Are you ashamed or embarrassed that you have a lot of potential junk around your home or office? Do you think it's hurting your productivity, or working against your familial relationships? Do you want to hear an UN-diplomatic response to America's (is San Francisco in America?) issues with decision-making, actually using previously-bought impulse items and subsequent refusal to dump (trash) their unloved stuff?
One solution is on the way -- from San Francisco Gate Columnist Mark Morford. His article appeared just yesterday.
What's the take on this from OrganizingLA and John Trosko? If you know the way we are, and the way we work, we utilize a non-judgemental manner, with sensitivity and patience when we re-create a room or office environment. Instead of emphasizing the clutter issue, we like to emphasize the benefits of what will happen AFTER the purging: saved time, saved patience, and a renewed freedom to experience a better life. But this Columnist's approach works well for those who need a push-- what do you think?
Morford writes a very inspiring and edgy article to kick start your feet and your Hefty trash bags. You can read his article "Why Do You Have So Much Junk?/Oh yes you do. And there are TV shows to prove it. Question is, what are you gonna do about it?" by clicking here. Here's a sample of his extreme thoughts about the "cure" for America's love/hate relationship with crap (the Columnist's term):
"Thankfully, we have treatments. Remedies. We even have cures, and they're simple and elegant and do not necessarily involve becoming a monk or a Zen Buddhist or a staunch minimalist where your entire home consists of one cushion and one blanket and one mattress and a large wooden bowl and maybe a single cactus all lit by $15,000 worth of recessed lighting and shot by professional photographers from the lovely Dwell magazine and appearing about as cozy and inviting as four boulders and a brick.
The cure is simple, so graceful that it will make you feel lighter and healthier and good the minute you start, and of course you can start right now and you don't even need any drugs or wine or nudity, though those always, always help.
This is what you do: You throw stuff out. You go through your closets and you fill up garbage bags and you even grab stuff you've clung to for years for no apparent reason, and you haul it all down to Goodwill or Salvation Army or (in the case of San Francisco) leave the usable stuff out in the street overnight and let the urban recycling phenomenon work its magic, as some lucky passerby scores your old futon and the three grungy frying pans
you haven't used since 1987.
It is one of the healthiest things you can do. Honest psychologists and good spiritual healers often advise patients with overactive minds and squirrel-like attention spans and problems focusing and problems sleeping,
they will tell them not to pop some Ritalin or merely take an herbal tincture and eat more leafy greens, but to go home right now and, yes,clean out your closets. Clear out your clutter. Strip it all to the beautiful essentials and then keep it that way."
Oh dear. Let the comments begin! What do our readers have to say about this?
