Table of Contents

-Introduction
-Did you know?
-Monthly Mission – Kitchen
-Check Out These Pages! – Relevant pages and new site additions
-Consumerism vs. Decluttering

Introduction

It’s March and spring will be upon us soon. Maybe not soon enough for many in the U.S. this year. With it comes the official time of “spring cleaning”. Now, I understand wanting to open the windows and let in some fresh air and spruce things up a bit, but the idea of waiting until spring to do a whole house, thorough cleaning doesn’t sound fun to me. I don’t really like cleaning much in the first place. Instead, if we work on our decluttering and organizing spread throughout the year, it will be somewhat less of a chore. Keep focusing on a room or area one at a time. And as for the cleaning part, I suppose we should be doing that throughout the year as well? Use the nice spring weather to take on some special projects like working in the garden, or cleaning out that garage.

For my U.S. friends, don’t forget that taxes are due next month! So be sure to get your papers in order and file on time.

Click the logo above to learn more!

Did you know…

Although the United States has only 4% of the world’s population, it consumes approximately 25% of the world’s resources.

(Resource: http://www.johncairns.net/Papers/consumerism.pdf )

This month we’re going to take a look at our kitchens. I know myself, I have a couple drawers that have accumulated too much stuff over time. It's time to go through those cabinets and drawers to toss the old and the unused. For more information on the monthly mission for March, click here.

If you’re in a hurry to put some order back into your home, perhaps Mimi Tanner's unique method will give you that jumpstart. Check out her method at Declutter Fast: How To Get Your Home In Order Almost Immediately.

Here are some pertinent pages on the website you may have missed along with any new pages.

Home Filing System - Keep all your paperwork in order so you can find what you need at a moments notice, and learn what to keep and what to toss.

Living Room Storage Make-over - See how we re-organized our living room (play room) with a new Ikea wall unit that's great for storing lots of stuff.

Closet Organizing Products - Suggestions for products to use when decluttering and organizing your closets.

Organizing Your Day - Suggestions on how to better organize your day so you can get more done in less time and with less stress.

Garage Makeover - before and after photos of my personal garage makeover. See how we tackled the problems and ended up with a functional garage.

Streamline Your Morning Routine - Ideas to help you get out the door in the morning and be on time for work or school.

Consumerism vs. Decluttering

Here’s something to think about. Remember the last couple times you went to the store? Did you only buy what was on your list, things that you needed? Or did you buy other items that caught your eye and were just too good to pass up?

Our reason for being on this page is because we all want to declutter our homes and become better organized. We really want that cleaner, emptier, streamlined feeling, right? Yet we find ourselves buying things we don’t really need and don’t have a place to put them once we get them home. I am guilty as well. I can be dangerous in a Target store, sometimes even buying organizing containers, yet when I get home, I’m not quite sure where I’m going to put or use these items. So it sits, and becomes clutter. Shame on me.

We’re working against ourselves.

Though we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over it. We’re just part of the large trend of greater consumerism. According to Morgan Stanley:

"Over the 1996 to 2004 period, annual growth in US personal consumption expenditures averaged 3.9% — nearly double the 2.2% pace recorded elsewhere in the so-called advanced world." The real prices of many consumer goods are as much as 50 percent less than they were a century ago. It's never been so easy for so many to amass so many consumer products. And who doesn't take pleasure from owning things?”

And I don’t imagine that our love of buying stuff has decreased over the past 10 years since 2004.

What can we do to curb our excessive consumerism? We don’t need to become minimalists and live with only the basic essentials, though it’s OK if you choose to go that route. We just need to be more conscious about our purchases. We should only buy things that we actually need, and for things that we don’t “need”, we should give them a thorough evaluation to see if they will improve our lives. The goal is to only bring things into our homes that will not contribute to clutter. Our goal is to DE-clutter.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself next time you want to buy something:

• 1. Do I need this?
• 2. Do I already own one, or more?
• 3. Do I have a place to store it?
• 4. How much will I actually use it?
• 5. Can I borrow or rent one instead?

Depending on what you’re contemplating to buy, you may come up with other questions to help you make your decision.

Here’s to being a thoughtful consumer and remembering our bigger goal of having an organized home and life!!

Until next time, happy organizing!

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com