{"id":13153,"date":"2008-07-08T16:03:31","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T23:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/07\/08\/clearing-the-underbrush.html"},"modified":"2008-07-08T16:03:31","modified_gmt":"2008-07-08T23:03:31","slug":"clearing_the_underbrush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/07\/08\/clearing_the_underbrush.html","title":{"rendered":"Clearing the underbrush"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Minor diversion: I was trying to remember how to spell a word I know for clutter \/ hodgepodge \/ knicknacks — “hassarai<\/em>” — but I couldn’t find it anywhere on line in all the different combos of s’s and z’s and vowels I could think of. I eventually found one variant spelling that led me to the source — a Yiddish word, spelled about eleventy different ways, meaning “garbage, junk, leavings”: chazeray, khazeray, chazerai, chazzerei<\/em>, etc. Supposedly from khazer<\/em>, “pig,” from the Hebrew hazzir<\/em>. Noted here for future reference.)<\/small> <\/p>\n

So Doyce sent me (he claimed there were other folks BCCed) an email about a keen-sounding book on clutter management — not how to store stuff better or more efficiently, but about looking at what you do have and deciding what it means to you, why you have it, why you want to keep it, and how to let go of it.<\/p>\n

Ahem. <\/small> <\/p>\n

So anyone who knows Margie and I knows that we are, indeed, pack rats. We rarely throw anything away, and we aren’t good about putting away the things we don’t throw away. I don’t know if it’s some deep-seated insecurity, or laziness, or what, but there it is.<\/p>\n

The thing is, we both come from well-organized, tidy households. So it’s definitely not our parents’ fault, if nothing else. And the fact is, we both feel really good when we get things tidied up, and when we get rid of things that we realize we don’t need any more, and see the space that results (which in turn makes it a lot easier to tidy up).<\/p>\n

So why don’t we do it more? Again, not sure.<\/p>\n

I went through a small exercise on this over the past weekend. We have significant amounts of book shelving up on the loft (indeed, it’s worth noting that most of the home improvement projects — nearly all of them — have been about increasing our storage in one way or another). We’ve compensated for this space by acquiring significant numbers of books (just like adding lanes to a freeway only generates more cars, dropping the speed down to what it was before the project).<\/p>\n

We had X amount of space allocated to hardcover fiction books, back when the shelves went up. In the last 12 years, we roughly tripled the number of hardcover books we had. Some were just new books, some were replacements for paperbacks that had worn out (if I have a paperback wearing out, it’s a sign that I can probably justify buying a used hardcover to replace it — and I do replace them). The fact is, that the price differential between paperbacks and hardcovers has dropped a lot over the years, esp. if you look on the discount tables. But I digress.<\/p>\n

So anyway, for the last four or five years, the hardcover fiction book space has been largely unusable because the extra books we’d bought that didn’t fit on the shelf just got stacked up in front of what was there. Add in prolonged periods when the shelving itself was blocked because of other projects coming along, and we might as well not have had any of those books in the first place.<\/p>\n

Well, the loft has been in pretty good order for a few months now, so, inspired, I went ahead and shuffled a bunch of stuff around, made the space more efficient — and tripled the amount of space allocated to hardcover fiction — which includes room to grow into.<\/p>\n

And it felt really neat. Especially when I discovered books I could get rid of (most likely to the local libarary). In a few embarrassing instances, they were duplicates (“huh, thought I’d already bought that one, but couldn’t find it”), but in many cases, they were books that I’d bought at some time in the past, and realize that I’ll never, ever read again (assuming I got around to reading in the first place).<\/p>\n

I’ve done this before with paperbacks, too. It actually feels really good, because it’s getting rid of stuff that’s costing, not helping. And someone else is going to benefit from it (one hopes), too.<\/p>\n

I need to do something similar with the hardcover non-fiction (of mine), and it’s probably time to take another swing past the paperbacks (of mine). <\/p>\n

You’ll notice I keep noting “mine,” even though, of course, what’s mine is Margie’s and vice-versa. But when it comes to books, or even other stuff, I’ve learned (the hard way) that making judgments about what’s “necessary” or “worth keeping” on stuff that I’m not absolutely certain she isn’t invested in is a rather inconsiderate (to say the least) thing to do. I wouldn’t want her making decisions about which graphic novels I’m not going to read again. I shouldn’t be doing the same for her mystery paperbacks.<\/p>\n

Ideally, it’s a project we’d do together — but it’s one where both of us have to have the time, energy, and inclination. And, for pack rats, no matter how good it feels afterward, it’s still hard work, which means after a long day of work — or on a weekend when one wants to relax — it’s not at the top of the list of things to do. Which means (for us) it’s something we probably need to try and schedule time toward.<\/p>\n

At any rate, yes, the principles laid out in the book Doyce recommends (It’s All Too Much<\/em><\/a>, by Peter Walsh) sound really good, and I should probably look at it, though, in some ways, it’s preaching to the choir. I.e., I know I have “a problem,” and I have a pretty decent idea of what we need to do to reduce our clutter (as does Margie). We need to (to borrow a phrase from another medium) “just do it.”<\/p>\n

But maybe not today. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Minor diversion: I was trying to remember how to spell a word I know for clutter \/ hodgepodge \/ knicknacks — “hassarai” — but I couldn’t find it anywhere on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-improvement"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":18892,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/10\/12\/junk-word-collection.html","url_meta":{"origin":13153,"position":0},"title":"Junk (word) collection","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-Oct-10 2:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And now for today's Yiddish lesson (with help from Google). The Word: Hazerai, hazarai, khazeray, chazerai, chazeray, chozzerai [\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05e8\u05f2\u05b7] (from hazer, chazer, khazir, khazer, \"pig\") The Pronounciation: \/khoz zair EYE\/ ... khaz'\u2219er\u2219ay ... khah-zoor-ahy ... The Definition:\u00a0 junk, junk food (food\/scraps fit for pigs), unpalatable food, garbage, trash, junk, rubbish,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Home Improvement"","block_context":{"text":"Home Improvement","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/home-improvement"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/clutter-203x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13532,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/20\/makes_you_long_for_hangin.html","url_meta":{"origin":13153,"position":1},"title":"Makes you long for hanging chads","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 20-Nov-08 1:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So you think you could cut through the vote recount clutter in Minnesota and quickly come a conclusion about all those challenged ballots? Take the MPR challenge and see....","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/lizardpeople-vote.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4245,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/10\/09\/one_week.html","url_meta":{"origin":13153,"position":2},"title":"One Week","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 9-Oct-03 8:08am","format":false,"excerpt":"The dining room table, and the floor around it, have been clean, devoid of clutter, crap, and cruft ... for one whole week. Now, that may not sound like much...","rel":"","context":"In "Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137698,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/19\/elementary.html","url_meta":{"origin":13153,"position":3},"title":"Elementary!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 19-Jan-19 8:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Very cool. Originally shared by +Chris Kim A: A classroom chart bearing an early version of the periodic table of elements has been discovered in a University of St. Andrews chemistry lab. Dating back to the 1880s, the chart is thought to be the world\u2019s oldest.The storage room of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16204,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/11\/17\/re-tweet-update.html","url_meta":{"origin":13153,"position":4},"title":"Re-Tweet Update","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 17-Nov-09 1:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So I'm part of the beta group in Twitter who are getting the New, Improved Re-Tweet interface. I cautiously approve -- it should reduce clutter within RTs and clarify the paths for them, plus allow RTs that are full-length Tweets. On the other hand, it's one more bit of complexity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"How RTs will look in the new interface","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/retweet.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24812,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/24\/the-gift-of-experience.html","url_meta":{"origin":13153,"position":5},"title":"The gift of experience","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 24-Dec-11 10:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"A fun story about how experiential gifts -- from jet rides to massages -- are gaining thriving vs. adding more tchotchkes to the lives of friends and families. I think that's a good thing, honestly. Those memories may well be more, um, memorable than more stuff. And they don't clutter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}