Where Do You Start?

Last week, I participated in a downsizing roundtable for seniors and the question everyone asked was, “Where do you start?” From my experience in writing our book Moving On and our blog, here’s what I’ve learned.

Whether you are moving to a smaller place, straightening up because your apartment is going to be painted, or simply have that feeling that your possessions have taken over, the first question – and sometimes the one that stops you in your tracks – is always how do you get started. Here are some suggestions.

Start now. You can think about this, you can lament having to do it, but at some point you simply have to plunge in – even if “starting” simply means beginning to think about what you want to get rid of and talking to people about the best way to do that. The longer you put it off, the more difficult it will become. If you’re older, the sooner you start, the more you’ll be able to be actively involved in the process of sorting through your things. And whether you’re old or young, that means that the changes you’re about to make will be on your terms, not someone else’s.

Take your time. The best way not become overwhelmed with the process of downsizing is to take your time. Schedule regular sessions, maybe just a half hour at a time, adding a few 2- to 3-hour sessions when needed. Doing too much at once may exhaust you and make you postpone starting another session. Keep your sessions short but make them a regular habit.

Start with the easy things. Begin with the areas that have the least emotional impact for you because it will be easier to part with those things. For some, that might be getting rid of old towels (a welcome donation at most animal shelters). For others it might be that pile of unread magazines or the kitchen utensils in that overstuffed kitchen drawer. Start with whatever area works best for you.

Start small. Don’t try to do too much at one time. If it took you 20 or 30 years to accumulate all that clutter, it will take you more than a couple of weeks to sort through it all. And any job that seems overwhelming can be broken down into smaller parts. If going through your clothes is too big a job to contemplate, divide the clothes into smaller groups: office clothes, casual wear, shoes, coats, accessories, and tackle each group separately.

Communicate. Talk over your plans with your family and friends; let them know that you want to get your home in order. Seek out people who have been through the experience of downsizing to find out what they did right—as well as what they did wrong. After the fact, people often have some insight as to what needs to be saved and what can be tossed. And ask for advice from friends and colleagues who are particularly well organized. The more you talk about getting organized and the more you embrace this as your project, the more likely you will be to get it done.

Get help. Nobody has to do this alone. When you are sorting through personal mementos like family photos or going through your income tax files, you’ll want to work alone. But if you need help deciding which clothes to keep and which to give away, you could ask a friend whose taste you admire to give you a helping hand. And anyone can help with carting things away; you could ask a teenage neighbor for help.

Think beyond. What this means is that for some of us, it’s easier to get rid of things when we know that the items will have a life beyond our needs. There are many places, well-known charities, schools, community groups, and businesses, that accept all kinds of household items from used roller skates to nearly new business suits, from college textbooks to sports equipment.

Enjoy the process. You can decide that this process has its upsides, that it’s not all onerous, and to do that you may have to adjust your attitude somewhat. You can also realize that this is an opportunity to be generous. People we interviewed found great joy in giving things away, whether to friends or to those in need. With the right attitude and an awareness of the needs of others, you can make this a positive experience.

Remember that one drawer emptied of its clutter or a couple of shelves in a closet that are organized and easier to use is a great accomplishment. Give yourself permission to feel good about the first small step you take; that will make it easier for you to go on to the next step. And downsizing is a process of many small steps.

So let’s get started.

≈Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home. 

Where Have All Your Shoes Gone?

Gone to landfills everywhere. Each year more than 350 million pairs of shoes are discarded, according to the statistics on one charity’s website. Why? Probably because most people do not know what to do with used shoes.

The first thing to know: All shoes are recyclable.

When shoes are discarded, they are incinerated, releasing harmful dioxins into the atmosphere. So donating them is kinder to the environment.

Shoes can be donated to most large charities that collect clothing, they can be donated to non-profit organizations that specialize in sending shoes to those in need, or they can be given to companies that recycle the materials to create new products.

Here is a list of charities and organizations that accept donations of shoes and either send them to people in need or recycle their component parts.

CrocsCares http://crocscares.com/donate-your-crocs/

Many of the Crocs stores will accept donations of gently used Crocs and send to Souls4Souls to be cleaned and donated to those in need.

Donate Your Old Shoes http://donateyouroldshoes.org/

This non-profit collects shoes (that are dropped off or mailed in) and puts them “on the shoeless worldwide” by including them in shipments made by other humanitarian organizations.

Nike Reuse-A-Shoe http://www.nikereuseashoe.com/

Since 1990, Nike’s reuse program takes worn out athletic shoes from any manufacturer, separates the components and turns the materials into new sports surfaces.

Okabashi Recycling Program http://www.okabashi.com/Recycle/b/2493603011

This manufacturer of flip flops and other plastic footwear welcomes returns of its used footwear, which it grinds up and uses in producing new products, in a closed-loop recycling process.

One World Running http://oneworldrunning.com/drop-off-locations/

An international program that provides running shoes to those in need in the U.S. and around the world.

Pick Up Please http://www.pickupplease.org/donate-clothing?gclid=CJat8MeK5bkCFZCd4AodkQwAfA

A service that will pick up shoes and clothes (and household goods), generating funds for programs provided by the Vietnam Veterans of America.

Recycled Runners http://www.recycledrunners.com/

This program has an online recycling and donation directory for local and international recycling programs. Fill in a city or town and find nearby drop-off sites.

Run the Planet Shoes Recycling Program http://www.runtheplanet.com/shoes/selection/recycle.asp

This online running shoe store has compiled a list of more than a dozen shoe recycling programs around the world.

Share Your Soles http://shareyoursoles.org/

This charity gives away shoes in a way that respects and honors the dignity of those who receive them. The gently used shoes are sanitized and polished before donation. Drop off locations are mostly in the Chicago area.

Shoes for the Cure http://shoesforthecure.com/

A professional recycling company specializing in recycling shoes sets up bins, reconditions the shoes for those in need or recycles the materials, and donates the proceeds to local hospitals.

Soles4Souls http://www.soles4souls.org/

This charity collects used shoes and donates them to those in need around the world, from homeless shelters in the U.S. to orphanages in Africa.

Let’s keep our shoes out of the landfill and where they belong – on people’s feet.

≈Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home. 

Keeping America Beautiful

Happy 4^th of July!

As we celebrate the founding of our country with picnics, parades, and fireworks, let’s also give some thought to the future of our country, specifically the land we live on.

If you are moving, trying to declutter your home, or emptying a home after the owners have left, you have many decisions to make. If deciding on how to dispose of each and very item in the house is just too much, there is help out there. Here’s a look at some companies that will lend a hand.

Junk removal companies ensure that, for a fee, what you don’t want or can’t use any longer is recycled, donated, or disposed of responsibly.

The list of items they pick up and dispose of includes clothing, linens, old furniture, mattresses, appliances, electronics, sports equipment, tires, construction debris, yard waste, and can also include garage, attic, and basement cleanup.

The following two nationwide junk removal companies have received great feedback on the job they do.

 1-800-Got-Junk?

http://www.1800gotjunk.com/

Since 1989, they have saved over 1.5 billion pounds of junk from being dumped in landfills. Their credo: We believe that together we can make a difference for future generations by focusing on responsible environmental practices today. We are committed to improving our environmental performance by measuring the amount of junk collected and reporting where it goes.

College Hunks Hauling Junk

http://www.collegehunkshaulingjunk.com/

“Hunks” stands for honest, uniformed, nice, knowledgeable, students. Their mission is to move the world, one community, one home, one family at a time. They will sort, load, haul, recycle, donate and dispose of every last item that needs to go.

To find local organizations that do the same or similar work, search online under ‘junk removal services.’ There are also free services for special items, such as scrap metal.

Keep America beautiful; recycle your waste.

≈Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home. 

Getting Help After a Death

http://yogiisofbit.blogspot.com

It happens to each of us, sadly, at some point. We have to sort through and dispose of an entire household after losing a loved one.

Where do we start? What’s the best way of dealing with the stuff? Who can we ask to help?

We looked to several fellow bloggers for advice as well as to our own experiences and those of the people we interviewed in our book Moving On. Here’s the best of what we found.

Take your time.

Lisa Montanaro in her post Organizing After the Loss of a Loved One, emphasizes taking one’s time. “After the death of a loved one, some people are tempted to sift through belongings and make decisions quickly. If this feels natural to you, fine (consider checking with a grief counselor before moving too quickly through the process). But most people need more time after a loss to organize a loved one’s possessions.” Some people need only a few months; others take years to sort through everything.

Keep a few special things.

Erin Dolan in her post Uncluttering After the Loss of a Loved One says that uncluttering – getting rid of the clutter and keeping what you value – is a way to keep the best of your loved one with you. She says, “Find the handful of things that you value most and that best honor your memories of [your loved one]…the pieces that make your heart sing.”

Save what’s meaningful to you.

As Jeri Dansky says in her post Not Clutter: The Odd Sentimental Items, “Memorabilia is very personal. Go ahead and save meaningless-to-anyone-else sentimental items – but it does help to be selective and save only the most precious. And don’t worry about getting rid of things that you think should be meaningful, but aren’t.”

Get help.

Tina Segal, founder of The Estate Settlers, has set up an information network and a service to assist an estate executor that helps families during the emotional and trying times following a death in the family. Her company focuses its efforts on the financial side of the estate as well as the “stuff” that’s left behind: the furniture, the cars, the jewelry, as well as the house itself.

The death of a loved one is a trying time in one’s life. Go at your own pace and deal with the items in your own way. And ask for help when you need it. As Lisa Montanaro says, “Give yourself permission to grieve first, heal, and then to organize.”

And her best advice: “Be kind to yourself.”

And one more thing…

Get your own house in order.

Getting your own papers and favorite items in order for your heirs is the best gift you can give them. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, make sure you have the four important papers updated and kept in a safe place. And make sure to create a list of all the important stuff in your life as a guide for after you’re gone.

≈Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home. 

Five Good Reasons to Begin Downsizing Now

1. You’ll start finding all those things you never thought you would. 

There is no need to elaborate on this point. Everyone knows it’s true!

2. You’ll have so much more space to live and work in.

Again, an obvious point.

3. You’ll save so much money when you have to make your next move!

Moving costs a lot of money: and the more you have to move, the more it costs.

Every time I haul a big, heavy bag of discarded old bills, catalogs, magazines and other things to the recycling bin I feel so good knowing that the pounds I am lifting and heaving now are pounds I won’t have to pay to haul to the next place I live.

4. You’ll feel so much better about yourself.

This is not so obvious. But those who have successfully uncluttered their lives all seem to say the same thing. There is a wonderful feeling of freedom in getting rid of “all that stuff.”

5. If you don’t do it, someone else will do it for you.

Okay, that does it. I’m getting back to downsizing, now!  🙂

Janet Hulstrand is a writer/editor,  writing coach , travel blogger, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.

Color It Green

Pantone, a company that is the global authority on color and one that provides professional standards for the design industry, has proclaimed Pantone 17-5641 Emerald as the Color of the Year for 2013.

What could be more appropriate than a shade of green, one that is, according to their press release, “a lively, radiant, lush green,” for the official color for 2013. And what could be better than a color chosen “to promote balance and harmony.”

The adjectives Pantone uses to describe the official color – in any order you arrange them – read like a poem celebrating the essence of being green.

Harmonious Rejuvenating Powerful Appealing

Balanced Lively Sophisticated Energizing

Renewing Inspiring Healing Unifying

With green as our focus for this year – in our decorating and in our lifestyle choices – let’s join our fellow stewards of the earth, people and organizations that help us take better care of our planet. Here’s a list of some of the ones that are doing great work.

The Daily Green http://www.thedailygreen.com/

Do the Green Thing http://www.dothegreenthing.com/

Earth 911 http://earth911.com/

EcoEvaluator http://www.EcoEvaluator.com/

Go Green Guy http://gogreenamericatv.com/

Green is Good http://greenisgood.fm/

Green Living http://www.greenlivingonline.com/

Greenopolis  http://greenopolis.com/

Help Recycle http://HelpRecycle.com/

Mother Nature Network http://www.mnn.com/

Recology http://blog.recology.com/

Treehugger http://www.treehugger.com/

Unconsumption http://unconsumption.tumblr.com/

We Recycle http://www.werecycle.com/

On this Valentine’s Day and throughout the year, let’s color everything green.

≈Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home. 

 

#Tips for a Green #Christmas

As the end-of-year holidays approach, here are a few tips for keeping your Christmas (or whatever you celebrate at this time of year) a more earth-friendly celebration.

1. Consider sending e-cards. I write these words with mixed feelings: one of my favorite things about Christmastime is displaying all the colorful holiday cards we receive in our home. As the holidays get closer, whatever room we are displaying them in gets brighter and cheerier, full of the smiling faces of friends and relatives, and all the beautifully designed cards they send. (And I sincerely hope that I will not get knocked off any Christmas card lists as a result of this post! 😦  ) But I have also enjoyed the e-cards I’ve received from friends in recent years, and they are obviously a more ecological approach to sending holiday greetings. Some of the nicest ones I’ve gotten come from Jacquie Lawson. They are beautiful, quite affordable, and there is the pleasure of listening to a couple of minutes of beautiful music while viewing the animated artwork–often a very pleasant and peaceful interlude in otherwise hectic days.

2. Give gifts that are earth-friendly…(and that clutter less too, a downsizing-the-home dividend 🙂 ) You’ll find a few suggestions for ways to do this here. 

3. Nix the plasticware and (especially) Styrofoam cups for your holiday parties.  In many places plasticware can be recycled now, and many people who need to rely on it for large parties also wash it for reuse: but wouldn’t it be better to just use old-fashioned eating utensils (or at least paper cups) whenever possible?  Styrofoam is much harder to recycle than plastic, and in addition to being bad for the earth is bad for human health, as explained here.

4. Recycle Christmas trees, wrapping paper, and broken Christmas lights. 

Home Depot accepts holiday lights for trade-in in the pre-Christmas season. You can find out more about their program as well as other possibilities for recycling holiday lights and other decorations when the season’s over here.

Does anyone out there have any other good tips for a Green Christmas? If so, please share them with us (and our readers).

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, Green Christmas…even in those places lucky enough to have a White Christmas as well!

Janet Hulstrand is a writer/editor,  writing coach , travel blogger, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.

Five Kinds of Holiday Gifts That Won’t Cause Clutter

It took my siblings and me literally years to clear the home we had grown up in of all the things that had accumulated there in the 35 years my Dad had lived there.

We were very lucky to have that kind of time available. We knew our Dad had health issues that meant that he was almost certainly going to have to move into some kind of assisted living sooner or later. So we started shortly after my Mom died, and did the work slowly and gradually.

Sometime during those years, in the course of a conversation about what a drag it had been getting rid of all that stuff, my sister smiled a meaningful smile, and said, “From now on, I’m only giving gifts that can be USED UP.”

My sister is a smart woman!

And while there are of course many nice gifts to give that are lasting ones, I’m assuming that many people who visit our blog (or their friends and family members) might very well be good candidates for Gifts That Can Be USED UP!!!!

Here are five categories of gifts that can express your love for your loved ones without danger of cluttering up their homes:

1. Consumables

Food, wine, and other alcoholic beverages, chocolates and other special treats are one good way to spread holiday cheer. Especially in hard economic times, consumable holiday treats may be particularly welcome for people who are struggling. I started ordering unbelievably succulent pears and peaches from Harry and David when my kids were little as one way of introducing a holiday tradition that they would always remember, and would not outgrow. And it’s worked! It’s been a nice bit of continuity in our holiday celebrations as my children have grown and changed through the years. (Soaps, lotions, and other pampering products are another subset of “consummables.”)

2. Atmosphere enhancers

Candles, perfumes, and other evanescent (and aromatic) gifts (sachets, incense, potpourri, etc.) also make nice gifts that are both useful and special. And all of them are meant to be USED UP!

3. Readables

Notice I did not say “books.”  For the readers on your gift list, how about a subscription to a favorite magazine (recyclable), or an e-book (digital)? (And yes, you can give e-books as gifts.) Many independent bookstores are now also offering e-books: ask your favorite independent bookseller how you can do so.

4. Gifts to a favorite charity

This is a very nice way to give gifts to people who “have everything.” Or to people who have more than they need, and want to share with others who don’t have enough. You can present a gift certificate showing that you have given a gift in the name of the person you are gifting. Heifer International specializes in this kind of gift-giving, providing an effective and meaningful way to help people in the developing world. But of course any charity that the person you want to honor through your gift believes in and likes to support would be a good choice.

5. Concept gifts and special events

You don’t have to spend any money at all to give concept gifts: you could create your own gift certificate for the gift of your time, or a labor of love (offering to take over a despised chore for your spouse or significant other for a month, for example). But you might also consider giving a gift of tickets to the theater, opera, a rock concert, or other arts event. Or you could enroll your loved one in a writing workshop, yoga class, or for the music lessons he or she has always wanted. Gifts like these give doubly: to the person enjoying the gift, and to the providers of services that are struggling more than ever to survive in these lean times.

Of course, there is also the possibility of not buying anything at all, and finding meaningful ways to do that. A few years ago things were so lean in our family that we drew names and then imposed a $5.00 limit on the materials used to make homemade gifts for each other. It was one of the most meaningful, and sweetest Christmases we have ever had.

Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, teacher, and  travel blogger, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home