You Have Permission!

Today's client session reminded me of one of the magical forces of professional organization, that you might be able to replicate merely by reading this entry! This issue applies to people who have a hard time letting go of things.

It's so simple it's hard to believe the effect it has on people. I simply give clients permission to let go of unwanted objects. Gifts they never liked. Sheets that no longer match. Hand-me-downs their kids will never wear. They ask me what they should do with a particular object, followed by something like "it was a gift, and I never really liked it." What they are seeking is permission, and I give it to them, and it changes their relationship to their stuff!

Sometimes there's a latent sense of guilt behind holding on to something we no longer love or need. Maybe we feel guilty for not "using it up." Maybe it's our natural environmentalism. Or maybe it's Depression-Era survival skills passed down through the generations. Wherever it comes from, I'm here to tell you it's ok to let go and let someone else benefit from the dust-collectors and space-thieves in your home.

As one organizer wrote somewhere (I can't remember where), "is it worth the cost of your home? Because that's what it's costing you!"

You have my encouragement to let go of all the stuff you're not using, you don't like, or that doesn't fit into your current life. If you fear that this is wasteful ("I spent so much money on the stuff, just to give it away!"), remember, that thought is focused on regretting the past (how much money you spent), and by doing so, you waste the present. The present is this: clearing out the old, the unused, the disliked, will open space for the new, the loved, the unknown. It will simplify your life in ways you can't imagine. I'm not saying it's always easy -- we hold lots of emotions, fears, desires, fantasies, and memories in our stuff. Sometimes it's hard to let go of the past and the future and the fantasies that they hold. But creating space for the here and now is the only way to really be in the here and now. And that's all we have, really.

Of course, decluttering responsibly means making sure your unwanted things don't end up in the trash. For information on where to donate your stuff in Chicago, please scroll down and also refer to the menu at the right for an older entry on where to donate anything from books to eyeglasses to old blankets. Please also email me for information on donating designer items for a fundraiser to save the rainforest in Indonesia, home of the near-extinct Orangutan. Thanks!

Where to Donate...

Someday (this season, I hope) I'll get to completely updating the "Where to Donate" list. In the meantime, I thought I'd share where I've been donating clients' stuff lately.


The White Elephant
Lincoln Park
2380 N. Lincoln Avenue
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Thursday: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday: Noon to 5 p.m.

100% of the proceeds from sales benefit Children's Memorial Hospital. They take pretty much everything, even off-season clothing which can be hard to get rid of. For a complete list see http://www.childrensmemorial.org/friends/white_ele.aspx


Sarah's Circle
4750 N Sheridan Rd # 220
Chicago, IL 60640
(773) 334-3096
Drop off between 9-4, M-F
Web: http://www.sarahs-circle.org/programs_and_services.asp

They provide a panoply of daytime supportive services for homeless or almost homeless women. They are always in need of in-season clothing, including interview attire and new undergarments, new deoderant, toiletries -- travel sized only, books, magazines, and movies (for movie nights).

Cornerstone Community Outreach
4628 North Clifton Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60640
phone: 773.303.0119
Web: ccolife.org

I am always impressed with this shelter and community center when I drop things off there. They treat their residents with dignity and respect, and they are very grateful for the donations I drop off. Check out the programs on their website, I'm sure you'll be impressed.

They take:

* Clothing (In good overall condition-please no stains, rips, or broken zippers-clothing should also be freshly laundered)
* Coats, Scarves, Hats, Gloves (coats especially for larger men and women)
* New Under Garments (socks, underwear, bras)
* Personal Items (soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, disposable razors, shaving cream, sanitary items)
* Shoes (please attach shoes by the laces, leave in box, or rubber band them together in pairs)
* Accessories (please bring these in zip lock bags)
* For Baby (baby bottles, Enfamil formula with Iron, bottle brushes, diapers, baby shampoo, baby powder, Desitin or equivalent, baby clothes, blankets)
* Strollers (in good overall condition with no broken wheels or missing buckles)
* Baby Cribs and Vinyl Single mats (cribs should be within the current law and mattresses should be vinyl covered with no holes or rips in exterior)
* Child Car Seats (in overall good condition and not manufactured before 1996)
* Linens (blankets, sheets, pillowcases, new pillows, towels, washcloths (please no stains or rips-should be freshly laundered)
* Houseware (please no chipped or broken items. Also please keep sets together if possible-ziplock silverware, and separately box dishes)
* Computer hardware, software, peripherals (please no computer items manufactured before 1997)
* Furniture, small area rugs, pictures, mirrors, books, records, tapes, CD's, videos, small working tools
* Used appliances, and electronics (in good working condition-no repairs needed, if possible please twist tie cords) Microwaves – only 1995 or newer
* Toys, Sporting Goods, Games (in good overall condition with no missing pieces or broken parts-stuffed animals should still have a lot of love left in them and not be dirty)
* Art, office and school supplies (in generally good condition)
* Luggage (in overall good condition. Please clearly mark combinations to locks or attach needed keys)
* Building Materials

See the bottom of this page for what they do not take:
http://www.ccolife.org/howtohelp.cfm?page=inkind


The Brown Elephant

All Brown Elephant Resale Shops are now open from 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., every day

3651 N. Halsted Street
773-549-5943

5404 N. Clark Street
773-271-9382

1459 N. Milwaukee Avenue
773-252-8801

217 Harrison Street, Oak Park, IL
708-445-0612

Web: http://www.howardbrown.org/hb_brownelephant.asp?id=57

Proceeds benefit the Howard Brown Health Center which serves the glbtq population in Chicago. They take almost everything, see their website for details.


Of course, there's the Salvation Army, but I think they get more than they can handle, so I try to support the smaller organizations.


The Post Office provides plastic mailers, postage paid, for used cell phones and small appliances. Petsmart takes used printer cartridges in a postage paid mailer which benefits animal charities.

Read my older post "Where to Donate" for lots of other places. Be sure to call them in advance to make sure the information is up to date.

Happy decluttering!

Inspiring Simplicity

The running theme of this blog is how to live more simply, so I thought I'd share the inspiring story of a new client who is committed to simple living.

This successful corporate executive is moving from Chicago to the east coast and hired me to help her pare down and organize her papers before the big move. Moves can be exhausting, stressful, complicated affairs, so I prepared my schedule with some flexibility to make sure she'd be covered.

Well, this ended up being the easiest move prep I've ever witnessed! The client was determined to fit everything she owned in one medium sized sedan.

Now granted, not all of us can afford to get rid of our wardrobes and start anew, but that's besides the point. This woman lives with a philosophy of having "enough" (see last post on the myth of scarcity), and she didn't feel the need to weigh herself down with things she might -- or might not --- use "someday."

The Psychology of Financial Management

I took this picture in devastated New Orleans when residents had just returned after Hurricane Katrina. An industrious lady was offering "Cut + Coke" in her yard for $10.

There is much to say about this topic, but for today, I'd just like to address one particular issue relating to psychology and financial management that I see frequently in my organizing practice.

For some of my clients, handling bills and finances is an annoying and even distressing affair. At one extreme, I've seen years of bills stacked up, resulting in thousands of dollars in fees and ruined credit, even though resources had been there to pay the bills. Sometimes paying bills and dealing with paperwork triggers an anxiety response, and having a neutral, supportive presence to help guide the process and ensure follow-through is needed. (Of course there are many other reasons bills don't get paid for stretches of time! These include onset of severe illness, not having the money, etc. But for the purposes of this discussion, I am only referring to the psychological dimension of financial management.)

There can be many roots to this anxiety. A common one I believe is the development of habits of avoidance. These may have started years ago when there really wasn't enough to pay the bills each month on time. Opening bills that can't be paid can be extremely anxiety producing, provoking a flight or fight response. Avoidance makes perfect sense from an evolutionary standpoint, and it certainly is understandable when options for dealing are non-existent. But what I see oftentimes is that even when times change, and money is available, the anxiety and the avoidance response stick around. The anxiety of opening a bill -- followed by avoidance -- becomes a habit so that even when the money is there, the need to flee remains.


Another common issue I speak at length about in my clutter support groups is the "poverty mentality" I see frequently. This is a mindset that has nothing to do with one's actual resources. I've seen very wealthy extended families guided by a poverty mentality, and I've seen very poor people who do not live by its restrictions. It is based on the (oftentimes unconscious) assumption that there is not enough to go around. A person living with a poverty mentality might accumulate vast holdings of "stuff" -- sometimes more than their space can hold -- out of fear. I've seen people pay thousands of dollars per year in storage units for items that "will be worthwhile someday." I've seen others spend their lives accumulating "deals" -- items on sale or good deals from garage sales, with the idea that some day they will sell them. But instead, the stuff takes permanent residence cluttering up their living space, and the time spent accumulating and sorting becomes its own problem, if not nightmare.

The fear underlying this accumulation might be that one day the money won't be there to purchase the stuff, so they better hold onto it now. Or that one day it will be worth something, and that will be their only means for survival. The accumulations is not based on rational thought -- which will often reveal that the time and money it costs to hold onto to the stuff -- whether in lost rental revenue, or in lost clarity of mind, or in lost time spent shuffling everything around -- will never be repaid. It is based in fear.

In her book The Soul of Money, Lynne Twist uses her four decades of experience directing global initiatives to end world hunger to reflect on the relationship between money and leading a meaningful life. It's an inspiring book that I recommend highly. In her chapter titled "Scarcity: The Great Lie," she writes:

I have been engaged for all these years in the lives and circumstances of people, many of whom live in crushing conditions where the lack of food, water, shelter, freedom, or opportunity drives every move adn every conversation. Others, by every measure, have bounty way beyond their needs -- more money, more food, more cars, more clothes, more education, more services, more freedom, more opportunity, more of everything. Yet, surprisingly, in that world of over abundance, too, the conversation is dominated by what they don't have and what they want to get. No matter who we are or what our circumstances, we swim in conversations about what there isn't enough of.
I see it in myself. For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didn't get enough sleep" The next one is I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it.
....We live with scarcity as an underlying assumption. It is an unquestioned, sometimes even unspoken, defining condition of life. It is not even that we necessarily experience a lack of something, but that scarcity as a chronic sense of inadequacy about life becomes the very place from which we think and act and live in the world. It shapes our deepest sense of ourselves, and becomes the lens through which we expeirence life Through that lens our expectations, our behavior, and their consequences become a self-fulfilling prophecy of inadequacy, lack, and dissatisfaction. (pages 46-47).

She goes on to list the 3 toxic myths of scarcity:

Toxic Myth # 1: There's Not Enough

Toxic Myth #2: More is better

Toxic Myth #3: That's Just the Way it is


So what would our personal financial management look like if we approached it from the reverse mentality: there is enough. Less is better. I can change things -- in my life, and in the world. What would shift in your life?

Suze Orman's Recommended Websites

I know a lot of people who seem organized until you look at their papers. And one of the causes of paper disorder is fear of facing one's finances square in the eye. In my next post I'll address the psychology of financial management, but here are some great resources to get you off on the right track.

I highly recommend Suze Orman's books on finance if you haven't read any of them, especially her latest revised one "The Road to Wealth: Suze Orman's Complete Guide to Your Money." In question-answer format, she addresses a wide range of issues beyond investing. For example, what key things should you have in your life insurance plan? And do you even need life insurance?

Here are some very useful websites I've collected over time from Suze's columns and books.

Socially Responsible Investing:
Socialfunds.com
Domini.cm
Paxfunds.com

Life Insurance -- Compare Prices:
Selectquote.com
Accuquotecom

Health Insurance Quotes:
Ehealthinsurance.com
Insure.com

Check your fico score:
Myfico.com

Compare Credit Card Offers:
Bankrate.com

Saving for College Tuition – 529 Savings Plan
No income limit, interest on invested money is tax deferred, and withdrawals for college costs are tax-free.
Savingforcollege.com

6 Tricks for Getting Started

Oftentimes the hardest part of organizing is getting started. Here are a few tricks of the trade to get you going when that organizing project feels stuck.

1. Set a timer for 20 mins. and just commit to moving the whole time. If you have a lot of clutter, put 3 boxes in the room labeled "donate," "trash," and "not sure." Don't hem and haw over each item, just put it in "not sure" if it takes more than 30 seconds to decide. Try the 20 minute trick daily.

2. One of my clients came up with this useful trick: for each organizing session he shines a desk lamp on one area, and organizes everything that falls within the parameters of the light.

3. Enlist a clutter buddy and report your goals and accomplishments by phone or in person at regular intervals.

4. Tackle the low-hanging fruit first. Go for the easy projects to get your organizing muscle stretched.

5. Perfectionism is your worst enemy, and the way to beat it is to create manageable expectations. Saying you're going to clear up a mess that took 5 years to make in one weekend may cause you to want to throw in the towel before you even start. Setting up reasonable expectations that you can sustain over the long-term is a more productive approach.

6. If 6 months goes by and you haven't made any progress, it may be time to hire a professional to get you beyond the rut. A $150 investment can get you on track and past the blocks, and you will learn organizing skills that will last a lifetime.