How to make returns easy

The best way to make returns easy is to not have them in the first place. Don't ever buy anything just because it's on sale (you probably won't be able to return it, anyway), without knowing where it will live in your home, or if you don't need it or love it.

However, sometimes returns are unavoidable, and a lot of the time people lose their money, their space and their mental energy on returns that never get made. Here's how to make them happen.

Keep your receipts in one central location.  Once you have decided to return an item, locate the receipt for it and place the receipt and the item in a (reusable) bag. Place the bag in the area of your home where you keep items that are leaving (library books, mail, etc.). The next time you will be in the vicinity of the store in question, grab the bag, place it your car (or take it with you if you use public transportation), and enter a reminder in your to-do list or calendar to make the return. (Using Apple's Reminders app on your iOS5 iPhone, you can even program the address in and when you arrive, you'll get pinged.) If the return is to a store you are rarely near, take note of the window you have for returns (usually found on the front or back of the receipt) and schedule a time to get there before the window is up. It's not a bad idea to mark in your calendar the last day to return the item anyway, as time can get away from us.

More tips:

• Take note of the payment method and make sure you have the card you used to make the purchase on you when you go to return, or you may have to take store credit.
• Try to pair the return with another errands at the same store or in the area so you don't have to make a special trip.
• Avoid making returns without a receipt. The process will take longer at the store, you may not get the full value of the return,and you will probably only get store credit.
• If you do accept store credit instead of cash or charge back on your card, try to use it right then so you don't have to make an extra trip to get your money's worth.

Do you have any other tips for making returns easy?

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by John Bell

Poll #6: Books

I've been more and more curious about the proliferation of e-readers and e-books as I do two things: look into publishing an e-book, and contemplate buying an e-reader (well, an iPad). I've been planning to purchase an iPad for a while. In anticipation, I downloaded the Kindle app for my iMac and bought my first e-book. The experience of reading it on my desktop was not very pleasant, but it was pretty amazing to browse, purchase, and have a book instantly downloaded from the comfort of my desk chair. I wanted to know how most of my readers currently get their books. Here are the results of the poll:

The two books I'm currently reading for my book clubs.

50% said they get their books from the library, just like me. I rarely buy a physical book, and I have about four books out from the library at all times, both fiction and nonfiction. The library has a fabulous selection, you can order books online and pick them up when available at your local branch, the cost is free, and it's also a clutter-free option.

25% said they read e-books. That's quite a high percentage, I think, and I also think that's the way that we're headed. As more and more devices are available, the advantages and ubiquity will convert a lot of people over to e-books, especially as the younger, tech-savvy generations get older. We'll always have paper books, but e-books have lots of things going for them, from speed and price to not taking up shelf space.

12% said they borrow from friends or buy them from a traditional brick-and-mortar bookstore. No one responded that they bought their books online. I love to go to bookstores, and I do trade-ins at used bookstores all the time, which is a wash for me in terms of clutter. However, I rarely buy books new at bookstores. Instead, I get ideas for books I might be interested in, make notes and then order them from the library.

Thanks for participating in the poll and check out the new one!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

A year ago: clutter-free gifts revisited

Last year I wrote no less than nine separately themed clutter-free gift idea posts. I have linked to them all below. Why is it nice to consider going clutter-free when giving gifts? Quite simply, though we all like receiving and giving gifts as a way to signify many complex social relationships, things do not make people happy.  For the receiver, the experience of anticipating and opening a gift is sometimes more pleasurable than the gift itself. For the giver, selecting, wrapping and watching the gift being opening is more enjoyable than the knowledge that whatever was given is being used or appreciated. So, if the thing is not that important, why give something practically guaranteed to end up in a landfill one day? Contribute to a rich life experience and consider your alternatives. Many clutter-free gifts are also low-waste gifts as they get used up or are intangibles like memberships or experiences that create memories instead of trash.

Also, if you are starting to plan for winter holiday gift giving, take note that the number of shopping days between now and Christmas is 42 and Hanukkah is right around the corner - only 19 shopping days there.

Clutter-free gifts:

Financial and charitable gifts

Gifts of experiences

Consumable gifts

Romantic gifts

Gifts of education

Service-related gifts

Meaningful gifts

Technology-related gifts

Gifts of memberships

About clutter-free gifts

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

A year ago: unholidays and clutter-free gifting

November is zooming along and many of us have started to let the idea of the winter holidays creep into our consciousnesses. Thanksgiving is a mere three weeks away. Last year at this time I wrote about the fun you can have by creating your own holiday, or choosing a less widely celebrated one to be your annual entertaining ritual as a way to spread out the fun (and stress) of the holiday season.

I also posted the first of what seemed like endless entries about clutter-free gifts. These ideas, broken down into general categories, are good year round for any gift-giving situation. I'll be reposting them in one giant roundup later in the month, but you can check out the full list of them here, if you want to get a jump-start on brainstorming.

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to throw out a few things you might not want to get the clutter-conscious person (unless they expressly ask for such items):

• Magazine subscriptions will add to their reading pile and keep coming every month
• Live plants create work and possible stress if they are not good at taking care of living things
• Fancy foodstuffs or alcohol if they are not foodies or drinkers, they will just gather dust or be regifted

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by chatirygirl

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Reunion: thanks for the memories

I had a fabulous time in Connecticut over the weekend visiting my college, Wesleyan University. It's really special to be able to go back to a place where one has so many wonderful memories and bring back those experiences by having one's senses bombarded with the sights, smells and sounds of the past.

But as much as the campus was the same as I remembered, changes have taken place. New buildings have sprung up, some beloved professors have retired and other buildings are being torn down. Notably, the large McConaughy dining hall (nicknamed Mocon) has been defunct since 2007, when the new campus center opened, and is due to be demolished this year.

This particular change has struck the Wesleyan community fairly hard. Alumni and students are nostalgic for the flying-saucer shaped building that served as a dining hall for forty years. As such, during reunion, there was a farewell concert for the old building and cups from the dining hall were given away as souvenirs. Naturally, being suspicious of clutter and not needing a plastic cup, I didn't take one, but I did take a picture to remind me of the event, of the building, of my memories there.

 

We don't need things to remind us of the past. Just as Mocon had its day and new students will form new memories at the new dining hall, so do we move on every day, forming new memories that will live inside us, not in our kitchen cupboards.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

A year ago: preventing clutter, organizing blogs and maintenance

This week last year I posted on one of my favorite topics: preventing clutter. Being organized is not going to become a permanent aspect of your life unless you commit to reducing the clutter than comes into your life before it can get there and start draining your energy, time and money.

I also talk about the set up and maintenance of organizational systems via a brilliant metaphor about brushing your teeth.

Finally, I posted my very first "organizer's blog digest" where I mentioned some of my favorite organizing blogs. These are still some of the best written blogs with the best content out there.

Enjoy and come back next week for another trip down memory lane!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Martin Kingsley
Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

The best things in life aren't free

Of course, sometimes they are. Like love and taking walks and sleeping in on Sundays. But most free things aren't the best. They are usually that dreaded c-word, clutter. Even though something about our frugal natures thinks that if something is free we should take it home with us and love it, please don't. Most of the time it's not exactly right and you end up by paying for it over an over again with your valuable time and space, having to maintain and clean it, and then having to dispose of it eventually. Don't accept things that are "free." It's as simple as saying, "No, thanks."

Here's a partial list to help you recognize free clutter.

• Anything sitting on the side of the road.
• Conference freebies. These are just promotional items that you can live without.
• Stuff that people give away at fairs, from bookmarks to pamphlets to magazines to shopping bags.
• Things that your friends give you because they would rather give their clutter to someone they know than donate it, for some reason. 
• Free samples of cosmetics, cleaning products and food. (Slightly better because they are consumable, but still 9 times out of 10 clutter.)
• Free "gifts with purchase" at stores. Often these are inferior products that are not what you came into the store to buy in the first place.
• "Free" trial issues of magazines or subscription services that send you a bill when the trial period runs out.
• Promotional items like posters, pens and postcards you might pick up at a movie preview or book signing. Again, it's the company trying to get you to advertise their product, for free.

What other free junk examples can you think of?

Creative Commons free photo posted to Flickr by andrew steinmetz

Creative Commons free junk photo posted to Flickr by cogdogblog

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

Wedding clutter

I'm getting married in a few short months. The wedding planning process has been a huge lesson in patience and teamwork. Over the weekend my fiance and I made a pilgrimage to a giant mall and registered for gifts. The entire concept of registering for gifts was very mentally and emotionally difficult for my fiance and I to come to terms with. We feel that the best gift people can give us is the help is celebrate our marriage by attending out wedding, but we know that people want to give a physical gift as part of the celebration process. And since we don't have a lot of space, we decided it would be better to help people figure out the kind of thing to get us versus leaving them in the dark. So, anyway, we tried incredibly hard to only register for things that we truly want, can use in our lives right now and that we have room to store and take care of in our one bedroom apartment. It was actually more fun than I thought it would be to pick out a silverware pattern and champagne flutes. We also got a lot of congratulations from perfect strangers who saw us walking around with the little barcode reader and knew exactly what modern rite of passage we were undergoing.

After the very simple process of selecting items we wanted from Crate and Barrel, as a thank you gift for registering there, they gave us a rather large, rather heavy glass dish in the shape of a heart. Ack! We didn't open it up until we left the store, but I really wish we had said thanks but no thanks. It's another example of how free stuff is usually just clutter. A glass heart shaped dish isn't something we love or something we need, and we don't have anyplace to put it. So it's leaving our home as soon as possible. The wedding clutter must be curbed!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

My reading list

I just got three books from the library that I’m very excited about reading. One is the highly popular and well-reviewed 2009 book Throw Out Fifty Things by Gail Blanke. I’ve read a lot about this book and the way it has inspired people, even professional organizers, to get rid of some things in their life that have been weighing them down.  I’m can't wait to read this book as it is sure to be inspirational.

The second book on my shelf at the moment is ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau, Ph.D. Judith Kolberg is a professional organizer and Kathleen Nadeau is a psychologist and ADD specialist. I have been encountering more and more clients and potential clients who have some form of ADD. This disorder can lead to chronic disorganization and pose some unique challenges. I am really looking forward to expanding my knowledge base on this subject.

Last on the list is Chocolat, by Joanne Harris. That’s the February selection of my book club, and I have to read the book, then watch the movie based on it. We’ll discuss both works and compare them at our monthly meeting. It should be a fun read and I remember enjoying the movie when it first came out.

I'll share my thoughts on Throw Out Fifty Things and ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life soon!

Creative Commons photo posted to flickr by heliosphan

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Tips and Tools: Electronic information

Receiving, storing and finding information that is printed on paper is a constant struggle for all of us. Most of the problem stems from our worry that if we get rid of something, we won't be able to get it back again. Yet much of the paper we are bombarded with we are likely never going to look at or need, but we have a hard time giving ourselves permission to get rid of it for good.

It is time that many of us realize how much information there can be had online. Not only can you stop paper statements and get your billing information online, but you can access so much more. There is no reason to a keep a paper copy of something that you *think* you *might* need at some point down the line (and probably won't) if you can get it electronically on demand when that mythical day should come. I'm talking about manuals for appliances, restaurant menus, contact information for businessess, maps, directions and those fat prospectuses and quarterly reviews that investment companies send you and you never look at but feel guilty throwing away. Yeah, you can get all of that stuff online. Why use your precious resources to store these items when you can use the magic of the Internet to let someone else store it electronically? And since it's "in the cloud" you don't even have to worry about backing up the data. Plus, information changes so quickly that most of the printed stuff is out of date very quickly. When you look at a piece of paper and ask yourself if you could easily get the information on it should you need in the future and the answer is yes, send it to the recycle bin.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Clutter-free gifts: Experiences

The next-to-last category of clutter-free gifts is gifts of experiences or quality time. These can be given as an experience to be shared between giver and receiver, or they can be for the receiver to enjoy alone or with a party of their own choosing. At the end of the day, things don’t matter so much as experiences and making memories that will last forever—while not taking up any physical space!

• Meal out
• Special meal out—tea, brunch, dessert
• Theme park pass
• Train trip
• Tickets to a museum, concert, event, play
• Personal chef dinner party
• Special outing for a child and one parent
• Experience-related homemade coupon book (ice cream outing, trip to the zoo)
• Zoo, aquarium trip
• Sporting event
• Movie tickets
• Wine tasting tour or event
• Hot air balloon trip
• Skydiving, bungee jumping for adventurous types
• Spa day

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Ronnie44052
Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Clutter-free gifts: Consumables

By far the largest category of clutter-free gifts is consumables. These are by and large practical things that are used up over time. They give service and joy to the receiver of the gift, and then they go away, their containers hopefully recycled or re-used. Consumables can be as straightforward as gas for your car, or as luxurious as 80 dollar pomegranate-scented candles for the bathroom. The best thing about them is they have a temporary place in your friend or family member’s life, and they earn that place by doing something useful.

• Gift cards for gas, groceries
• Food, from simple groceries to fancy foodstuffs
• Fruit basket
• Wine, a bottle or perhaps a mixed case
• Mass transit tickets for people who use public transportation
• Of the month clubs: beer, cheese, fruit, wine, bacon
• Home baked items
• Homemade dinners, frozen
• Flowers, cut
• Seeds for gardeners
• Nice candles
• Pet food for pet owners
• Art supplies
• Baking supplies such as vanilla extract, chocolate, sugar
• Toiletries: soap, hair care, shower gel, beauty products
• Stamps and stationary
• Batteries (perhaps rechargeable)
• Cleaning products, sponges
• Candy
• Gourmet ice cream
• Coffee/tea
• For new parents: diapers, wipes, baby food
• For teachers: teaching supply store gift certificate
• Gift card for a place they go to regularly, such as Starbucks

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by MinivanNinja

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

Clutter-free gifts: Education

Next in the clutter-free gift idea series: gifts of education. If your friend or family member likes to learn new things or is the kind of person who seemingly "already has everything," break them out of their rut with the offer of a class. You could get a second spots in the class for you and make it a productive way to spend quality time together, but don’t choose a topic that only you are interested in. And before you sign your friend up for a sixteen week intensive art class when she barely has time to do grocery shopping, ask yourself if there’s a more useful gift you get get her. You might want to start with a single lesson or class before committing to a long program.

• Dance classes
• Art classes
• Sports camp
• Yoga classes
• Cooking classes
• Exercise classes
• Flying lessons
• Language classes
• Art appreciation
• Music lessons
• Magic lessons
• Juggling
• Trapeze lessons
• Cake decorating class
• Tumbling, gymnastics or acrobatics class
• Bridge class
• Poker lessons
• Personal trainer sessions
• Self defense class
• Taekwondo classes
• Computer classes
• Golf lessons
• Acting classes
• Singing lessons

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Carrington Vanston

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

Clutter-free gifts: Services

Next in the clutter-free gift ideas series: gifts of services. These are gifts that help the receiver in a couple of ways. They provide the means for people to get things done that they already need and might need financial help with, and they also are basically gifts of time if the service is something they would have done themselves. These gifts can be costly or only cost the time of the giver – clutter-free gift giving can be tailored to any budget, large or nonexistent.

All of the following could be things you actually do for them if you are qualified, or things you get gift certificates for.

• Make a homemade coupon book for chores or services you are great at
• Car wash coupons
• Oil change coupons
• Car detailing service
• Massages
• Hair cut and color
• Beauty treatments such as manicure
• Housekeeping services for a week or month (if this is something they’d be open to)
• Outdoor chores such as snow shoveling/plowing, grass mowing, painting, gutter cleaning
• Household repairs
• Babysitting service
• Knife sharpening service
• Consultation with a professional organizer (only if requested!) 
• Dry cleaning coupons
• Gardening service

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by cursedthing 

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

Clutter-free gifts: Memberships

First category in the clutter-free gift department: memberships.

Year-long memberships or passes to a cultural center, attraction or facility that your friend or family member already belongs to or frequents are a great way to help them enjoy the things they love, and all they’ll have to store is a little plastic membership card. Being a member also often entitles one to discounts in addition to the price of admission.

• Gym, YMCA/YWCA or community pool
• Museum or multi-museum pass if one is available
• Zoo or aquarium
• Amusement park like Disneyland or Six Flags
• Water park
• Shooting range
• Golf course or driving range

Memberships to service clubs or stores that they might use but can’t afford to join are really useful gifts.

• AAA
• Warehouse stores like Costco
• Online gaming sites

You could also gift a membership to a political group or charitable organization, if you know the recipient is already affiliated with or publicly endorses them.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Djenan

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Why clutter-free gifts?

About a month ago I wrote about how to go about getting gifts you really want or can use from your friends and family this holiday season. You may already be thinking about gifts to get for them this season, and I implore you to consider giving clutter-free gifts.

Clutter-free gifts are defined by these simple criteria:

• The recipient will really like, need and use the gift
• It won’t put undue burden on the recipient to store or maintain the gift

You might recognize these guidelines from examining your stuff for clutter; they are the same questions you should ask yourself. Do you love and/or use the item? Do you have a place to put it? If the answers are yes, then it doesn’t qualify as clutter. So a clutter-free gift doesn’t have to be something that literally does not create stuff for the person (ie: cookies that get eaten within a couple of days), but I posit that gifts like that are what you should be striving for. As you’ll see, clutter-free gifts may require an extra ounce of thinking on the part of the gift giver. Therefore, a well chosen clutter-free gift shows that the giver knows the person who’s getting the gift well, and cares about them enough to want to get them something desired, useful or at least not cluttery junk. We all have too much stuff, so going an extra step with your gift brainstorming to give a gift like that might be appreciated. Or not. Some people just like getting plain old stuff as gifts. But you don’t have to indulge them. Okay, end of rant.

I’ll be posting some concrete, take-them-and-use-them-as-your-own ideas for clutter-free gifts over the next few days. I’m breaking them down into categories. Please respond in the comments if you have more ideas or if you use one of these ideas and it turns out well!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Samdogs

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Tips and Tools: Holiday gift getting

Right about now is a good time to think about gifts that you would like to receive for the winter holiday of your choice. Even if you tell them not to get you anything, you will still likely receive some presents from friends and family. Brainstorm some ideas…stuff you need, stuff you think it would be cool to have that you would never buy for yourself, stuff that won't clutter up your home (think consumables and gifts of experiences). Then, drop some hints to those people who typically get you presents in conversation by first asking them what they want (also good to know for planning purposes), and following up with a few things you want.

I love getting handmade soap as a gift.

The best way to get what you want is to give a clear idea of what you’d like, and most people will be grateful for any hints of what to get you. It’s tough to come up with brilliant gift ideas at least twice a year (birthday, Christmas) for the same people over and over. So help them out, and maybe get something you really want this year.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by soapylovedeb

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

10 best reasons to get organized

I've been giving a lot of thought to the tangible benefits of getting and staying organized. I see them in my own life, and in my clients' lives every day, but I wanted to share a few of them here.

1. Save time: always know where to find things.
2. Save money: never have to buy duplicates of things you already own but can’t find.
3. Improve your financial situation: no more late fees or dings on your credit score for not paying bills on time.
4. Increase efficiency: make lists so you only have to go to stores once to get everything you need, group errands geographically and use the Internet to cut down on trips to faraway places by having things delivered.
5. Increase your sense of calm: lessen the day-to-day chaos in your life and focus on the things that are most important to you.
6. Decrease friction with people you live with: when there’s a sense of organization and a place for everything, discord over people’s stuff (usually) goes away.
7. Broaden the scope of your physical and mental world: when we feel held back by disorganization and chaos, we use it as an excuse not to redecorate the apartment that is stuck in 1988, or not to embark on a creative project we’ve been thinking about for years. No more excuses. Do it!
8. Give loved ones security: having your end of life wishes written down, your estate planning finished and a plan for how to dispose of your property after your death lessens the stress that your loved ones will have to endure during that difficult time. Do you really want to leave a house crammed top to bottom with stuff for your kids and grandkids to deal with one day?
9. Make emergency situations easier: when you’re prepared for emergencies with important papers, information and objects located, backed up and insured, those difficult times will be less so.
10. Increase happiness: if your neutral mode for going through life is an organized one, it makes it possible for the ups to go higher and the downs to dip shallower. Try it!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Preventing clutter

“Clutter” is a favorite word of professional organizers. Clutter represents the main thing that separates the organized from the disorganized, and a professional organizer’s main job is often to “de-clutter” you to a point where personal or professional organization is possible.

Clutter usually refers to an excess of things that glom onto every aspect of our lives and hinder us from living life as cleanly, efficiently and as productively as we might want to. These things can be physical objects as well as mental and emotional aspects of our lives. In simplistic terms, clutter is bad, and freeing yourself from clutter promises to release you into a better way of life. Of course, nothing is ever that simple, and clutter is complicated.

While removing existing clutter from your life can be a multi-step commitment, even if you aren’t ready for that step, you can do things starting this minute that will prevent even more clutter from building up in your life.

The basic rule is: don’t let anything into your home unless you know that you will actually use it, that it will have a dedicated place to live and you really like it. This includes purchases you or others in your household make, gifts from others to you, and items you might be temporarily holding onto for someone else. If you make an effort to think about the above criteria before you buy something, you are likely to save some money, but don’t forget the rule holds fast for things that are free as well. Getting something for free as a handout in a store isn’t a license for you to bring it home and have to store it and then finally get rid of it someday, having never looked at it or used it.

Clutter-free gift giving is a whole topic unto itself, but it’s trickier to pull off clutter-free gift getting. It can be done, if you are clear to those who usually get you a present that you either want something consumable, or you give them a specific list of things you want and need. Some people don’t support the idea of a wish list, but if you don’t have a problem identifying a few wanted items, most people don’t mind receiving an indication of what would really be appreciated.

Another way to prevent clutter from entering your life is to make an effort to buy or borrow things that can then be recycled, donated, reused or returned to wherever they came from. For instance, you can get the latest bestseller from your library, and then return it.

I'd love to hear other ideas of how to minimize the amount of clutter coming in the door. Please comment!

Creative Commons photo posted to flickr by essering