Living the Simple Life

by Elaine St James

  Our culture is replete with so-called convenience items—call waiting, E-mail, the food processor—or alternative approaches to situations that at first glance appear to be simplifiers, or which might simplify someone else’s life, but which on closer inspection would only complicate our own.

  We’ve found the habit of asking “Will this really simplify our lives?” a powerful weapon in the ongoing battle against the complications of modern life.

  FIVE

  Getting Rid of Our Stuff

  38. Where to Start

  If you’re ready to begin unloading the stuff that’s been cluttering up your life, and you don’t know where to start, start with the easy stuff.

  I heard from a woman recently who had an office full of files, family papers, legal documents, reports, journal articles and other paraphernalia for projects she had worked on.

  She knew she needed to bite the bullet, go through all that stuff, make some difficult decisions about what to keep, and eventually throw out a lot of it. But because it seemed like such a monumental task, she couldn’t seem to get going on it.

  So I suggested she leave the office alone for the time being, and start somewhere else. Like with the linens.

  Has there ever been a linen closet that wasn’t chock full of well-worn, mismatched sheets that will never be used again? Or sheets that may be in perfectly good shape, but that fit the bed you gave away three years ago? Or stacks of bath towels and washcloths that don’t match your current color scheme and you’ll never again hang on a towel rack?

  What about the tablecloths and napkin sets that you haven’t used in years because you can’t bear the thought of ironing them? You know you’ll never use that stuff again. Pass it on to someone who can.

  The kitchen is often another safe place. Start with the very top shelves in the kitchen cabinets. Get rid of anything that is covered with a thin coating of grime—it’s a safe bet you haven’t used it in a while, and probably never will again.

  Pull out all the so-called convenience items such as the bread makers, plate warmers, and the pasta machines you’ve only used once in five years, and pass them along to someone who might like to have them. (They won’t use those things more than once or twice either, but at least they won’t be sitting on your shelves collecting dust.)

  Look at any other areas in your home where it would be easy for you to go in and clear out—under the sinks, or the shelves in the laundry room, or the inner depths of the basement, perhaps the front hall closet, and start tossing.

  This sounds so obvious, but often people feel trapped by the things they’re afraid to let go of or that they know will be difficult for them to deal with, so they never get started at all. But if you get going with the easy stuff, and you see how good it feels to be free of it, it’s so much easier to go on to the harder stuff.

  Once you’re in the decluttering mode, get to the hard stuff as quickly as you can. One of the objectives here is to use the momentum you’ve generated on the easy things to propel you into the discarding mode for the harder stuff.

  As reader Nancy Hawkins wrote, “After buying and trying to follow books about how to be organized I was thrilled to realize I needed to simplify and get rid of the clutter, not just rearrange piles of stuff in a new way.”

  It’s so true. If you just get rid of the clutter you never have to organize it.

  39. Getting Rid of the Stuff Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Getting Rid of Everything

  Invariably when I talk to groups about simplifying and the issue of clutter comes up, someone will say something like, “I’ve gone through and cleared out a lot of stuff in my home, but I’ve got this stash of medals from when I was an Olympic swimmer. I know they’re taking up space and I never wear them or even look at them much anymore, but I can’t bear to throw them out. What do you suggest?”

  Sometimes, it’s a box of mementos, or a record collection, or their grandmother’s fine china. My answer is simple. If you can’t bear to throw them out, then don’t.

  Gibbs and I both love books. We love reading them. We love having them in our home. When we first started clearing out stuff, we had no intention of thinning out our collection of books. They meant too much to us.

  Then, after we’d gotten rid of a driveway full of stuff we weren’t using anymore, and we experienced the tremendous feeling of liberation that comes from unloading, we decided to rethink our position on the books.

  We went through the shelves and started pulling down tomes we knew we’d never read again. Some we sold to a local used-book shop. Others we donated to our public library. Every year or so we have gone through and pulled out more books that we now see we can do without.

  But we still have a lot of books, and I can’t imagine we’ll ever get rid of every one of them. After all, one of the main reasons we simplified our lives was so we’d have time to do the reading we want to do.

  Getting rid of the clutter is not about letting go of things that are meaningful to you. It’s about letting go of the things that no longer contribute to your life so you have the time and the energy and the space for the things that do.

  Also, keep in mind that our identities are often connected to our stuff. When we start unloading it, it feels like we’re giving away part of ourselves. But unloading some of it can also help us move into the self we want to be.

  40. Look at All the Things You Hold on to Because You Might Need Them Someday

  As we were getting ready for the garage sale that would clear out of our lives forever all the things we had decided to let go on round one of our uncluttering process, we stopped for a brief moment and looked at all the stuff we had piled in the driveway.

  Gibbs pointed out that we’d been holding on to most of this stuff on the theory that we might need it someday.

  It’s so easy to do this. You come across some seemingly fabulous thing you have no earthly use for at the moment, but you think, “I never know when I might need a whatever-this-is.” And you put it on the back shelf somewhere (along with all the other things you never know when you might need).

  And you think, “Well, it doesn’t take much room, and it’s not hurting anything. I’ll keep it on hand just in case I ever need it.”

  But often these are things you have to keep clean, or maybe you have to wrap them carefully so they don’t get broken. Sometimes these things are so valuable you have to insure them. If nothing else, you have to provide that back shelf for them. And so, at some level, they are weighing on your consciousness and impinging on your life.

  As we stood in the driveway that day we realized that if there was something we ever did need from all this stuff, we could, in a pinch, go out and get it again. In fact, we could’ve replaced the entire driveway full of stuff for a few hundred dollars.

  But the interesting thing is that now, five years later, there hasn’t been even one thing we wished we’d held on to.

  Well, there was an old pair of cowboy boots I put in the pile because they’d been sitting in the closet, unused, for some time. I was afraid they were housing a black widow spider and didn’t want to put my hand in there to find out. Later, I kind of wished I’d saved them. But when I remember them accurately I know that they were so worn-out I never would have worn them again.

  But other than that, nothing.

  So, if you ever find yourself tempted to put something on the back shelf because you think you might need it someday, remember that replacing it (and all the other things on the back shelf you think you might need) is probably a lot easier than maintaining the space required to store it all.

  And if you ever find yourself wistfully wishing you’d held on to something, it’s seldom as wonderful or as suitable for your needs as you remember it being.

  41. One Knife, One Fork, One Spoon

  Reader Grace Samis described what I’ve found to be a great simplifier for many areas of the house where stuff tends to accumulate.

  She wrote, “I’m working on having only two items more of
‘things’ than people that live in the house… meaning plates, glasses, cups, knives, forks, spoons, pillows, blankets, sheets, towels, etc. For example, if there are four people in the household, keep only six plates.

  “This is a threefold treasure. First, this gives you more space in your household. Second, it forces you to keep up with the cleaning—you can’t let the dishes pile up if you need them for the next meal. Third, and most importantly, you can’t have unwanted guests over too often. With no extra plates, no extra pillows, no extra blankets, uninvited visitors can’t just come for a casual visit for any great length of time without some hard planning!”

  I love this idea for a number of reasons. First, it gives you a specific goal to work toward in the ongoing process of uncluttering. Once you set this limit—or any other limit that works for you—there’s no guessing. No wondering, should I keep this or that. It’s so easy: Just two more things than people, and everything beyond that goes out or to someone else who can use it.

  Secondly, it not only frees up more space in the household—in the kitchen cabinets, bath cabinets, linen closet—it makes it so much easier to keep track of things. I know I’ve got exactly what I need for our own use, and then just two more. No more digging around in the back of closets or pulling out the stepladder to climb to the top shelf of the pantry, because I think there might be something useful back there. Now I know what’s there, and it’s only two more than what I use everyday.

  Obviously, if you entertain a lot, this wouldn’t work—unless you were open to the idea of keeping some disposable plates and utensils on hand. Or, you could go for a variation on the potluck meal and have people bring their own knives and forks and spoons.

  Of course, Grace, the ultimate way to deal with unwanted houseguests is to learn to just say no(#57). But this is a workable solution until we can learn to do that.

  42. Start Over Again, and Do It Right

  I’ve heard from and talked to many people who described how Mother Nature simplified their lives for them. They’d lost their home and many or all of their possessions through fires, floods, earthquakes, mudslides, or some other disaster. Losing everything you own under such circumstances can be devastating, but the people I’ve heard from all saw their loss, ultimately, as a blessing.

  “The fire saved us the agony of deciding what to keep and what to get rid of,” one woman wrote. And once all those things were no longer there, she and her husband saw how they had weighed them down and complicated their lives.

  “There was so much stuff we never used and that was just taking up space. We vowed when we started over, we’d replace only what we needed, and this time we’d do it right. We’ve kept our promise: We don’t have much now, but what we have is exactly what we want.”

  Though we’ve never had a catastrophic loss such as that, Gibbs and I did have a close call shortly before we decided to simplify. At that time we lived in a fire zone. One night a firestorm raged through and destroyed over six hundred homes in our community. That tragedy gave us the opportunity to look objectively at the goods we’d accumulated.

  We saw that there was so much we could get rid of and not only never miss, but be better off without. Having almost lost it all, we found it much easier to let go of the things we knew we’d never use again.

  Obviously, there’s a tremendous difference between geting rid of possessions and losing them through a natural disaster without having a say in the matter. And this is not to minimize the tragedy and pain such a loss can generate.

  But you might think about how you would approach the acquisition process if you had it to do all over again. Look around your home and make a list of what you would replace.

  Make another list of things you wouldn’t acquire again no matter what, and in fact would be happy to be rid of.

  When you’re ready to start unloading some of your stuff, that list will be a good place to start.

  43. Take a Picture of It

  The young woman with the collection of medals and awards from her Olympic swimming days was in a quandary. She had just moved to a smaller, simpler place and wanted to keep a sparse, clean look to her life for the moment. She couldn’t bear to get rid of the medals altogether, yet she didn’t want them cluttering up her space.

  She brought this up at a talk I gave, and one of the other members of the audience suggested that she sort the items, set aside the ones that had the most meaning for her, lay them out in an interesting arrangement, and take a photograph of them. Or she might photograph them individually, and create a photo montage she could hang on the wall.

  Or she could simply photograph them, donate them to a school or an art class where they could be used by students for various projects, and keep the photos in a file folder.

  This last idea appealed to her. She had already made the decision to keep the walls of her new space free of distractions, at least for the time being.

  A photo montage wouldn’t work for everything, but you might consider it as a possibility.

  Don’t let the photos clutter up your life, however. Many people wrote to say that photos, perhaps more than any other personal item, can clutter up closets, drawers, desks, shelves, and multiple nooks and crannies. If this is true in your house, gather from all the corners of your home every photograph you’ve taken or that has been given to you over your lifetime. Sort through them, mercilessly tossing out any shot that’s out of focus, or that is of someone you’ve never seen before, or that you never want to be reminded of again. Arrange the remaining photos in albums in whatever order seems appropriate. This will eliminate a lot of clutter and provide a simple and enjoyable way for you to share family memories.

  44. Never Touch a Piece of Mail More than Once

  I’d heard about this approach to the seemingly endless torrent of paper that flows across our desks and through our lives. And for years I’d thought, “It might work for others, but it would never work for me.” I felt I always had too much stuff coming in at any one time to handle it all right then and there. So I’d set it aside, and then I’d have to come up with a lot more time to handle a lot more of it later.

  When I simplified my life, I did cut back on the number of journals, magazines, and newspapers that come into my home and office every day. I also drastically reduced the junk mail I was subjected to (#45).

  As I began to simplify even more, and started letting go of a lot of the real estate and other business associations that generated a heavy load of mail, not only were there far fewer bills coming in each day, but eventually I arranged for the bills that did show up to be handled by automatic payment through my bank (#80).

  But after hearing over and over again from readers of Simplify Your Life that handling it once was a major simplifier, I decided to try it.

  Now I set aside an hour at the end of my workday to read the mail and to deal with the stream of paper that comes through the door. Most days it takes only a few moments to sort through the mail, send off a postcard response as needed, read any pertinent articles or newsletters, file anything I might need to refer to later, and toss out what I don’t need to keep.

  The better I get at making decisions on the spot as to what to keep, the more I can toss into the recycling bin, and the less stuff I have to file.

  I also found it doesn’t work to think “I can’t read this article now, or make that decision at this moment,” and set it aside for later. When I do that, I’m soon right back where I started, inundated with paperwork. But by keeping that hour at the end of the day to read it now, or to do whatever I need to do to make a decision now—place a phone call or do some research—I can usually deal with it immediately and be finished with it. We have to decide at some point what to do with it. I’ve learned it’s better to decide now.

  It’s so liberating not to have stacks of paper weighing down the edges of my desk and the corners of my mind. Now the mail is all taken care of in just a few minutes or at the most an hour each day.

  If it takes more t
han the allotted hour to deal with a particular item, then I’ll set it aside for the next afternoon. Though now that I’ve gradually reduced the volume of mail and have increased my ability to decide right now how to deal with something, I seldom have to deal with it later.

  If it takes less than the allotted hour to deal with the day’s mail, which now it usually does, then I’ve got a sweet little bit of leisure time which I can use to stroll through the garden, call a friend, or just sit quietly and do nothing.

  Learning to handle it only once ranks high on the list of steps I’ve taken to keep the clutter to a minimum.

  This also applies to magazines and newspapers. I heard from many people who simplified their lives by reading the morning paper as soon as it arrives, then passing it on to a friend or neighbor or taking it into the office to share with a co-worker. Not only does this practice reduce the clutter that otherwise often stays in your life, but it reduces the expense of newspaper and magazine subscriptions. As with many aspects of simplifying, it has some positive effects on the environment as well. If everyone did it we could drastically reduce the amount of paper that has to be produced for these products and, ultimately, cut back on the volume of paper that has to be recycled each day.

  45. Junk Mail Update

  Junk mail is certainly one of the major complications of modern life, and few things add more useless stuff to our clutter. In Simplify Your Life I describe how we cut back on the amount of junk mail that comes into our home by writing to the Mail Preference Service (P.O. Box 9008, Farmingdale, NY, 22735-9008) and requesting that our name not be sold to any mailing list companies.