Get more done with time management.

Do you find yourself with too much to do and too little time? Do you often look back on a day or week with disappointment at not having completed all the tasks on your to-do list? If so, you are not alone. According to the US Department of Labor and Statistics latest American Time Use Survey, we are working an average of 7.9 hours on weekdays with a commute equal to 100 hours annually. Add in 8 hours for sleep, and our day is more than 2/3 gone! If you struggle with time-management, try the following tips and strategies to get a better handle.

Schedule: It may seem like common sense to keep a schedule, but most of us don’t really use one to manage our tasks. Begin each week by sitting down and listing all of the things you need to accomplish in the coming days. Start by blocking out work time and appointments including the time it takes to drive back and forth. It is best to over-block time to accommodate for traffic delays, doctors “running behind”, and the like. If you find that you have extra time as a result, use it to take care of things on your short list. (see below) Next, schedule in personal care, meal time, errands, housekeeping, and leisure activities. When you actually plan out the week this way, it provides you with the opportunity to see how you are spending your time and reduces missed or forgotten appointments and other responsibilities.

Short list: Keep a list of things that will take 10 minutes and under that you need to do this week in order of priority. This can include returning phone calls, picking up or dropping off items “on the way” to scheduled destinations, small repairs and light cleaning. When you have a few minutes of spare time, use it to check these items off of your list.

Say NO: If you find it nearly impossible to keep up with the demands of your lifestyle, learn to say no. Do not accept or volunteer for projects that you cannot fit in your schedule. Take care of your priorities first- work, family, and personal care.

Delegate: Don’t hesitate to ask for help. If you find that you are spending too much time on a specific activity that you do not enjoy, outsource it to someone who does. Drop off the laundry, hire a bi-weekly housekeeper, get a babysitter to help with the kids, or a college student to handle the data entry. The money spend on these simple adjustments in your time can pay off big when it comes to personal satisfaction and accomplishments.

Habits: Create healthy habits. Try to go to bed and awaken at the same time every day. When your system gets used to a regular sleeping pattern you will feel more refreshed and energized. If you have large projects, schedule them in smaller allotments of time over a longer period of time, rather than in one long session. By doing so, you will be able to accommodate under-estimations in the time it takes to complete the job without feeling the pressure of an imminent deadline. Likewise, planning meals helps to avoid fast food binges, over and under eating, and other bad food habits. By anticipating your mealtime you can plan ahead to make healthy choices.

Have a strategy that works well for you? Post your suggestions below!

Helping to get the process started.

One of the most frequent requests we get is for advice on how to motivate a loved one to seek help for hoarding and acquiring disorders. It is heartbreaking for friends and family to see a loved one living in virtual isolation, often in a seriously unhealthy and unsafe environment. Unfortunately, you cannot force anyone to get help for a problem if they are ambivalent, embarrassed, or afraid. There are some steps you can take to help the person gain better insight in to their disorder, and to encourage them to start their recovery.

The most important, and often most difficult part, is communicating with the person compassionately and with patience. It didn’t take a day to create the mess, so you cannot expect it to take a day to overcome. For many, the recovery process takes months or even years. Focus not on your issues, but on the way the hoarding and acquiring behaviors are affecting the clutterer. He or she must have their own goals to be successful.

One way to do this is to ask the person to consider those things that he or she cannot do, or have great difficulty doing, as a result of their living environment and acquiring habits. Things that we often take for granted like using the kitchen or appliances, bathroom, having guests over, locating important documents and accumulating debt are often impeded for those who suffer with these disorders.

Try to get the person to do a PRO and CON list, articulating reasons to and not to go forward with the recovery process. When the PRO side outweighs the CON, they will be ready to start. Likewise, if you can help them to realize how their lifestyle is not in line with the personal goals or values, you can help them to start envisioning change. For example, if the person has acquired a lot of fabric and patterns with the intention of sewing, ask her if she is able to facilitate any of those projects in the cluttered property. “When was the last time you were able to sew something?”

It is common for those with these disorders to complain about physical conditions as being the hindrance to progress. If this is the case with your loved one, help him or her to understand the long-term probability of these ailments being cured or relieved. If he or she is unlikely to “get better”, how will he or she ever make the clean-up a priority? Suggest that you or another person/group of people take direction on tasks you can complete for them, such as; removing and delivering recyclables to a center.

Ask the person where he or she sees envisions life in five years. Help to define steps that can be taken to accomplish those goals. Help them to focus on the advantages of cleaning out the property, rather than on the loss of each object. Ask him or her what the worst thing that can happen through recovery might be, and if that were to occur, what it would mean to them and their life. Repeat their answer so they can hear the way they rationalize their situation.

Have the person consider what would happen if they had a medical emergency, plumbing leak, or whether he or she wants to be remembered by the clutter they left behind after death. Do they want that to be their legacy, or do they have other images about their contributions to family and society? Might he or she rather clean up on his or her own terms, or does the threat of municipal or social service intervention prompt them to want to seek help.

If none of these methods prompt action, there are many other ways to help with insight and motivation. Take a look through our blog for information on behavioral experiments, and the like, or feel free to email or call for more information.

Time to give up or get started?

Well folks, we are already through the first month of the New Year! Have you given up on your resolutions already? Perhaps you haven’t even made any yet. According to a report released in January by the American Psychology Association, the top stressors for Americans are finance, relationships and health. Taking a look at 2011, what created the most day to day stress for you? If you have hoarding and compulsive acquiring in your family, chances are all of the aforementioned areas are highly stressful for you, and the estimated 10,000,000 others who suffer from these disorders nationwide. Resolve to reduce your stress this year by starting on your recovery.

Financial: Hoarding and acquiring can have devastating effects on a family or individual’s economic stability. Research shows that most compulsive shoppers earn less than $50,000 per year, and will typically “overspend” for decades before seeking help. Excessive credit debt, late or missed payments, and inability to sustain employment are often the results of chronic shopping and hoarding. It is not uncommon for those afflicted to rent additional storage or living spaces when their primary home fills up. Likewise, the failure to properly maintain their home due to clutter and/or financial limitations exacerbates minor repair problems. The property can, therefor, sustain major damage requiring substantial restoration and be susceptible to fines for municipal code violations.

Relationships: Most people use logic when making decisions. Those with hoarding and acquiring disorders, however, typically have information processing problems that interfere with their ability to use reason when considering what to save and discard. Loved ones often feel that they speak a completely different language. This inability to communicate effectively about the hoarding and acquiring behaviors can lead to feelings of resentment, anger, guilt, hopelessness, frustration, dejection, and numerous others. Children of hoarders often describe feelings of inferiority; “the parent cares more about his or her stuff than the child”. Spouses may set ultimatums that they rarely carry out, eventually resolving to stop trying. If the hoarder lives alone, friends and family members rarely, if ever, visit the house leading to isolation, denial, and often depression.

Health: There are many health and safety concerns associated with hoarding and excessive acquiring. Aside from the emotional and mental health effects of these complex disorders, those who suffer are at risk of sustaining injuries due to limited mobility within the home. Falls are common, and as people age they are more susceptible to broken bones. Property stacked high creates danger of collapse and entrapment. Inability to access electrical outlets causes many to use multiple extension cords and to overload those that can be reached. Likewise, property spilling on to stovetops or stuffed near furnaces make fire or carbon monoxide poisoning a real threat. In extreme cases, lack of proper utilities like running water, refrigeration, and heat put their lives at risk. Accumulation of dust, mold, human waste, spoiled foods, insects, and animal waste and dander, can cause respiratory illness, skin wounds and irritations, digestive disorders, and countless other diseases or maladies.

Despite all these stressors, most people go decades without seeking help. They feel overwhelmed and often embarrassed. Unable to overcome these compulsions alone, they lack the confidence to seek help feeling like they are destined to life out their lives amongst the clutter and squalor. If this sounds like you, or someone you know, don’t give up. No one is beyond help. The only difference between a wish and reality is a plan.

The first step is to acknowledge that you cannot do it alone. Reach out to specialized mental health professionals, support groups, and friends. There is no shame in mental illness. There are people out there who will support you and assist with your recovery efforts, compassionately. Secondly, understand that the clutter in the home did not accumulate overnight. Be realistic about goals and expectations for overcoming it. Work with your support team to create a plan that is doable over a comfortable period of time. Do not set yourself up for failure. There is nothing more discouraging than continuing to fall short on objectives. Think about a person who gains 30 pounds over a period of ten years and then decides to diet. If they set a goal to lose the weight in a week, it would be impossible to accomplish. After a moderate loss of two pounds in the first week, they may decide that it is too difficult and give up altogether. What would you advise they should do? Give up or set more realistic goals? Take that same approach with your own recovery. Just think about what you can accomplish if you get started today!

When obsession piles up

When obsession piles up

TLC documents former New Bedford company’s campaign to help hoarders

 

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NJDespres Enterprises tests clients for hoarding behavior, then sends workers to help clean up. Photos provided by NJDespres Enterprises

By ANIKA CLARK

aclark@s-t.com

 

A self-pegged “germ-freak,” Nicole J. Osborne Despres is the type of woman who avoids public rest rooms and doorknobs. That makes her profession, which will be featured on TLC’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive,” all the more curious. Through NJDespres Enterprises — a former New Bedford company she owns and operates in Rhode Island with husband Christopher Osborne Jr. — the 1990 New Bedford High School graduate helps people master the mess.

“I traded in the suits and heels for HazMat suits,” said Osborne Despres, who formerly worked in insurance before she started her own management and marketing consulting firm. As she counseled startups on their business needs, she “realized that there was a need for a household management-type of consultancy also.” Then, she entered her first hoarder’s house.

The Somerset home was filled nearly to the ceiling with stuff and strewn with trash, clothing and animal waste.

“The kitchen had been unused for a decade,” she recalled, and was covered with a black film. She smelled a sewage-like stench, but “I felt such an overwhelming sense of compassion, I really did,” she said. “I just felt, ‘Wow. I have to help.’” So Osborne Despres contacted and began researching the work of Gail Steketee, a professor and dean of the Boston University School of Social Work, who teaches about hoarding and has studied it since the mid-1990s.

Hoarding affects about 5 percent of the adult population, according to Steketee, who said the disorder is built on indecision and, counterintuitively, a degree of perfectionism. About 25 percent of hoarders also suffer from attention deficit problems, she said. “There’s a lot of decision-making (issues) and a lot of fear in making mistakes,” Steketee said in an interview with The Standard-Times. “You don’t see that in ‘messiness.’”

As a result, an NJDespres Enterprises’ clean-out operation involves much more than grunt work. Each job begins with assessments, including cognitions testing, according to Osborne Despres. The testing “gives us a very clear picture of their hoarding behaviors, and their whole thought process — why they hoard, why they save, all of their behavior patterns so that we can customize the way that we work with them in order that we can create a permanent solution for them,” she said, rattling off what she called “different saving cognitions.”

Some people hang on to things because they form an emotional attachment to them — saving, for example, every single item a loved one has touched as an extension of valuing that person. Others are more utilitarian, in a scenario Osborne Despres called “almost like recycling to the extreme.”

“They won’t throw anything away because they can think of a hundred different ways to use it,” she explained. “They’re the ones who save every container “» every piece of string. Everything.”

Some hoarders distrust their own memories and might save every newspaper or magazine because they don’t want to lose the information within.

“I walk in these houses and my heart breaks that people are living like that,” Osborne Despres said. “They feel trapped and they don’t know how to get themselves help. They’re just overwhelmed by it, and they’re scared.”

However, she described the Massachusetts man the company worked with on the TLC hoarding program as “so brave.”

As an educated professional, “I think he wanted to portray to the world that it’s not just people who live on backwoods farms or in trailers, or the stereotypical people you may think have a hoarding disorder,” Osborne Despres said of the man, who she said resides south of Boston but outside of SouthCoast. The client had no working kitchen or bathrooms but had a slew of medications, video games and “cat stuff everywhere,” she said. He also owned hundreds of thousands of toys, although she said his 3-year-old son could no longer come to his house.

Reflecting on her years of hoarding help, Osborne Despres described a woman who lived on a pile of blankets and was reachable only by crawling through her stuff and another client who had converted an entire bathroom into a toilet. She spoke about how hard hoarders may work to keep up appearances and mentioned a woman who held a gym membership simply so she could shower before work.

“These people live very normal lives outside their house,” she said. “But inside their homes it’s just chaos.”

 

The Moments That Make My Work Worthwhile: First anniversary edition.

This past weekend was my birthday. Last year, I celebrated the day with a post in which I shared some of my favorite moments from the preceding 12 months. In keeping with tradition, I reflect once more on The Moments That Make My Work Worthwhile.

2011 was a big year for me. Once again, I was awarded the trust of many people struggling with the effects of hoarding and compulsive acquiring disorders. There is nothing more satisfying than guiding my clients through the recovery process; watching them go from individuals consumed with despair to confident, autonomous persons living life clutter free. I am humbled by their strength. I am thankful for their confidence. I am blessed to have them in my life as they give me purpose and fulfillment. Below I share some of the most touching experiences from the last year.

• As most of you know, last Spring, we appeared on TLC’s Hoarding: Buried Alive! with our friend and client, Jonathan. Unable to visit with his young son, Robbie, Jonathan worked tirelessly to declutter his house fueled by the strength of a father’s love. In order to keep up with the demands of the production schedule, we worked as many as 18 hours per day over the course of six weeks. By the time the TLC crew returned for the final filming, we were exhausted. We did not see Robbie’s reaction to the amazing play room we helped create until the day the episode aired on March 30. The overwhelming joy of a three year old boy and the pride he had in his father’s efforts, epitomize the very soul of our company. Watching the two of the play together in Jonathan’s home was one of the highlights of my entire career. Too many times we see the bitter, angry, exasperated, adult children of hoarders who grew up feeling second to the clutter. Just knowing that this child will grow up without that resentment makes it all worthwhile.
• Last year, we had an unusually high number of cases with municipal intervention. Several clients were thrust in to recovery because their homes were condemned. This is one of the most difficult types of intervention. Imagine if you were suddenly told you could no longer go in to your own home and that you must get rid of countless things you highly value. We chronicled the efforts of one of these clients, Miss H, in several blog posts. When a condemnation takes place, the client is at one of, if not the, lowest points in his or her life. The reason that these cases make it to my best moments is that they represent the most dramatic changes in the shortest amount of time. They are so rewarding. We meet someone one day who is consumed by emotions we hope we never have to feel ourselves, and within weeks help them to overcome decades worth of desolation. Their resolve in regaining control of their lives is unrivaled. Likewise, I am so fortunate to experience such an overwhelming pride in each member of our team when the reoccupancy permit is issued. Things we take for granted, like the ability to have cable or internet installed, have family over for the holidays, or to shower and cook in our homes, are brought to fruition for those who have battled these devastating mental illnesses. Each case proving that there is no giving up. That no one should suffer in isolation, hopelessly surrounded by clutter and squalor. No one is ever beyond help. Sometimes it just takes hitting rock bottom to begin the climb.
• We also experienced one of our low points last year. We lost a client for the first time. The posts I wrote about her death and subsequent funeral were the most viewed I have ever written, perhaps because I shared from my heart rather than my head. Mourning is something to which we all can relate. The feelings of grief are so profound they are seldom forgotten. When we hear of another’s pain, we are reminiscent of those we too have lost and reach out with knowing comfort. Even in her passing, we were reminded of the importance of our work- that we can help change the legacy of the deceased in the eyes of their loved ones. Enabling a family to mourn with sadness, rather than anger at having been left with the hoard that once was. We have the ability to reunite loved ones once separated by mountains of clutter, allowing them to share quality time before separation by death. It drives us. It provides us with the endurance to spend hot summer days picking through rotted foods and animal waste, or winter months sorting property in a house with no heat. We are always cognizant of the results of our efforts, be it one last holiday gathering or years of family memories yet to be made. With this, we reach out to all who will listen about beginning the recovery process themselves. The rewards are undeniable.
• Always a highlight is finding long lost items of property within the walls of a hoarded home. We recover items of diverse value. From hearing aids and dentures, to cash and heirloom jewelry. From photographs to passports and everything in between. Helping people locate and identify the truly important things within the monumental accumulation filling their home feels, I imagine, feels as good a forty-niner who actually struck gold. The long voyage paid off in riches untold. This past year we found a gold locket containing a picture of one of the first professional US hockey players, an ancestor to one of our clients. We found the wedding ring of a deceased hoarder for her widower, and the love letters he had sent her while they were still courting. In another home, we found the diamond that had fallen from a client’s engagement ring in a room that was filled to the ceiling when we first arrived. But perhaps the most memorable find over the last year for me, personally, was the song our deceased client wrote that was read at her funeral. A piece of white lined paper stuffed in a pile of magazines with prophetic words of her freedom from pain and life everlasting among angels.
• The final piece I take from last year is the important strides we made in promoting awareness and education of hoarding and compulsive acquiring disorders. Our efforts to spread the truth about the unethical practices of so called hoarding “clean up” companies, the terrifying examples of municipal intervention, and attempts by the media to make a circus of mental illness were just some of the ways we made a difference. Our arrival on the scene of a hoarding eviction and subsequent intervention prevented a local news station from airing footage of the occupant, but not the house. It seems we still have a way to go in destigmatizing mental illness, but we reached tens of thousands of people through this blog, our Facebook page, Twitter, newspaper articles and radio interviews. We brought our cause out of the shadows, and advocated for all those who suffer in fear and shame. Each of the individuals who took the time to read or listen to our message, learned a little more about compassion and recovery. For each of them, and you, I am most thankful. I hope that over the next year of my life, you will continue to hear and share our words. Knowledge breeds understanding. Understanding breeds compassion. Compassion breeds action. Action breeds change.

And so I begin another year of my life. May I continue to be blessed with the fortunes of my work- the lives touched, the message heard, the treasures found, the friends made.

Clutter combatting for extreme environmentalists and fanatical frugalistas.

We have discussed the reasoning behind keeping all that clutter a few times before, but one of my favorite “excuses” heard from clients is the “I’m gonna fix it!” one. Extreme environmentalists and fanatical frugalistas will keep and collect everything in order to avoid waste. While in theory these are good values, it becomes problematic when there is no follow-through on the reducing, reusing and recycling. As the clutter builds, the tasks associated each individual item become impossible to accomplish and the person overwhelmed. Yet, even as the house fills up, the tremendous guilt associated with discarding these items is too much to bear. Sometimes all it takes is someone giving the person “permission” to purge, while for others it is a long process of learning to overcome the problematic thinking that leads them to keep all that stuff.

The challenge begins with taking inventory of the items in the environment that fall into the categories of Recycle and Fix.

Recycle

It is wonderful that society is finally acknowledging the amount of trash we humans create. Many cities and towns are now making recycling mandatory in order to reduce the volume of refuse that makes it the landfill. The public service announcements have worked well to educate us on the importance of recycling materials, yet while there is no argument to the benefits of doing so, it does create a little more work to dispose of household waste. Separating paper, plastic and metal requires additional receptacles and most homes just don’t have the space to accommodate them inside. For some, this causes bags of plastic and stacks of paper to accumulate in their living spaces. The risk of identity theft further complicates matters as many believe they must shred every piece mail before placing it outside. Rather than doing this daily, they simply stack up the stuff until it becomes another daunting project on the list of things to do. Likewise, in an effort to save money and reduce waste, many people save plastic food containers of every kind. Yogurt cups, margarine tubs, deli containers, and empty milk jugs, cover the counters, consume the cabinets and pack the pantry. Sound like you? How many does one household really need? How many will you actually use at one time? It doesn’t matter to you, right? What matters is that plastic containers can be reused, not whether they will be.

In order to tackle the recycling clutter once and for all, it is best to start with one big purge. Although they charge for the service, bulk shredding facilities will take the paper all at once. In the long run, it saves a lot of time to get rid of it all in one shot. Likewise, take an afternoon to drop off the plastics at your local site. From there, focus on getting in the habit of shredding as you go and removing paper and plastic recyclables weekly. It takes self-discipline to change old behavior, but with a little effort in the beginning the new will become the norm. If it is physically challenging for you to carry out the recyclables each week, try breaking it into several smaller loads that go out daily, or find a neighbor or family member that is willing to stop by to help. The key is in getting these things out of the house with regularity and haste. If you have metals, most scrappers will pick-up everything for free. Look in the local paper or on Craigslist to find one.

Fix

There are countless things that fall under this heading. Most people feel compelled to keep things that are not in good condition or working order. For example, how many people throw out dead flashlights when batteries are not the problem? When was the last time you replaced the bulb on a Dollar Store flashlight? It would probably cost more for the bulb than for a new light, still we keep them in drawers because we convince ourselves that someday we will fix them. In the meantime, we inevitably buy a new one. Once an item is replaced, you no longer have a need for it. Add it the recyclables or toss it.

The same goes for broken or torn clothing, furniture, electronics, knick-knacks, appliances, dishes…. you get the picture. How many things have you actually fixed and used? There are even stacks of this stuff that aren’t necessarily broken, but have been updated within our homes. How many analog TVs and hand-me-down furniture pieces do you have in your attic or basement? You aren’t going to use them, but they are functional so you don’t want to just throw them out, right? So, you decide to put them in storage of one kind or another. However, by keeping them tucked away for all eternity, are you really saving money or evading waste? The best thing to do with those items is to donate them to a charity or send them for recycling. Otherwise, try a group like Freecycle to pass them on to someone that may actually need them. (Just don’t engage in the receiving of Freecycle listings that you don’t really need.)

If you have a pile of mending to do, consider whether you can live without those pieces. Do you have other clothes or are you running around naked until they get fixed? The cost of material and accessibility to clothing make the days of mending seem archaic. Unless the pieces are timeless fashions from designer collections with merely a seam undone, the money and time it would take to have them repaired are really not worth it. If they require much more than reattaching a button, and they have been sitting in your house for more than a week, get rid of them.

There are also things we break and keep out of sentiment. You know that “World’s Best Mom” mug that your daughter gave you 20 years ago that you dropped on the floor and saved all the pieces to? It is okay to throw it away. She will still think you are the world’s greatest mom. Having a pile of ceramic shards in a baggie is not the end-all be-all of your relationship! Besides, even if you did glue it back together, you still won’t be able to use it as a mug and are you really going to display a glued-up mug?

Whenever you are faced with the decision to keep and repair something, go through this checklist first:

1. Is the cost to repair the item more than the item’s monetary value? (Think DVD players- on average they cost $60 to fix. A new Blu-ray player can cost as little as $30.)

   If yes, toss. If no, next:

2. Are you going to prioritize the time it takes to make the repair? (Scheduling repairs in a reasonable time, not storing them for repair.)

   If not, trash. If yes, give yourself a no-excuse deadline (attach a post-it note) and toss if not completed by then.

3. It is vital to your life that you have this particular item? (Will not having it affect my work, health, safety, etc.?)

   If yes, you’d better get it fixed immediately! If not, purge.

4. Do you have something else already that will function in the same way? (Broken zipper on duffle bag, but have 5 totes, 8 small suitcases, and 30 other similar bags!)

   If yes, get rid of it. If not, consider the availability of a replacement which is usually cheaper and less time-consuming.

5. Do you have the tools and knowledge to fix it? (You need to buy a special $40 wrench or research the fix for a month)

   If not, discard. If you made it all the way to this question and still say yes, go ahead and fix it!

I hope this has helped you to see your recyclable stuff and broken clutter with a new perspective. Now get busy!

10 Types of Things That You Can Throw Out Today!

Over the years, we have come to expect that certain categories of clutter are almost always in a hoarded home. Mountains of clothing, piles of paperwork, loads of supplies, and heaps of unstarted or unfinished projects fill every closet, cabinet and surface. Amongst these things are the assemblages that make each client unique. For some, it is an overwhelming collection of teddy bears, dolls, or tea cups accumulated over decades as gifts and impulse purchases. Others may have various forms of reading materials stacked neatly from floor to ceiling in every room. However, there are usually some that are unmistakably a sign of the problematic thinking that occurs in a hoarder’s brain. The “it can be used for something, someday, by someone” thought process, typically leads to rooms full of empty food packaging, material scraps, and thousands of twist ties, for example. The “it is a piece of my/my child’s/my parents’/my deceased pets’ life” belief system has led us to find everything from preserved head lice to cat’s tails (not of the botanical kingdom) stashed away for sentiment or memorialization.

It seems, though, that even people who do not meet the criteria for a clinically diagnosable hoarding disorder, keep particular items of clutter for many of the same reasons. Certain values and behaviors are instilled in us during childhood, while some result from beliefs developed later in life, such as environmental responsibility. Often, it only takes “permission” to discard or donate things to be able to let go. Discussing your reasons for keeping items, with those outside your core family or group of friends, is an enlightening way to hear others’ perceptions about property, and can be helpful in overcoming unhealthy attitudes about stuff you find hard to purge.

If you have any of the following, reconsider whether or not you actually need to keep them. Write down the pros and cons and have a third party look them over if you really get stuck. Chances are that once they are gone, they will not be missed!

 

1. Old puzzles, games, patterns, and projects that are missing pieces.

2. Past work uniforms, maternity apparel, souvenir/keepsake clothing that you don’t wear, e.g. high school t-shirts, college sweaters, sports jackets.

3. Curtains, mini-blinds, and other window treatments or fixtures from past houses or apartments.

4. Old paint, stiff brushes, matted rollers, dirty rags, broken tools, extra hardware that came with assembly-required furniture, and the jumbled wires of electronics long-gone.

5. User-manuals to things you no longer own or have owned long enough to know how to use them! Think microwave, stove, stereo- you get it!

6. Colognes, after-shave, perfumes, make-up, lotions, bath salts, and the like, that you don’t like, don’t use or don’t wear.

7. Pens that skip, dried out markers, broken crayons, chewed-up pencils, used fun pads, puzzle and coloring books, and notebooks with a few empty pages- just in case you run out of scrap paper- lol.

8. Odd socks and gloves and ripped pantyhose that have long since been replaced.

9. Greeting cards, wedding/baby announcements, pictures, postcards, and other memorabilia from/of people you don’t remember.

10. Outdated calendars, datebooks, portfolios, and organizers.