The Clutter Mutterer’s Advice Column by Mitch Luckett
I worked with Mitch many years ago at the Audubon Society of Portland. He is a regular poster on Facebook.
(https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10224419485582329&set=a.10200179529158568)
Enjoy this timely article about dealing with clutter - one of my projects this year!
Nobody wants it or needs it, but everyone has it. Clutter.
What to do about it, especially if you are of a certain age? You can go on the internet and find experts that have written hundreds of books on clutter abatement. I am not an expert—far from it, but I have some life experiences that I think might be of interest to other clutter-frustrated folks.
My credentials: I hate clutter but, ironically, were they to offer cluttering as an Olympic sport, I would be a gold medal contender. But, unlike most Olympic sports, age is no disqualifier here. As a matter of fact, cluttering is a skill only honed with age. Continuing at my current clutter trajectory unabated, I could expect to earn my PhD (“pile high deeper”) by the time I reached 100.
I will become a member of the rare "Masters Clutterer Club"; this is one club that you are automatically matriculated into when, upon death, nobody knows where you are until they muck out your house or, if you opted for cremation, strike a match.
Even I have my limits.
So, I am starting “The Clutter Mutterer’s Advice Column.” Here are a few easy-peasy clutter abatement actions you can do at home.
Tip Number One: “Make your G**damn bed”—to quote my dear ol’ mom—all five feet tall of her. An unmade bed is an eyesore. Make it every day without fail. Top it with a colorful quilt. And don’t let the dogs hopping on the bed to play while you are making it, be a distraction. I’m not saying don’t play with your pooches or make the bed. I’m saying do both. Get it done. It starts the day off with a bit of play—psychologically so rewarding to the brain’s pleasure center. And let’s face it, fair is fair, dogs need to compensate for being accomplished clutterers too. They never pick up after themselves.
Making your bed is a spiritually rewarding way to start the day. It gets you past that debilitating sense of worthlessness so destructive to doing anything of merit over the next 24 hours.
Tip Number Two: If you drop something, stoop over and pick it up immediately. It only follows, if one must drop, then one must stoop and scoop—let your fingers do the stalking. Don’t wait. Resist as long as you can getting one of those grabber gizmos.
I know, I know … the older you get, your dropsies become greater and your stoopsies become lesser. Or do they? Is your stooper out of whack? So is mine. Or was. It’s because I quit stooping. It’s time to start again. Better yet squat and scoop. I know, I know … with age, it gets harder to squat. Squats, health experts tell us, are good for stimulating the bowels.
So, now that these old bones have limbered up some, every time I squat to scoop up something, I do a couple extra squats and only pick up the offending object on the third squat. So, it only follows, the better you stoop and the better you scoop, the better you poop.
If you see something that someone else left on the floor that shouldn’t be there, pick it up. Folks have been picking up after you all your life. Show a little humility, it’s your turn to return the favor. Take it. Don’t expect thanks.
Tip Number Three: The two worst places to go a‘cluttering is under a bed (it’s literally a black hole and monsters live there) or on a top shelf that you can’t reach without a step stool.
I can still hear my mom complaining about having to get stuff off the top shelf, requiring her to climb a step stool, and, of course when urgently needed the stepstool was out in the yard with a kid picking apples.
Even as a kid I asked Mom, “Why do you put that stuff on the top shelf?” She gave me that look that says, “You’ll understand these things when you get to be an adult.”
Well, guess what? I am now an adult—and then some—and I still don’t understand why folks put stuff on out-of-reach shelves. I mean, I do it too, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that I understand why.
More tips in later installments, such as “Plans, peonies, and pajamas don’t mix. How to get your home in shipshape in 20 seconds using stretchy bands.”