handle on what you have.

Think of it every time you buy or grab a freebie. Free promotional bags at the Farmer's Market? Fine, but think of the ones you already have and which ones you're going to give away. Get in the habit of doing this with little, inconsequential things so that you naturally think of what you already have and what you'll do with it any time you're about to acquire another item.

Buying Things You Don't Need
This takes some self-control, but, at least for your major decluttering time period, stop buying things you don't need.

Example: You see the greatest-ever tee shirt. You already have enough tee shirts to clothe a third-world country. Do you absolutely need another tee shirt now?

Another example: The latest Apple watch is out. You have a watch (maybe even a smart watch). You have a cell phone. There are inexpensive watches available for under $30. Do you absolutely need the latest smart watch now?

Defer your purchase until after the decluttering phase. Get your stuff under control before you make any other non-critical purchases. Get comfortable with the difference between need and want.

Pens and Other Multiplying Entities: Part 2, Dispersal

In my last post (Pens and Other Multiplying Entities: Part 1, Capture), I described how to capture pens, pencils, and markers. Now I give some hints on what to do with them.

Rehabbing Your Captures

Before you determine which ones you can keep, try this trick.

1. Add about 1/4 inch of rubbing alcohol to the bottom of one of those glass jars you used to trap the pens. 
2. Put the pens point down in the alcohol for about an hour. Then take them out and wipe the tip with a rag (if you have a rag bag...) or paper towel. 
3. On a scrap piece of paper -- can't find one? We'll solve that problem later -- scribble with the pen. If it won't write, throw it out!
   
   "That's obvious," you say. Oh, yeah? How many times have you found a pen that wouldn't write on the first try and set it aside to fix it later? (You didn't? You must have a mild case of Packrititis.) Going through this step, giving the pen that one last chance, helps you to throw it away without guilt, and without delay.
   
4. Repeat with the rest of them.

For pencils, mechanical or wooden, it's just as easy. Round them up. If they're wooden, sharpen them. If they're mechanical, find the leads that go with them. Can't find the sharpener or pencil leads? Disorganization can lead to clutter, and not just because things are lying in a jumble, but because the next time you're out shopping, you'll say, "Oh, that's right. I couldn't find the pencil leads. I'll buy more."

And maybe you can't remember if they're .07 or .05, so you buy both, thinking you'll return the ones that don't fit. And maybe you misplace the returns. Or the receipt. Or you just never get around to returning them. Get it? You need to organize. At the end of this post, I'll add some links to articles on organizing your desk.

Dispersing Your Extra Writing Implements

Determine which ones you'll keep. Put them in a separate pile. What do you do with the extras?

• Take some back to work (that's probably where they hitched a ride home with you to begin with). 
• Leave them somewhere. One person who had promotional pens made for a local business used to "accidentally" leave them at the post office and ATMs, hoping that people would pick them up.
• Pass them on. Do you belong to any organizations that could use them? Some people are squeamish about handling others' belongings, but as long as you didn't chew the ends, a quick swipe with a cleaning cloth should do it.
• Donate them. If they're in good condition, find out if there are any local organizations that could use them. Every non-profit needs office supplies. Maybe, like you, they've been plagued with rogue pens who hide on them, but they don't have the time to set traps and capture.
• Some organizers suggest leaving some in your car. I don't. Cars get too hot (and cold) where I live, so they don't always work when I need them. They also can end up on the floor where you step on them, and they can leak into upholstery. Pencils? They work under almost any condition. I leave a couple in my car at all times, in case the point breaks on one.  

Rehoming the Keepers

You've discovered that the preferred habitat of the pen and pencil is not necessarily the starkness of the writing desk, homework table, or even kitchen. Some of them like to move around. That means that you need a permanent pen hostel for every room where your traps yielded significant captures.

Instead of buying holders, why not recycle something you already own? As I said, coffee cups make great holders. If you're crafty (or have kids who are), make some. Google craft project pen holder for ideas.

Guys, there's no reason you can't do this, too. Think the designs on that link are too feminine? Take an empty can (preferably one that was opened with one of those can openers that leave no sharp edges) and cover it with a printout of your favorite book cover, hobby, sports team. All you need is a printer and glue.

Resources

Here's an idea: If you can't find a place in your area for your overwhelming collection of extra pens, send them here OR take them to another area yourself.

Right to Write

Darn. I just found out that one of my favorite fables might be a myth:

Fact or Fiction?: NASA Spent Millions to Develop a Pen that Would Write in Space, whereas the Soviet Cosmonauts Used a Pencil.)

Pens and Other Multiplying Entities: Part 1, Capture

I always have a pen and a scrap of paper with me in case the Muse hits. Correction: Usually. I don't have them with me in the shower, or if I walk out to the mailbox, but 99% of the time, you'll find I have a pen. People who know me know that. ("Ask Morven. She usually has a pen.")

The problem is that pens don't stay with me. They move. The two pens and a pencil that I keep in my handbag can dwindle down to one or multiply to ten. Some of them end up in my work bag. Or on my work desk. Or vice versa: Sometimes when I'm gathering my stuff together for work the following day, I'll realize that I have brought all my work pens home.

At home, pens that were perfectly happy sitting behind the keyboard or in that cute little pen groove on my monitor stand suddenly disappear. I grab one out of one of my pen holders -- what, you have only ONE? Confess, you have more, don't you? -- and, when I straighten my desk the next time, I find twenty. I think they deliberately go off somewhere where they can have some privacy and, um, get to know each other. By the time I find them, they've multiplied.

This can drive you crazy, distracting you from your writing, besides creating a clutter problem. Even worse, while some of them are hiding, they dry up!

So here's what I suggest. This is going to be one of those bite-sized decluttering tips that will help you get in control and ease the pain of decluttering, whether it be the pain of taking the time to do it or the pain of letting things go.

Trapping the Pens

I'm not going to tell you to go buy desk organizers because the last thing you need right now is more Stuff. Instead, find some things around the house that you can use to hold pens just while you get them under control. This might be a good time to go through your coffee cups. Any that you don't absolutely love or that are chipped or otherwise aren't making the grade are good candidates.

Don't have any extra cups? Okay, just while you're getting your writing implements in line, consider using glass jars or even empty produce containers (you lay the pens on their side). (Tip: Remove the produce first.) You need one for each room. Yup, one for every room, including the bathroom, garage, and basement, if any.

You don't need to bait the pen trap, though seeding the trap with a pen or pencil will help other residents of the household remember that those are pen traps, not things that need to go in the recycling bin. If it helps, label the trap. This is a good use for scrap paper. Can't find any? Ah. I see another blog post in the future.

For a week (or month, if you're really serious), every time you find a pen, pencil, or marker, put it in the nearest trap. Make it a game. While you're waiting for the coffee to brew, look around the kitchen and see if you can find any. Pens are wily creatures; they can be hiding in the junk drawer, the medicine cabinet, or, if you have a cat, under the refrigerator or sofa.

In my next blog, I'll tell you what to do when you've captured them.

Resources 

I disagree with her suggestion to leave a bunch of pens in the car, but otherwise the suggestions in the link below are similar to mine.

Pens & Pencil Clean Out

If you don't want to craft your own pen cups, here are some interesting ideas.

Organizing the Pens and Pencils: Pencil Cups and More

My Decluttering Project

Oh, why oh why am I starting another blog when I can't even keep up with my first one? (http://morvenwestfield.blogspot.com/)

Because a lot of people have been asking me not only what I'm doing, but how and why.

So what is decluttering? It's a word that I picked up from the internet that describes what you do

when you get rid of the things you no longer need, when you pare down the clutter, when you engage in Spring Cleaning on a grand -- or perhaps, superficial -- scale. (Although in my case, I am indeed cleaning everything I am getting rid of. More on that later.)

I've been going through everything I own and deciding whether I should keep it or not. Why? It started out as a response to my husband's complaint that I have Too Much Stuff. And he's right. I have my first grade reading book. I've found a few things I had that were so old that the rubber deteriorated (rubber bands, spare dishwashing gloves). And yes, I have books that, though not antiques, don't have an ISBN, and paperbacks that cost 75 cents.

Yet now my decluttering has taken on a different aspect. I've seen a few older friends and relatives who are no longer able to get around without assistance. They can barely clean the cat's litter box and need someone else to do the grocery shopping. Infirmity hits without warning. If I were to become unable to pull down boxes from the attic or carry things to the car to transport to the recycling center, what would become of them? All those precious memories would probably be trashed because there wouldn't be anyone who would know enough to go through them.

Rats. I'm getting a little morbid there, but seriously, I'm thinking ahead. *I* want to be the one to go through things, sort them out, disperse them. *I* want to pick up that box of matches in my travel memorabilia box and remember the Acacias Etoile Hotel in Paris or Finally Michael's in Framingham. (It's actually been a lot of fun seeing those things again!)

And so I begin this blog. Why did I say "Decluttering for Writers"? Because I'm a writer and many of the things I'm holding on to (like old matchbooks) are for research. I mean, who knows? I may want to write a story about Paris set in the early 80s and I'll need to remember all this, right?

And why "and Other Packrats"? Because some of the other things I'm hanging on to are for psychological/sentimental reasons. That might be your reason for being a packrat. It's taken me a long time to come to terms with giving up those items and maybe my handling of my rationalizations can help you, too.

Gotta run. I have some matchbooks to photograph...