Gifts – Giving and Receiving

Here it is the beginning of October and Christmas decorations are appearing in stores. I was going to share this later this year, yet with the décor bringing Christmas to mind, we can start to think about what we will give this year.

When my husband and I were first together, we’d go crazy at Christmas. We had so many gifts under the tree for each other. They were mostly things that other wanted, and hence not really clutter. Then something happened. A Christmas came and when we talked about what we each wanted it turned out that the list was tiny. Suddenly we were satiated and many things started to seem like clutter. At this point, we decided to change things. Now, we only exchange stocking gifts – though often the items don’t actually fit inside the sock! We also decided to think about larger, household type gifts. We set a budget and each year decide on a larger joint item. One year it was a new couch and chair for the living room; another year it was a DSL camera.

I encourage all of you to find ways to make the most of this holiday season. If you suddenly find yourself feeling like you’re getting a bunch of stuff that you don’t actually need or want – consider ways to change it up.

It’s common in larger families to draw one name and exchange that way, so you don’t need to spend tons of money buying something for everyone. I’ve also known families who just buy gifts for the children. Some families are open to buying gifts from a wish list, while others are against that idea. You need to find what works for you and your family.

I love the idea of buying “experiences” for people. One birthday, my husband bought me horseback riding sessions, how fabulous since I don’t get to ride as much as I would like. This can be especially wonderful for grandparents who might go overboard at Christmas. Instead of buying toys galore, you get a family season pass for a museum or the zoo. You get them lessons for something that interests them – martial arts, music, sports, or whatever that offers them experiences. It’s something they cannot outgrow since they create memories and can be cherished always.

Like with so much, don’t be afraid to reevaluate how things are working. After a couple of years after my husband and I had been only doing the stockings – it started feeling stale. We still really liked the idea of limiting our gift giving to the stockings, so we made up a “treasure hunt” of items. We created a list of categories to try to find – so there needed to be a bed or bath item, a spiritual item, 2 pieces of media (we do love our books and music!), and several other categories. Suddenly opening our socks didn’t feel stale anymore. For now, it continues to work, though when it doesn’t we’ll talk and figure out what we might need to change.

We often do this after Christmas, while it’s fresh and make plans for the changes in the following year. Of course, by doing it that way, you need to remember when it comes around the next year! You can change the way you approach your gift giving and receiving at any time. This is a great time to consider what you want to do this year – with store decorations going up; they begin tempting us to spend our money. What do you want to give this year? It’s never too late (or early) to make plans so you can make the most of the holiday season and appreciate its real purpose – to appreciate family and be grateful for what you have.

To Go Paperless or Not

Papers are the number one struggle I see people dealing with – there’s always more of it. It never stops coming in, the mail is delivered almost 6 days a week. There’s no escaping it, despite how we’ve been hearing predictions of being a paperless society. This does not mean that we cannot reduce our paper consumption, although there are considerations to doing this.

I’ll admit that I was resisting going paperless. I would check my banking account online and they’d ask me if I wanted to go paperless and I’d say no. I liked part of the idea of it, how much did I need those statements in paper? Yet, it was comfortable and familiar to have them waiting for me in the mail. I don’t trust completely that my computer isn’t going to suddenly do something it shouldn’t (whether a corrupted file or a more serious overall computer malfunction). One day working with a client, we ended up talking about this, and when I told her I wasn’t getting my statements electronically, she looked at me quizzically and asked “why not?” I hadn’t thought that much about it and I struggled to put words to my reasons – I was just not changing the way I’d always done it. Within a week, I logged on and changed to getting my statements electronically.

This is the only occasion that I’ve personally gone paperless though (personally, as my husband has several accounts we share as electronic). I download my statements and check on things. I don’t need to worry about computer issues since my account with the bank keeps all my monthly statements for a few years – therefore if something were to happen to my files or my computer, I can just log back in and get them downloaded again (if I even need to have a copy on my computer). There could even be an argument that I don’t need to use the space on my computer for these files once I’ve reconciled things.

There are other accounts that I’m still attached to having a hard copy – something I can put in a file and have access to. I do look at these papers periodically. If I were to set up getting them electronically, I would just have to spend time logging in, reviewing, and printing out. What’s the point of them being electronic then? Paper is being used either way, and to get them automatically in the mail saves me time and energy. I’d rather spend that time and energy in other ways (and the post office gets some support too).

I’ve talked before about e-mail and how that too can become clutter. I avoid giving my e-mail address out to every vendor that wants it (not professionally), as I too often feel overwhelmed with email. There are times I don’t look at my electronic bank statement promptly simply because I have so many emails to review. If you’re one of those people with hundreds (or even thousands) of emails hanging out in your mailbox, getting statements electronically could make them easier to miss – which becomes more critical when they’re actual bills that need your attention.

There’s also the way to be freer of papers – to set up auto payments for your recurring bills. This makes sense in that it saves you even more time and energy. You tell certain (or all) regular bills to be withdrawn from your account and on what day. This can be also be accomplished by your bank’s online bill pay option. You save the paper of the check and envelope.

Have you moved toward being more paperless? If not, what exactly is it that is you are resisting? Until I figured out that answer for myself, I didn’t change. There’s no right answer, but finding your own, personal solution.

Over the Door Clothes Hanger

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Pros:

Small
Inexpensive
Door closes with it on (at least on my door)
Removable, not screwed in

Cons:

Not attractive to have in prime living space

Review:

The older I seem to get, the more old-fashioned I seem to become. My husband has moved to shaving with an old-fashioned safety razor and the soap and brush – preferring that to the standard razors used today or even an electric razor. Then there’s how I do some ironing every week (yes really, or at least that’s the goal) – and with putting in that effort, I don’t want them getting wrinkled before getting into his closet. (And I am not running each item upstairs after finishing it.) Therefore I went in search of an over-the-door clothes hanger – in my mind’s eye, I was envisioning something I cannot even find online.

I was fortunate to have a gift card to The Container Store and figured I could find something there. When I looked around, I put the Valet Rod into my cart and started to continue with my shopping excursion. It was larger than I’d wanted and this is what it looked like:

Over the Door Valet Rod (The Container Store)

Then something else caught my eye – a smaller and less expensive option – a smaller “valet” rod. This was a better choice – less expensive, but also smaller and more suited to my uses. A larger version would have simply taken up space and potentially tempted me to use that space. (Have you ever noticed that when you have the space, you fill the space?) Also, this style could easily be taken down when not in use.

Smaller Over the Door Valet (The Container Store)

After I got the over the door clothes valet home, I was thrilled that it fits over the door and we can still close the door – too often these over the door gadgets make closing the door a challenge. I am NOT saying this will be the case with everyone since all our doors are different (and we have an over the door ironing board holder which does not fit as well for closing the door).

I found many different styles exist for this specific purpose. Some looked like you’d need to use only certain hangers, while others require permanently attaching it to a door or wall. There’s also a less attractive one, at least to me. I also appreciate that the spacing provided with this valet would offer it as an option for a place to hang clothes to dry.

1 Style Clothes hanger (organize.com)

2nd Style Clothes Hanger (Bed, Bath, & Beyond)

3rd Style of Clothes Hanger (organize.com)

Here I return to the idea of space needed – ideally, we choose and use tools that help us simplify and support us. A small grooved bracket provides a limited space tool for specifically what I need. It encourages me to empty the clothes promptly – here it is before I take them upstairs.

My over the door clothes hanger filled with freshly ironed clothes before taking them upstairs

It’s easy to buy a valet – one like this or another – to “make” more space for hanging our clothes. This makes it too easy to just add rather than sort and purge our clothes. Remember, tools are supposed to help support and simplify our lives. If you need a tool to hold some clothes temporarily – like where to put your outfits for the coming week, or ironing, etc. – consider one of these over the door clothes hangers.

Book Review: Buried in Treasures

There are 3 names that come up again and again when it comes to the topic of hoarding – from their independent work to their collaborative work: psychologists David F. Tolin, Randy O. Frost, and Gail Steketee. All three wrote, Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding and although it was not the first book I read on the topic, it was the book I was always intending on reading – it’s “that big” a book on the topic. I read it more than a year ago now, and happily made notes (and have the book to refer to) for both this review and how it can apply to those I work with.

First, let me share that I was almost shocked when I found a copy of the book – it was quite a bit smaller than I’d imagined, coming in under 200 pages long. It’s also very much a workbook of sorts for people wanting to tackle their struggles. Similar to many books on organizing and hoarding, it tries to make it clear that unless you are ready to make changes, they will be hard to come by. It is discouraging to hear that the success of “recovery” is minimal; that it takes continued efforts and mindfulness.

This is the case though for all of us – and applies to any changes we want to make. As they say in the book, “People start to work on their hoarding problem when the reasons for change outweigh the reasons for not changing, and not a minute sooner.” Now if you take out the word hoarding, it applies to changes in general. Changes are difficult to make, whatever they are, and we need to be ready and truly motivated.

They spend some time talking about reinforcement, positive and negative, and how these are critical to self-control and exert powerful influences over our actions.

“We all tend to be motivated most strongly by immediate rather than delayed consequences. This is a big part of the problem: instead of being able to step back and appreciate the long-term consequences of our actions, we become slaves to the here and now. …long-term consequences, unpleasant as they may be, simply are not very powerful motivators compared to the immediate…” Buried in Treasures

I see this in myself sometimes, and this does seem to be universal – we struggle with what impact our decisions will make down the road. Or even struggle to make decisions in general, though not making a decision is ultimately still making a decision.

I’ve talked before about how I dislike the term “hoarding” and I will even talk to clients about how I myself have some “hoarding” tendencies. On some level, we all do. I do have close to 2,500 books. My husband teases me sometimes about the number of containers I have. I can resonate with the desire of collecting. The authors were sharing a story and although the level of my stuff does not compare, it hit home for me: “…defining himself not by what he did, but rather by what he had and what he hoped to do. … Now ask yourself: is the amount I have proportional to the amount I do?” I, like some many others, have big dreams – many ideas and hopes – and collecting items for that one possible day translates too often into having excess clutter. Now, I evaluate whether the things are relevant for me currently or are more for a dream. I can always find those again if it becomes more than a dream.

The authors spend time talking about some of the common struggles people face – the idea of “how did this happen to me?” There are many tips and techniques they share. Two of them stood for me. One is the idea of the OHIO principle, which I talked about in a previous post – where you move pieces along in your system and aren’t worrying about loose ends because it’s been “handled.” The other was “elaborative processing” where people have “the tendency to think of more and more uses for an object.” I played with this for myself, how creative could I get – and at what point do I not care anymore what it’s potential is.

In closing, another quote – a goal we all share, to find balance in our lives:

“…for most of us, successfully navigating life means striking the right balance between that feels good and what is good. … There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer; it depends on the person and situation. But living a balanced and successful life does involve, at least some of the time, inhibiting things that are immediately reinforcing and instead choosing things that will pay off in the long run. Another way of saying this is that we run into trouble when we become too dependent on immediate rewards, and lose focus on long-term goals.”

Hard to Believe – My 100th Blog

Earlier this month I realized I was coming up on this moment – number one hundred blog! I’ve been trying to think about what I wanted to do, something that would be different. I couldn’t come up with much, and it occurred to me that if you’re a more recent reader, you might not have seen some of my earlier posts. Here comes 6 of my most favorite posts (I thought about a top 10, but it seemed too much, yet I couldn’t narrow it down any more than 6!):

Work to Be In the Moment – Every Moment

Being mindful of your present actions will save you time and energy, increasing your productivity, and allowing you to spend your time where you most want.

Use Your Time Intentionally

An odd synchronicity with “intention” in my life and learning (NAPO conference) and how it relates to how we spend our time inspired me to write this – sharing, not the need to be more productive, but rather just increase how conscious we are about how we’re spending our time.

Evaluate While In the Moment

Life is complicated enough without our many tasks adding to the demands on our time and energy. “Simplify, simplify” as Henry David Thoreau said, and here I talk about one way to help you simplify those tasks and make life a little easier.

Let Your Passion Lead You

Sometimes we have a moment, a sort of epiphany, when we realize that we’re buying things or have collected things that do not reflect the actual life we’re leading. There are several components of this and can help lead us to leading the life we want.

Considering Your Possessions by Time as well as Space

Possessions are unavoidable, space is a concrete limitation, but considering things in terms of time can prompt a fresh view of the things that you own.

Stop Inadvertent Multitasking

We’ve all accidentally started multi-tasking, digging into the dreaded junk drawer, and dread dealing with the various items, and often founder in making decisions. Save yourself the tedium and simplify things by dealing with each item as you handle it.

These six are where so much of my passion lies and I hope you enjoy them. It was hard to eliminate so many posts, and I’m full of ideas for more to come. It’s such a long way from the feeling when I wrote my first one, unsure whether I had more than 5 or 10 in me.

Happy 100^th! I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas – drop me a line anytime. 🙂

Workforce Shelving Units