organizing | downsizing | moving | estate clearing | small-space living
Goodbye, Dean of Clean
Before The Minimalists and Marie Kondo, before Peter Walsh and Elaine St James, there was Don Aslett.
Known as the Dean of Clean, Don Aslett was the founder of American contract cleaning company Varsity Facility Services and the author of 40 books about decluttering and cleaning.
Don started publishing his books in the 1980s and when I discovered them they were the first that I had ever read on the subject made so popular decades later by Kondo and others. Written in a droll take-no-prisoners style, with goofy titles like Clutter’s Last Stand, Lose 200 Lbs This Weekend, and Not for Packrats Only, Don’s books gave me the impetus (okay, kick in the bum) to tackle the clutter in my home. Read, purge; read, purge: those books taught me to think differently about my stuff.
I learned that Don passed away on August 21, 2024, which, coincidentally, was the day that my siblings and I put our family home up for sale (see my posts about clearing and selling the house that I grew up in).
RIP Don.
How to Eat an Elephant
Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time. Getting our parents’ house ready for sale
My mother died in 2016 and my father lived out his final years in the 1950s three-bedroom ranch they bought in 1962. In early December of 2023 he passed away surrounded by his four children. Once the memorial service was over, we four began the months-long process of dealing with the contents of the house and getting it ready for sale.
With advice from our real estate agent and much discussion, my siblings and I made a plan. We each brought our individual talents and experience to the table: my brother, the executor, managed the legal, financial, and administrative duties, found tradespeople, and helped clear the basement and garage; my other brother and nephew, who live in our home town, kept watch on and maintained the property, helped clear the basement and garage, and met movers and tradespeople who came to the house; my sister found us a real estate agent, lent her design and renovation savvy to choosing fixtures, cleaned, and, along with her husband and children, helped with the estate auction (more on that in the weeks to come), and clearing the basement and garage; and I, professional organizer and interior designer wannabe, cleared the contents of the house and researched the many decisions that are going into making the house ready.
The work is still in progress as I write these words. Our texts ping all day as we decide who will manage what, with whom, when, and how. The multiple chat threads get tangled and I accidentally text the handyman with questions about the plumbing. My siblings are balancing their responsibilities with full-time jobs but I run my own business and can take time as I need it (or as it needs me).
My desk is stacked with paint chips and the trunk of my car is full of flooring samples, plus a mirror that turned out to be too big. The 160-page notebook that I bought to keep track of my tasks has only three empty pages left. I would have started this blog back in December but I’ve been too busy living it to write about it.
I spent yesterday afternoon stumbling around DIY stores looking for tongue and groove nickel-gap panelling. Nobody had heard of it. Will regular shiplap do? Can we use it in a bathroom? MDF needs a moisture barrier. Individual planks or 4 x 8 foot sheets? Should we run it vertically or horizontally? Does the local Rona have it in stock?
As I research building material for the new bathroom, I realize that I haven’t cleaned my own bathroom in weeks. But these details matter because we are not “flipping a house,” as some people have described it, we are selling our family home and, with any luck, another family will live there for the next 62 years.
Over the next weeks and months I’ll describe this elephantine enterprise in a series of posts. How do you clear the family home and get it ready for sale? One bite at a time.
Before the new porch and railing were added last summer.
Happy Earth Day! Grrr!
Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints. PLEASE!
My adopted city of London has lots of lovely trails that run along the Thames and Medway, the two rivers that flow through the city. One of my favourites takes me right to the river’s edge where, in dry seasons, I can stand on the exposed rocks of what is normally the river bed.
One evening last spring, while on my favourite walk, I heard a group of rowdy people whooping it up on an alternate path to the river. They were hidden by trees, out of sight but not out of earshot. I reached a spot near the trailhead and discovered garbage left on the gravel, in the grassy verges, in a tree. None of it was there when I started my walk and I could well guess who left it.
Is Mommy coming later to clean this up?
I am often dismayed by the thoughtlessness of my fellow humans but this took my breath away. The garbage didn’t suddenly blow there. It was not dropped absentmindedly. It was placed deliberately—in a tree. It takes a special kind of contempt for nature to do that.
A few months later I happened upon the garbage container seen in the photo below. It was at a gas station that also contained a Tim Hortons. Everything visible in the photo was recyclable or compostable, yet just steps away was a bin for paper, recyclables, and waste. Of course, there’s no guarantee that what goes in the recycling bin is actually recycled but it seems to me that some people aren’t even trying. Why, oh why? Is it sheer laziness?
Everything shown here is either recyclable or compostable.
So near and yet so far…
The above examples might seem petty in the great scheme of things but they are repeated many millions of times over every day. True change starts with the individual, all 8.1 billion of us as of the date of this post.
Clean up your own mess. It’s what grown-ups do. Mommy isn’t coming later to do it for you.
If you broke it, fix it.
If you spilled it, wipe it up.
If you dropped it, pick it up.
If you can’t find a receptacle, take your garbage home.
Care. When it looks like nobody cares, nobody cares.
We are a filthy species and we quite literally foul our own nests. From the deepest ocean to the highest mountain, from the hottest desert to the coldest continent, we abandon our crap.
Yes, this is a rant. There is little I can add that hasn’t already been said by wiser and better writers. Happy Earth Day! Grrr.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-pacific-garbage-patch/
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/trash-and-overcrowding-top-world/
Cheap ’n’ Cheerful
Fine art and framing can be expensive and while I’m not encouraging hoarding behaviour, a few things, in addition to books and house plants, can go a long way to adding colour and personality to your home at low cost.
It is possible to find nice decor at big box home stores, but decorating exclusively with the mass produced goods from those places will make your house or apartment look like an impersonal hotel or show home rather than your home. Take your time and think about your style. Be discerning. Don’t acquire stuff just because it’s cheap or free. Curate and edit. And above all, have fun!
Where:
local artist and student shows*
antique and collectible shops
second-hand book shops
consignment shops
thrift stores
garage sales
the curb (no joke)
What:
family photos and letters
family heirlooms
quilts, embroidery, or other crafts and textiles
diplomas and awards
travel photos, maps, and memorabilia
posters from a favourite artist, movie, play, or travel destination
book illustrations and reproductions
greeting cards
calendars
sheet music
LP jackets
advertisements
cartoons
Here are a few ideas to inspire you.
a piece of heirloom china, silverware, or clothing can be mounted in a frame or shadow box from Ikea, Michaels, or a dollar store
pretty china plates can be displayed with a plate hanger or small tabletop stand
hang posters with a kit that includes rods and cording
your local art store can cut a multi-opening mat for the frame of your choice if you have a grouping of small related items to frame
Below: a Rain Goose linen tea towel ($17) gets a frame
I used a 50 x 70 cm Ribba frame from Ikea ($20), and had a local art store trim ($5) the mat that came with the frame to fit the design on the tea towel
the tea towel slumped the first time I put the frame together so I bought a piece of Bristol board ($1), cut it to the size of the mat, and added a strip of spiky velcro ($2) across the top to support the fabric (or I could have starched it)
the mat goes against the glass and the ironed tea towel is carefully positioned, then the Bristol board with velcro are laid on top and the velcro gently pressed into the fabric, followed by the backing board
I nailed toothed hanging hardware ($3 a pack) to the top edge
tea towel, frame, mat trimming, Bristol board, velcro, hanging hardware—total cost $48 and tax, not bad for a large piece that adds a big splash of colour to my kitchen
*This post is really just an excuse to plug the annual student art show at H.B. Beal Secondary School in London, Ontario on June 17, 18, and 19, where you can find paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, and ceramics at reasonable prices. Support talented young artists!
Too Many Choices
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Yogi Berra
I’ve just come back from the grocery store. On my shopping list—I always shop with a list— was my favourite Colgate variety of toothpaste. I buy a couple of tubes when it’s on sale but today it was nowhere to be seen; discontinued, as it turns out.
I looked over the other Colgate varieties, some of which were on sale: toothpaste to whiten your teeth; toothpaste to prevent cavities; toothpaste to freshen your breath; toothpaste to protect your gums; toothpaste to protect your enamel; toothpaste with fluoride; toothpaste with charcoal; toothpaste for sensitive teeth; toothpaste to give you a Hollywood smile; toothpaste for kids; toothpaste in upright tubes; toothpaste in bottles; toothpaste in 70, 98, 120, and 190 ml size; and toothpaste in three-pack deals. And that was just the Colgate brand. I could also choose among a similar array by Crest or Sensodyne.
Overwhelmed by the bewildering number of choices, I left the store with no toothpaste at all.
Once, the only toothpaste choices were Colgate or Crest. Each brand made only one variety. Take it or leave it. Heads or tails. You had a 50/50 chance of getting it right and either choice was probably satisfactory. With all the choices listed above, you may ask, “Why can’t they just make one perfect toothpaste that does everything?” That’s what I’d like to know!
“Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.”
Henry Ford
Freedom, and freedom to choose, is a cornerstone of democracy. If a little choice is good then isn’t more better? It seems not. In The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, American psychologist Barry Schwartz guides us through all the reasons why too many choices can be paralyzing and, eventually, result in deep dissatisfaction. Schwartz calls this “the peculiar problem of modern affluent Western societies.”
According to Schwartz, “ . . . our experience of choice as a burden rather than a privilege . . . is the result of a complex interaction among many psychological processes that permeate our culture, including rising expectations, awareness of opportunity costs, aversion to trade-offs, adaptation, regret, self-blame, the tendency to engage in social comparisons, and maximizing.”
Maximizers vs satisficers
Schwartz begins by dividing consumers into two camps: maximizers and satisficers. Maximizers are perfectionists who seek to make the best possible choice. Satisficers are satisfied with “good enough.” Maximizers are more likely to experience regret, brood longer over bad choices, are found to be less satisfied with life in general, and experience depression at higher rates than satisficers.
You know you’re a maximizer when it takes you eight weeks to choose new eyeglass frames, as I did this past winter. Because new glasses are so expensive and because I keep my glasses for so many years, my decision had to be the right one. Wanting to leave no stone unturned or frame untried, I visited just about every optician within a 75-kilometre radius and kept changing my mind about which frame was my favourite. I knew that the perfect frame was out there somewhere, waiting for me. “Ugh. It’s like dating.” I could have, as a satisficer friend of mine did, walk into one optician’s office, choose a pair, and walk out within half an hour.
As Schwartz points out, we can be maximizers in some areas and satisficers in others. I might take two whole months to choose eyeglasses but I can’t be bothered to change my internet provider. What I have now is good enough.
After deregulation in Canada, the communications industry swarmed with competitors. The onus was now on the consumer to choose their service provider and plan. The consumer who wanted to get the best rates had to do their own comparison shopping and, as with so many other choices, become knowledgeable in a field outside of their own expertise. The wrong choice could result in massive inconvenience or the loss of hundreds of dollars a year. I won’t leave my current internet provider because I might regret it. I’m afraid to make the wrong choice.
The road not taken
The entire advertising industry is geared toward making us feel inferior and dissatisfied with the choices we have already made. We compare ourselves to our neighbours and find ourselves lacking. The appeal of our latest acquisition wears off and our heads are turned by the newest shiny toy. Every decision we make involves lost opportunities and trade-offs. Regardless of the choice we make we’re missing out on something that is potentially better. The more choices we have, the more that we are missing out on.
In her book Regret, Janet Landman says, “Regret may threaten decisions with multiple attractive alternatives more than decisions offering only one or a more limited set of alternatives . . . Ironically, then, the greater the number of appealing choices, the greater the opportunity for regret.”
Some choice is better than none but too many choices lead to what economist Fred Hirsch called “the tyranny of small decisions.” Whether we dither over which eyewear or toothpaste to buy, or spend hours online comparing internet plans, too many choices mean that our decision-making energy expenditure is out of all proportion to the satisfaction or difference these decisions bring to our lives and it costs us. When every brand of every product available offers so many choices, it’s no wonder that, despite our affluence, we are experiencing a decline in our overall psychological well-being.
“The secret to happiness is low expectations.”
Barry Schwartz
Schwartz suggests these ways to minimize dissatisfaction with our choices:
Voluntarily limit your options to fewer choices.
Think about why a particular decision is important or not and devote your decision-making energy only to those decisions that really matter.
Become a satisficer rather than a maximizer. Know yourself and develop standards for what is “good enough” (see point #2 above).
Stick with what you always buy and don’t be tempted by “new and improved.”
Make your decisions nonreversible and remove yourself from the market.
Look for reasons to be grateful for the choices you’ve made.
Minimize regret and know that rarely does any single decision have the life-changing power we imagine.
Be aware that satisfaction with our decision wanes after time through adaptation. Don’t chase after the next new thing once the initial thrill wears off.
Lower your expectations and allow for serendipity.
Don’t fall into the social comparison trap. Focus on making the right decision for you.
Learn to view limits and rules as liberating rather than constraining.
https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en
Happy World Book Day! or Confessions of a Bibliophile
Torajirō Kojima, Woman Reading, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent
bib·li·o·phile
a person who collects or has a great love of books
I have a love-hate relationship with books. I read them. I buy them. I design them. I also own more books than I have shelf space for, and hate lugging them around when I sell them or move.
We didn’t have a lot of books in our house when I was growing up, so every book we did have felt precious. When I was in elementary school I joined the Scholastic Book Club. Their two-colour flyers arrived in our class once a month. I bought paperback classics like Black Beauty, David Copperfield, and the Sherlock Holmes stories and spent Saturday mornings lying in bed reading. I was also given books as gifts. I have a few of my childhood books and still enjoy their charming stories and beautiful illustrations. They’re like comfort food.
By my late teens books had become an obsession. I acquired so many books that, after I left home to go to school, I had to keep my collection in my parents’ basement. I continued to buy books as an adult and had to cull my collection frequently to keep it under control. Even so, I still had more books than would fit on my shelves. Books and bookshelves can compromise the structural integrity of a building’s floors and walls. They’re heavy and take up a lot of space. I’ve sold or donated dozens of boxes of books over the years. After lugging them to second-hand shops, it’s heartbreaking to get only pennies on the dollar for them.
bib·li·o·ma·ni·a
passionate enthusiasm for collecting and possessing books
In the early 2000s I started working as a book designer in publishing. It was an eye-opening experience. A publishing house is like a sausage factory. For every Wolf Hall, The English Patient, or The Joy of Cooking there are dozens of lesser-known books that may or may not stand the test of time. I snagged lots of free books but after a certain point they were just paper between boards. I began saying “no thanks” (sacrilege!) when a free copy of the latest publication was dropped off at my desk. My new self-imposed rule was that I was only allowed to own as many books as would fit in the three bookcases in my apartment.
tsun·du·ko
acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them
Marie Kondo suggests keeping no more than 30 books. I love Marie Kondo but her recommendation comes from growing up in a climate that is not kind to books. Moisture and humidity are the enemies of books. I learned the hard way that books stored in a damp basement will get musty and foxy. They like the same living conditions that we do. Keep them in a clean, warm, dry, well-ventilated space and dust them frequently.
I organize my bookshelves by category. I will never organize them by colour. And please, do not turn the spines of your books to the back. People who do this aren’t readers, they’re social media/interior decor trend-fashion victims!
an·ti·li·bra·ry
a collection of books that are owned but have not yet been read
A look inside Umberto Eco’s antilibrary
E-readers
An e-reader is a great space-saving device. You might think that a designer who specializes in print would take offence at the very notion of digital books but I have owned two e-readers, loaded with classic novels by authors like Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, all in the public domain and downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg.
My mother was an avid reader. When, late in life, her mobility became limited and she could no longer visit the library, I gave her my e-reader. She enjoyed being able to download even more free e-books via her computer.
Be careful if you register an e-reader that has free e-books on it. After I registered my old Kindle, Amazon automatically loaded software onto it that blocked my free e-books, rendering them unreadable. Grrrr! I invested in a Kobo and keep it offline.
If you’ve ever wondered why e-books aren’t much cheaper than printed books, it’s because the cost of printing a physical book is small in comparison to the total cost of producing it. The real “fixed” cost of publishing a book is in the writing, editing, design, publicity, marketing, and sales.
Your local library and independent bookstore
Get friendly with your local library. Public libraries have many resources beyond books: newspapers and magazines; e-books and audio books; CDs and DVDs; online movies and television; online courses; and digitized photographs and other archival material. Request a book or other media and put it on hold or have it transferred to your neighbourhood branch. If the book you are looking for isn’t available locally, request the book through an interlibrary loan. Your library can source the book through library systems across Canada. When I lived in Toronto I used the Toronto Public Library website so much I had my library card number committed to memory.
Amazon and big box bookstores (I’m not naming any names!) have forced the closure of many small stores. Support your local independent bookstore. They need all the help you can give them. If you go to London (UK!), visit Cecil Court, nicknamed “Booksellers’ Row.” It is a short pedestrian street chock-a-block with secondhand and antiquarian bookshops. Around the corner and up Charing Cross Road is Foyles’ flagship store. Be mindful of the extra weight in your luggage if you buy books abroad.
https://secretldn.com/cecil-court-history/
Censorship and book burning
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel about a society that has banned books, fireman don’t put out fires, they burn books. According to Bradbury, 451°F is the temperature at which paper catches fire. At the end of the novel, the protagonist, a former fireman, joins a group of book lovers in the forest, each of whom has memorized their favourite book in preparation for the day when books will no longer be banned. Each member of the group is known not by their name but by the title of the book they have memorized. The novel was turned into a film by the late French filmmaker François Truffaut. I have always found the last scene incredibly moving. Set in autumn and winter, members of the group move through the forest repeating the text of their books to themselves, or teaching their book to a younger generation.
When I was writing this piece I discovered to my horror that a book I had worked on, Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, had been the subject of protests in the Netherlands. Protesters burned the book cover over objection to the word “Negroes,” or rather its Dutch translation, in the title which is taken from a historical document titled “Book of Negroes.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/dutch-group-burns-cover-of-hill-s-book-of-negroes-1.887175
From the fatwa and attack against Salman Rushdie, to the bowdlerization of Roald Dahl, and the removal of books from American school libraries, religious and political extremism on both the right and the left are every day threatening freedom of speech. In the words of Lawrence Hill, “There is no defence to burning a book. It’s a hateful act designed to intimidate.... It’s something that stifles dialogue and the notion of the freedom to read and to write.”
Books about books:
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Helene Hanff, 84 Charing Cross Road
Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading
And bring no book: for this one day
We’ll give to idlenessFrom “To My Sister” by William Wordsworth
Air, Light, Space
What’s your idea of a perfect home and are you living in it now?
When hunting for an apartment two years ago I made a list of criteria—descriptive words and phrases—that my potential new home had to meet. This was a list I had created years before and added to with each move.
My personal word list:
air
light
space
bright
calm
peaceful
quiet
private
safe
comfortable
charm
character
clean
fresh
functional
uncluttered
low-maintenance
easy
freedom
Did my new apartment meet all the criteria on my list? I won’t pretend that it was perfect but I recognized the potential and knew that with effort I could make it a home. It still needs work but it’s about 80% there.
I also had to make some compromises. I don’t live on a river but it’s an easy bike ride to the trails that run along the river. Washer and dryer? There’s a coin-operated washer and dryer in the basement. Deck? Oh well. Maybe next time. ;)
Your ideal home criteria is unique to you. One person’s spacious and bright might be another person’s empty and exposed. One person’s cozy and snug might be another person’s cave-like and cramped.
List the words and phrases that describe your ideal home. Now list the words that describe your home now. Do they match?
If your current home doesn’t meet your criteria, what can you do to make it so? Do you have to add to your home or take something away? Can you DIY or do you have to call in the experts?
Simplify, Simplify
“Our life is frittered away by detail. . . . I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. . . . Simplify, simplify.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Teacher. Handyman. Surveyor. Naturalist. Ecologist. Abolitionist. Lecturer. Writer. Poet. Philosopher.
Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts. He was Harvard educated, and a member of a group of New England writers and intellectuals known as the Transcendentalists, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and the Alcotts. The Transcendentalists, inspired by the nature writing of the Romantic movement and the idealism of the early 19th-century German philosophers, believed that “a divine principle dwells within every person” and that “spiritual seekers could read divine wisdom directly in nature” (Walls, p. 88).
An aspiring poet and essayist, Thoreau was an occasional contributor to The Dial, the small magazine conceived as the organ of the Transcendentalists. After spending his twenties teaching, tutoring, labouring, and working in the family pencil factory, he decided to devote himself entirely to his writing. Between periods spent in the household of his mentor Emerson, Thoreau, a bachelor, lived in his mother’s bustling Concord boarding house.
On the advice of his friend and fellow Transcendentalist Ellery Channing, Thoreau went to the woods to seek the solitude necessary for writing and “to live deliberately.” His removal from Concord to Walden Pond to conduct his experiment in intentional living was a radical act that drew the curiosity as well as the ire of his fellow Concordians. Ever the outsider, he felt more at ease in the company of his rough country neighbours than town society, in spite of his education.
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”
He bought the boards of a shanty owned by an Irish navvy, and constructed a cabin, measuring 10' by 15', on land owned by Emerson on the shores of Walden Pond. The cabin contained a bed, a desk, a small table, and three chairs: “one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” He planted beans, fished, and wrote A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, and started the book that would become Walden, a classic of American literature. “Sturdily and Spartan-like,” he lived there for two years, two months, and two days. Then he left to move back to Concord because he had “several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.”
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
In Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Thoreau compresses the two years, two months, and two days into a single year, describing the changing of the seasons; the pond and the flora and fauna that lived in and alongside it; village folk and country folk; his toil and tribulations; his philosophy.
Thoreau railed against the church, the state, and the corporation, his sentiments echoed in modern movements like the G20 protests and Occupy Wall Street. His hatred for the factory system and division of labour reverberated through William Morris, Gustav Stickley, and the Arts and Crafts movement. His belief that some land should be held in common for all to enjoy inspired John Muir, co-founder of the Sierra Club and father of the U.S. national parks system.
Thoreau‘s wide reading produced in Walden a unique admixture of Yankee practicality and Eastern mysticism. It is a book of common sense and uncommon wisdom. Dig deeper into any of the following and you will find Walden at its roots: nature conservation, ecology, and climate change activism; downshifting; slow, simple, and sustainable living; anti-consumerism and minimalism; and the tiny house movement.
In his later essay “Resistance to Civil Government,” also known as “Civil Disobedience,” which influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and his defence of abolitionist John Brown, Thoreau was the embodiment of Emerson’s philosophy of self-reliance: “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
I first read Walden when I was nineteen years old. I fell in love with the poetry of the prose and copied quotations from it into a notebook. The idea of living simply captured my imagination but it is one thing to adopt a credo and another to live by it. As I reread his chapter titled “Economy,” I’m embarrassed to think how far I have strayed from his philosophy and the intentions of my younger self over the years. My current aspirations to a minimalist lifestyle are a correction to a time when I over-consumed.
“When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all . . . I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry.”
I’m a city girl and like my creature comforts too much ever to rough it but I try to live lightly. When I moved into my previous apartment I was delighted to discover that the main room measured 10' by 15', the same size as Thoreau’s cabin. In addition there was a small bedroom, tiny bathroom, a deck, and a small storage closet, all together measuring under 300 square feet. I called it my “petite suite.” I lived there for 15 years less a month. It was enough but now I live in a somewhat larger place, though still small by most standards. My sister claims I live like a monk but I laugh and think, “compared to whom?”
In my book collection I see a common thread that I can trace back to Walden: books about the landscape, the garden, and the home; books about the Arts and Crafts movement; books by Roger Deakin and Robert Macfarlane, among the authors who have inherited the mantle of Thoreau. I once owned four separate editions of Walden. I still have two. What would Henry think?
Further reading:
Carl Bode (editor), The Portable Thoreau
Laura Dassow Walls, Henry David Thoreau: A Life
E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered
Duane Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity
Greg McKeown, Essentialism
Wood engraving by Michael McCurdy, from the beautiful Shambhala 150th anniversary edition of Walden
You’ve Got Maaaiiil! Part II
Cards, letters, flyers, bills, announcements, invitations, bills, advertising, notices, bills, and more bills! If your mounting pile of mail overwhelms you, remember that you can take control and tame the “paper tiger.” Last week we looked at tossing the junk and taking action on a bill. This week we look at what to do with the bill after you’ve paid it.
Filing
Become a filer, not a piler. A vertical file system is superior to a drawer. The average family can make good use of a two-drawer filing cabinet. Buy hanging files that slide on the rails and don’t slump to the bottom of the cabinet. You can also buy plastic totes or desktop file caddies with hanging file folders already in them.
Add a notepad, pens, envelopes, and stamps to a file caddy or accordion folder and you have a portable office that lets you take care of business anywhere in the house.
I use a single colour for all of my file folders. Rely on clear labelling rather than colour coding to keep your file folders organized. Some people swear by colour coding, but that system fails the minute one colour isn’t readily available and another is substituted. “I’ll just use green for now....”
If you pay online, you can save or “print” a PDF of your payment confirmation information to file in a folder on your computer. I use the Chinese date format to organize my files. If I pay my hydro bill on February 18, 2023, I will name the file along with the date: hydro230218, for example. A list of files in a folder will automatically organize themselves chronologically. This is especially useful if you have a recurring monthly bill. If you get e-bills sent to you, include these in the folder on your computer.
Whatever filing system you use, consistency is key. A sloppy filing system will make files difficult or impossible to locate.
Archiving
Don’t keep bills and other receipts longer than you have to. I knew a lady (okay, it was my Mom) who kept phone bills going back 40 years. Don’t do this. Unless you have to keep your bills and receipts for business purposes, a casual online search suggests keeping bills for up to one year.
If you’re a small business owner, keep bills, receipts, and other support material for your taxes organized by year. Store these for six years plus the current year. Keep only the current year’s files in your filing cabinet and archive the other six year’s worth in a plastic tote(s) or bankers box(es) in a cool dry place. If you shred old files as you add the new every year, your tax files should always take up about the same amount of space. Don’t forget digital files. While they take up no physical space, an overstuffed computer will run slower.
Shredding
I recommend shredding anything with personal information such as names, addresses, account numbers, etc. Some may argue that if someone wants to steal your identity they can do it anyway but why make it easy for them. This also keeps your personal info from nosy neighbours. I once found a bag of my recycling dumped out across the street. A good quality cross-cut shredder is a useful addition to any home. Put all of your shredding into a clear or transparent blue bag to put by the curb.
If you have a large volume of shredding, you can use a professional shredding service. Remember, shredding services are only as honest as their employees. I once took a couple of banker’s boxes full of files to a professional service only to get email spam weeks later directly related to the material I had dropped off. Coincidence? Perhaps, but now I prefer to see my paper go through the machine. In London, London Business Machines offers DIY shred service by the hour. https://www.lbm.on.ca/shredding/
Go paperless
Contact utility, insurance, and other companies to arrange for e-bills to be sent to your email inbox instead of receiving paper bills in the mail.
If you bank online you can also pay online. Set up these payment accounts through your bank. If the bill is the same amount every month, consider automatic debit. Some businesses, like insurance, require a monthly automatic debit set-up, while others are optional. As a freelancer, I like to manage the payment dates of some of my bills.
We just talked about paying and filing a simple bill in this post. Some documents in your house need to be kept just a short time, some need to be kept forever. If you’re in doubt about how long to keep a bill, receipt or other document, do an online search and include your country in the search window.
You’ve Got Maaaiiil! Part I
Cards, letters, flyers, bills, announcements, invitations, bills, advertising, notices, bills, and more bills! If your mounting pile of mail overwhelms you, remember that you can take control and tame the “paper tiger.”
First, toss that junk mail
Junk mail is any mail, flyers, catalogs, emails, etc that you didn’t ask for and that includes solicitations from charities. You don’t have to keep this stuff. You don’t even have to look at it. Think of it as an invader trying to part you from your cash. Some direct mail advertising even has your name printed on it. You can shred the stuff with your name on it if you like but toss everything else right into the recycling bin before it even comes into the house. If you don’t have a recycling or “blue” bin, you can buy one from your local waste depot for a nominal fee.
Stop junk mail and spam at the source:
stick a “no flyers” or “no junk mail” sign, available from most hardware stores, on your mailbox
ask the post office to add your name to a “Do not mail” list
call companies that repeatedly send you junk mail or catalogs and demand to be taken off their mailing lists
cancel subscriptions for print newspapers and magazines that you don’t have time for
unsubscribe from online newspapers, magazines, and newsletters that you don’t have time for
be wary of giving away your personal information such as your home or email address in exchange for something free like in a raffle or contest
Open your real mail
Now that you’ve tossed the junk, your pile of mail will be smaller. Whatever is left over should be real mail addressed to you.
Sometimes we’re afraid to open our mail in case it brings bad news. Our imagination kicks into high gear and we fear the worst. Don’t leave this mail unopened. It’s usually not as scary as you think. Take action and take control.
Open the envelope and remove the contents. It doesn’t matter whether you open the short end or the long end. A paper knife can be useful but your fingers work just as well.
If your envelope contains many separate pieces such as legal documents, you might use the envelope to keep them together. If it’s a bill like the CAA annual membership dues bill shown in the photo, toss the outside window envelope into your paper recycling bin with your flyers and newspapers. You don’t have to remove the plastic window. If the outside envelope has your name and address, you can shred it if you like.
If your envelope contains advertising along with your bill, look over it quickly to see if it is of interest to you. If not, recycle it. Again, if the sender has personalized it with your name you can shred it if you like.
Along with the bill came a pre-addressed return envelope. Unless you pay your bills by cheque, you can recycle this too. Resist the urge to save these extra pieces of paper to write notes, lists, or phone numbers.
The bill is all you need to keep. Your pile of mail is now so much smaller than when you started.
To-be-paid bills
If you’re not paying the bill right away, keep the bill (or the bill and return envelope) with the important information folded out so you can see it. Use a highlighter if necessary to highlight the due date and amount due. Put a reminder of the due date in your calendar if that helps. Don’t put it back in the original outside envelope with the due date written on the front. This is more unnecessary work and the envelope adds bulk.
Keep to-be-paid bills in a single place in chronological order of due date. If you need to see the bills as a reminder to pay them, a paper napkin holder from the dollar store makes a good mini file rack to keep on your desk or kitchen counter. If you have a filing cabinet or tote, you can designate a folder to keep these bills. Depending on how many bills you have and reminders you need, a “tickler” file is also useful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickler_file
Pay the bill
Letter-size bills are folded into thirds and the lower third is printed with the essential information, how much is due and when it is due, usually with a perforation for easy tearing. If you are paying by cheque, tear or cut this lower portion to include in your return envelope. Write the cheque number and date information on both this part as well as the remaining portion of your bill.
If you pay online, mark the bill “paid” along with the date. If you pay your bills in person at the bank, the bank will stamp your bill with the date paid. Paying all your bills at once, whether by mail, online, or at the bank, saves you time.
File the bill
Once you’ve paid the bill, file it in a folder labelled with the category, such as Phone or Hydro, for example. A year’s worth of bills will fill that folder.
Next week: Filing, archiving, shredding, and going paperless
I Fold My Socks
I was going to write about something else this week but this article popped up on The Grauniad (Guardian). The writer tried Marie Kondo’s KonMari tidying method. She “embraced radical decluttering as a way to improve” herself.
I love reading the comments under articles like this because people get very passionate about their stuff. By the time I was ready to post this blog there were almost 1,200. In reading the article and the comments below, I see what I believe to be a misunderstanding of what minimalism is.
What minimalism is not:
I’ll have to get rid of all my things.
A minimalist is not a monk or an ascetic. You don’t have to give away all your worldly goods and live in a cave. While some bloggers count their things, (“Look at me! I only have 47 things!”) it’s not a contest to see who can own the least. Adopting a minimalist lifestyle will not leave you bereft of your beloved belongings—quite the opposite, in fact.
The end goal of adopting a minimalist lifestyle is not to declutter for the sake of decluttering. Have a purpose and use common sense. Don’t mindlessly get rid of things for the sake of getting rid of things. It’s really about identifying what’s important and making space for that, not just physical space but temporal and mental space as well, hence Kondo’s “spark joy,” or for the rest of us, “hell, yeah.” Surround yourself with your favourite things, get rid of the “hell, noes,” and keep your best vegetable peeler.
Will minimalism make me a better person?
Minimalism is not a self-improvement technique. Streamlining your life won’t make you a thinner, smarter, wealthier, happier, or more noble person. But if you’re feeling bogged down by your possessions or your schedule, it might help clear the path to such goals. Like the swimmer who shaves his body to become more hydrodynamic, minimalism can release you from the clutter of things and commitments that create drag in your life.
I don’t want to live in an empty white cube.
Don’t confuse minimalism, the lifestyle, with Minimalism, the art, design and fashion aesthetic. Lower case “m” minimalism is not a tool to turn your home into a sterile white box. Your home does and should reflect your individuality and need not look like a hotel room or a staged show home (unless you want it to!).
Minimalism is just for rich people who have stuff to get rid of.
Some think minimalism is only for the wealthy but it’s a lifestyle ideally suited to those on a tight budget. Minimalism isn’t just about getting rid of stuff. It’s about not buying it in the first place. It’s surprising how little we need versus how much we want. Recognize that the thrill is in the hunting, not the having. Retail therapy is not good for our pocketbook and it’s not good for the planet either.
If I get rid of something today, I’ll probably have to buy it again tomorrow.
If you declutter thoughtfully (see above) you’ll never miss the things that you remove from your home. I have no regrets over anything I have ever decluttered. After a lifetime of donating, selling, and giving away my stuff, the only thing I ever replaced was a muffin pan. $12.00. Oh, and I bought back a poetry book I had donated. I stumbled upon it in the used book store where I had originally taken it. I didn’t realize it was my own book until I took it up to the cash register and laughed to see my own name inside the back cover. $6.00. Total $18.00. And I decluttered the poetry book a second time. I still have the muffin pan.
We all have our own comfort levels when it comes to stuff. I used to live in a 250 square foot apartment (that’s for another post). When I moved into a larger place two years ago I acquired more things and had trouble assimilating them into my psyche. I experienced true discomfort in owning more. It made me anxious. I didn’t feel richer. I felt tired and weighed down. I removed the excess and felt lighter and freer. Here is another analogy I like: clutter is like a sucker on a rosebush—it won’t produce flowers and only saps energy from the plant. Cut it off at the root.
What a drag: Don Rodrigo (Robert DeNiro) does penance for the murder of his brother by hauling a great net full of armaments through the Amazonian jungle until he is finally released by one of the native peoples he once enslaved. He’s so relieved he’s crying! I know how he feels.
Thank you Marie Kondo and all the other minimalist authors and bloggers who challenge me to think in new ways about my belongings. And, yes, I fold my socks.
https://www.becomingminimalist.com/
Look for books by Don Aslett, Elaine St James, Julie Morgenstern, and Peter Walsh too.
Favourite Guardian comment: “My father used to say: ‘You should hang on to that, it’ll come in useless some day.’”
The “Keep It Simple” Kishmas
“Christmas comes but once a year.” And thank God for that. In most families, almost all of the shopping, gift wrapping, card sending, house cleaning, decorating, baking, cooking, dish washing, pot scrubbing, and more cleaning falls to the womenfolk. For a lot of women the holidays aren’t a holiday at all but a period of stress and anxiety. Women are the hub around which holidays revolve and when they die the next generation of women take on the responsibilities.
When I was a child we had Christmas dinner at my maternal grandparents’ house. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered around the table. It was a great occasion. The entire dinner for fourteen people was homemade, including the pickles. I still remember Mémé, Mommy, and my aunts gathered in the kitchen after dinner, laughing as they cleared the table and washed the dishes. My mother spent childhood Christmases at her mémé’s house, where guests were greeted with a glass of sherry and a small slice of fruitcake to warm them up after the long drive. Almost everything on the table was produced on the farm.
After my grandmother passed away we had Christmas dinner at home. My mom sent out cards and made decorations. We always had a tree with lights, and decorations upstairs, downstairs, and on the front door. She started her baking in November and on Christmas Day we had a turkey with all the trimmings. Just like at my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s dinners, everything was homemade.
When we were old enough, my sister and I helped with the baking and the turkey. My mother suffered ill health before she died in 2016 so my sister took over hosting the holiday at her home. Now we have Christmas at my Dad’s and commandeer his kitchen. I make the rolls and pies. My sister brings the turkey and vegetables. Brother-in-law makes the gravy. My father doesn’t like to see us going to so much trouble but we say, “It makes the day special.” He says “Keep it simple! Just order pizza!” so this Christmas we’re taking him at his word and dialling back the do. We’re going to enjoy a (relatively) fuss-free day with take-out pizza and homemade desserts. A quiet and relaxed Christmas makes more sense than ever this year. We all need a real holiday.
My own Christmas decorating has always leaned toward the minimal. I’ve spent every Christmas with my parents so it seemed silly to decorate my own place when it stood uninhabited over the holidays. I’ve never had room for a tree or the space to store ornaments but I allowed myself one exception. My little sister’s class was selling Christmas-themed candle holders to fund a school trip, so I bought one: my “Ami de Noël,” a little penguin wrapped in a green scarf, which I’ve brought out of its box every Christmas for thirty-five years. Until quite recently, it was the only Christmas decoration I owned.
I prefer low-maintenance natural decor, like the easy-to-grow amaryllis I treat myself to every year. They bloom for the season and unless you want to overwinter them for the next year, they can be composted. Cyclamen and paperwhites are also favourites. My “tree” these days is a little lavender bush in a cachepot on my mantle. It’s just big enough to support one ornament. Green things make a room come alive and they don’t need to be stored in the attic.
Some of the traditions I remember from my childhood, like carolling, have been discontinued and replaced with new ones of my own. This week I attended a perfomance of Handel’s Messiah. I put on Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas and dance. And when I travel back home I’ll enjoy another tradition I adopted a few years ago, listening to Dylan Thomas’s sonorous reading of his A Child’s Christmas in Wales, as the snow swirls in the headlights.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!
Thanks for Nothin’
Until I was about thirty our family was in the habit of exchanging gifts every Christmas. The base of the tree burgeoned with packages and on Christmas morning we took turns presenting and opening our gifts. In my late twenties I started a photography business on a shoestring. That Christmas I couldn’t afford to buy presents and, unable to reciprocate, I asked not to receive any either. I opted out of the gift exchange.
Like the child at the edge of the playground left out of the games, I sat and watched the rest of the family open their presents. It felt strange and uncomfortable. I didn’t mind not receiving gifts. It was my inability to give any that troubled me and I began to ask myself what that meant. Does the giving of a gift equal love? Of course not but our consumer culture pressures us to conform to this annual convention. It is just that: a convention. But how many of us question it?
My mother recognized that our gift-giving habit was a financial strain for everyone. Many families can ill afford to incur debt to put presents under the tree. I was living on a small budget in an expensive city and my younger siblings were at school. We gradually evolved to picking names out of a hat, then to dropping the gift exchange altogether. My mother still liked to fill stockings for us, usually with practical things like toothbrushes and personal alarms, but even that was abandoned. We continued to give gifts to the littlest ones of our extended family but the adults were satisfied with good food and togetherness.
Though the tradition of gift-giving might be rooted in the story of the Magi and their gifts to the baby Jesus, our modern hyper-commercialization of Christmas has become a very odd way to celebrate the birth of one who renounced all worldly goods. For many people, Christmas is just a secular holiday with little or no connection to its Christian origins, and so we have arrived at something resembling a latter-day Saturnalia.
The Lord of Misrule rules as Black Friday shoppers swarm like sharks in a feeding frenzy.
Black Friday, the day after American Thanksgiving, is the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season, but so ingrained in our culture is the idea of Christmas as an excuse to shop that the season now starts in September. Black Friday itself has become a scene of stampedes, fights, shootings, injuries, and fatalities. The Christian origins of the season have not just fallen by the wayside, they have been trampled underfoot.
The flip side of Black Friday is Buy Nothing Day. First organized here in Canada by Vancouver artist Ted Dave in 1992 as “a day for society to examine the issue of overconsumption,” it was later taken up by Adbusters Magazine:
“Buy Nothing Day isn’t just about changing your habits for one day, but about starting a lasting lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste.”
People in more than 60 countries observe Buy Nothing Day in a growing international protest against consumerism. Among the many ways to keep the day, participants might cut up their credit cards, disrupt shoppers by joining a “Zombie Walk” in a large department store, donate to the Buy Nothing Coat Exchange in their neighbourhood, or celebrate the Earth by going on a Buy Nothing Hike. Or do nothing. It’s free. And you don’t need an app!
On the heels of Buy Nothing Day came Buy Nothing Christmas, conceived by a group of Canadian Mennonites. The full-page ad in their national church magazine read “If you think Christmas has gotten too commercialized, here’s your chance to do nothing about it.” The group promotes buying locally or making your own gifts.
If you still love giving gifts but want to avoid the mall, here are some alternatives:
Make or bake it yourself
Offer your skills: cleaning/repairing/gardening/carpentry/sewing
Give consumables like food baskets or event tickets
Pay for a membership, subscription, or a class
Buy an experience like a massage or dinner at a restaurant
Buy vintage or second-hand
Donate to charity in the name of your loved one
White Space
What is white space?
White space is a term borrowed from graphic design. The margins on a page, the space above a chapter title, and the space between paragraphs are examples of white space. In fine art we call it negative space—the space around the figure rather than the figure itself.
White space is a metaphor for space in our lives: the calm of a clean tabletop, the rest between appointments, the quiet after the television has been turned off. Like white space on the page, space in our homes and schedules creates order and clarity. It frames and highlights the essential. If all available space is filled, that which is essential gets lost.
We need wide margins to our increasingly over-scheduled, over-committed, over-stuffed, and debt-ridden lives. White space restores balance, and provides a refuge and a cushion. For the sake of our wellbeing, what is not is as necessary as what is.
The Japanese have a word for such space: ma. Ma is not an absence or a lack. It means space filled with possibility. It is not the walls of a house but the void between the walls where life happens. If all available space is filled, there is no space left for possibility. This concept is beautifully expressed in the Zen parable of the empty cup:
Wishing to be instructed in the way to enlightenment, a scholar visited a Zen master. Over tea, the scholar expressed many ideas and opinions of his own about the subject. The Zen master poured his guest a cup of tea and when the cup was full he continued pouring until the tea flowed over the rim, onto his guest, and onto the floor.
In surprise the scholar exclaimed, “Stop pouring! The cup is already full!”
The master replied, “You are like this cup, so full of opinions that nothing more will fit. Come back when your cup is empty.”