Biggest mistake you can make when beginning to declutter

I just spotted this article on Yahoo: it says that the biggest mistake you can make when beginning to clean and declutter is to hit The Container Store and stock up on plastic bins without developing any kind of plan.

The purpose of the article is to talk about how important it is to be organized in one's approach, but I thought it was an interesting point because one of the things I've discovered in my decluttering is that we now have an excess of plastic containers, which we had collected over the years to store our clutter!

As we've been purging and decluttering, the containers have been piling up! I take that as a great sign!

Oh, the Guilt!!

In the past week I've been working on cleaning out our storage room in the basement. Even though our cat, Chai, died about 5 years ago, we still call it "Chai's room," because she slept there.

It is one of our home graveyards--with boxes of Asian masks, vases, and statues (some that we haven't unpacked in the 10 years we have lived here!); seasonal items; empty cardboard boxes for things we've bought (in case they need to go back to the store); batteries and tools; boots; old baby things; art supplies; and other various items.

In the past few evenings, I've consigned to recycling, trash, or giveaways the following things:

• Cardboard, paper, and other junk
• Stacks of children's drawings, homework, and schoolwork
• Old cassette and VCR tapes
• Christmas cards and decorations we've never used
• Styrofoam pieces and pellets
• Toys, toys, and more bits of toys
• Old pens, crayons, and paints
• A brand-new "cookbook holder" and a juicer my dad gave us that I couldn't figure out how to put together

I've posted dozens of old children's books on Paperbackswap, had Mike take some good-condition floor puzzle pieces and a few other toys to donate to Nick's preschool, and put some things away to take to the resale shop.

As I've been cleaning out the storage area, I've found dozens of baskets and cleared out bunches of plastic boxes--we have more than we will ever need, given all the decluttering I've been doing.

The guilt is mostly because of the hundreds of little pieces of toys...my children just do not do very well with toys that have many pieces. They get lost and spread all over the house and become useless. Because they are so spread out, it's not even worth the effort to try to reassemble the toy to be able to give it away. So I have been filling bag after bag, not only to donate, but for the dump.

I know it must be done. Our house actually has a lot of storage areas--if only we were better organized, we would have plenty of space for our stuff--and it will be great to have this storage room organized. But I'm feeling massively guilty about the quantity of things I have to throw away. We are good environmentalists--I do not like to have things end up in the landfill!

I asked Mike if he is feeling guilty, too, and he said no. He's just feeling relief. Granted, his major role has been carting the bags off to charity and the dump--he's not really seeing what's going into the bags.

This year I am going to try to give the children experiences for Christmas instead of toys. And do everything I can to encourage other people to give them experiences or if they must buy toys or other items, avoid the small pieces! :) We do not tend to be very acquisitive--and I realize that the things I'm throwing away and donating are from years and years of buildup--but I want to do what I can to minimize more clutter and unused items coming into our house.

More on "Not Buying It"

My organizing activities have slowed down quite a bit this week because I caught my 2-year-old's cold/flu bug! However, I took the day off today so I'm hoping I can drag myself upstairs to start on the kids' bedrooms, even though I'm still feeling great.

This morning I finished Judith Levine's Not Buying It. Levine and her partner Paul decided to go for a year without buying anything beyond food, personal care items, and bare essentials (such as the New York Times). You can read my full review on GoodReads.com, if you're interested. But here are some random points related to the topic of this blog:

• Levine points out the irony of Real Simple magazine: Mike gave me a copy of Real Simple featuring organizing lists for Epiphany...and although I enjoyed reading it and got some ideas out of it, in general it does promote shopping! Although it does promote some positive, simplifying ideas, it also encourages the reader to buy new, expensive, shiny and simple-looking products. The title of the magazine is somewhat deceptive, I agree.
  
• Because she's not buying books, she becomes a big library patron (as am I). Where we differ is that I live in the beautiful, book-loving city of Portland, Oregon, where we always pass library bonds and fund our libraries adequately. She talks about the distressing state of most of our public libraries, and her difficulty in finding good reference books for such simple things as making silk flowers. I feel very lucky that I do not have to deal with that, and I am a huge believer in library funding!!
  
• I am dismayed at Levine's refusal to pay more than $0.25 per visit when she goes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The "suggested donation" was $12 at the time of writing the book. She's chagrined at the cashiers' consistent lack of thank yous for her paltry donation. She believes that the Met is so wealthy that it doesn't need her money. This is not because of her year of not buying it, but simply because she is being a skinflint. In fact, she saves $8,000 that year. Couldn't she have given a little of it to the museum? Even $5 or 6?
  
• Levine goes to visit a man named Richard, who lives far off the grid. He explains why he keeps his small amount of money out of the bank, because it's "more likely than not your money will be financing some venture that is unfair to people, unfriendly to the earth, or both. In a bank or stocks, money gets up to no good. It's filthy lucre." Very good point. In our daily lives, we constantly make compromises, in our purchases and our investments. Levine does, too, when she has to buy clothing for her elderly father who is in stages of advanced dementia. She opts for the inexpensive, sweatshop variety of clothing for him--not only because it is cheap, but also because he wouldn't care what it looked like. Another compromise, as she realizes all too well.
  
• Again, another reason to be grateful for Portland, Oregon: Levine and her partner save their hazardous wastes and take them to a disposal site and pay $23 to get rid of them. In Portland, our METRO government has regular hazardous waste collection days. As she says, "in America, saving the earth is something of a bourgeois consumer privilege." This is indeed true. The same can be said for eating healthy.
  
• Levine does cave in a couple of times to buy items of clothing. On one occasion, she describes the appeal of going shopping and buying something fun and flirty. I have to confess that I have experienced that rush as well...usually for me it's finding something delightful at a great bargain. If I pay too much for something, I usually feel guilty about it. Lately, I've been trying to stay out of the stores unless I have a specific purpose, and focus on organizing and offloading instead.
  
• As partner Paul is preparing to install a "closet system," Levine mulls over the whole concept of household organization, including closet systems. Just think: The Container Store, Hold Everything, Linens and Things, and other storage stores hardly existed 20 years ago, and now they are everywhere. We have more CRAP, and we need more places to store it. That's not even considering the preponderance of self-storage units out there. Apparently Americans spend about $100 million per year on closet systems. (I am not criticizing all closet system purchases, but just marveling at the fact that we spend so much money organizing all of our stuff!!)
  
  (Google Facts: The self-storage industry grew from about 289 million square feet in 1984 to nearly 2.2 billion square feet by the end of 2007, according to the Self Storage Association. The average American home has grown from 1,400 square feet in 1970 to 2,300 square feet today, but the average size of the household has shrunk from 3.1 to 2.5.)
  
• Levine rants about Bush quite a lot (after all, the year of not buying was 2004, during election season). I was reminded of his great idea to have Americans open private investment accounts for Social Security--remember that grand plan? Where would we all be now if he had been successful? In the toilet even more than we already are. Interesting that Republicans don't talk about that idea any more...further, Levine's observations about American's shopping habits and corporate greed are very timely given today's economic crisis.

I like books like this that make me think about my own habits and lifestyle. I am thinking more carefully about what I am purchasing and how much good I will get out of my purchases. I'm already quite thrifty, but my concern about how many possessions we have (that we don't use much!) is making me think much more carefully about every purchase.