Day 4: Simplicity Challenge

Throw Away Newspapers and Magazines

You're at the midway point or challenge hump day! You are halfway there, don't give up! Today we address the stacks of unused or old newspapers and magazines. I love print media, but not so much that I would let those products clutter my house. Purge your mags and papers!

1. Collect all your newspapers. Pick up the most recent paper and throw the rest away! Trust me, you will not have time to catch up or read all the others. You just won't! If you want to keep an article, clip it. Or if you want to keep a specific date because it showcases important news, fine keep it but STORE IT away. Otherwise, you should be left with today's paper. Everything else in the recycling! Put this paper somewhere it will be read.

2. Collect all your magazines and divide them by category (if you have many) or by magazine name. Pick the latest (that month's edition) magazines out of each category and trash the rest. If you like an article or an ad in a magazine that has to go, clip it and save it somewhere. If you , say work in fashion, obviously you can take these rules more loosely. For the rest of us, stick with the "one in, one out" rule and keep these magazines where they will be read, such as bathrooms, living rooms, etc. For every magazine in each category that comes in, another has to come out. If you have 50 magazines total, maybe you should consider cutting down on your subscriptions....

Aren't you glad you got rid of all those newspapers and magazines. Continue to keep only the most recent magazines and papers and your piles will never get out of hand.

Any remarkable success stories? Send them in, I'd love to share them here on my blog!

Day 3: Simplicity Challenge

Purge Your Pantry

Welcome to day three, where we tackle the pantry. Most people over stuff their pantry so much that they don't even realize how much of what they buy has already expired. Let's clear our the pantry today.

1. Take all of your food items out and give the pantry a good wipe down.

2. Sort through your items and classify them into 3 categories: Expired, Give Away, Keep. Food that has expired automatically toss out. Certain foods that you don't eat, see if your local pantry/food drive/friend/family will take them. If you have a gluten intolerance and have 4 bags of white flour, you can give those away.

3. Re-shelf your pantry, making sure to group like items and displaying items that expire first at the front. (We'll address pantry organization another time- for now work with what you have).

I bet after completing this task you'd be shocked at the free space in your pantry. Don't go restocking. Just because the space is there, doesn't mean it has to be filled. Think about NEEDS not wants.

Enjoy the clean pantry!

Day 2: Simplicity Challenge

Welcome to day 2! This is probably my most favorite task! Let's organize our bags!!!!!!!!

Bag Organization

We all have them and we all use them. Every time I head to buy groceries I get at least 4 plastic bags and if I buy clothing or shoes I always get a shopping bag! I can't run away from bags! Year ago, our under the sink cabinet was just full of bags. All colors, shapes, sizes, materials, etc. We used (and still use) most of the bags as trash bags so we never gave their storage much thought. If they are going to exit your house, what's the point of organizing them?! Boy were we wrong! One day we discovered we had a leaky pipe and that all of our bags were soaked in water  and covered in rust. After cleaning up the leaky mess we decided to control our bag situation. Here's how we did it:

1. Buy/reuse a basket to place in the cabinet's under your sink. Use this basket to store plastic bags. When you come home with plastic bags, knot each once and stick in the basket. You can use these bags for trash- you'll never have to buy garbage bags again!

2. Paper bags, which are not damaged, should be neatly folded and kept in a largish shopping bag. These are useful for say sending packaged food out of the house with guests, for storing paper to be recycled, or packing presents. Whatever your use, make sure to keep all paper bags together and in a dry nonflammable place.

3. Store reusable shopping bags in a tote or container. If you drive keep these in your trunk. If you use public transportation keep one foldable bag in your purse and the rest near the door so you can grab and go.

Voila, it's that simple! Send me before and after pictures of your bag organization.

Day 1: Simplicity Challenge

So happy you have decided to take the 7 Day Simplicity Challenge! I know at the end of the challenge you'll see the change in your house and you'll be so proud of yourself! Here's your first task:

Sort School Books

For those of us who have school books and textbooks, do you ever wonder what to do with them? If you haven't already sold your books, returned rented books, or donated them now is that time to do so. Filter through your books and keep the ones that you would be interested in keeping for your personal library collection, otherwise let go of those books.

7 Day Simplicity Challenge

7 Day Simplicity Challenge: DECLUTTER YOUR HOME

Sometimes when I think about ALL the cleaning and organizing that I have to do, I become overwhelmed. How can I possibly get to everything! It seems I can't make a dent in my increasing list of household duties. It's time to take control of the growing monster and simplify 7 spots in your house!
Take my simple 7 day challenge to decluttering!!! Everyday for one week, complete one task for 20 minutes after dinner. Challenge starts tomorrow- game on!

Can't Stop Procrastinating?

Ever find yourself procrastinating? Can't seem to start anything or finish anything? Procrastinating is basically delaying decisions and thus postponing actions. Beat your procrastination with this motivational exercise!

Pick 7 things you want to get accomplished. These activities shouldn't be massive- something realistic and accomplishable in a day. If it's something you have been putting off, write it down! I, for example, would pick:

1. Schedule doctor's appointment
2. Clean through makeup
3. Clear out closet for donation items (I don't have much to give away, thus this is a sensible choice for this exercise)
4. Create E-bay account and post items to sell (This might be ambitious- I might only take pictures of the items that I want to sell and create an account later)
5. Finish my book and order new book I want to read
6. Buy skirt hangers
7. Get started on my special case project by contacting lady to get her contact information

Once you have your 7 tasks or activities, write each on a separate piece of paper/sticky notes. Find yourself a hat, vase, box, or any kind of container and put these papers in there. Every morning pick out one task, at random, from the container and make that your goal for the day. One task is much simpler to complete and will make you less likely to procrastinate. Completing even one simple task makes you feel accomplished and eager to feel that sense of achievement again! Try it for 1 week and, if you like the results, try this exercise for a whole month! You need not have 30/31 tasks, but a few to get you started because you can always add more tasks as you go! For now, try the 7 day task exercise and see how far you get and if you feel motivated to keep completing tasks.

Wish you luck!

Control That Inbox

Does the above picture seem suspiciously familiar? Don't worry, you aren't the only one. Today I'll share my tips on clearing that inbox.

So let me start, once again with the idea of simplicity and of keeping your inbox at zero. It is important to go through your email every single day, if not multiple times, especially for your work email. Thanh Pham has a wonderful article on Asian Efficiency about managing email. Basically, he asserts that your inbox is not a storage place, but rather a temporary holding ground for email that needs to be attended to. He advises to create two folders, "Reply" and "Waiting," to be able to sort through your email. This is a FABULOUSLY simple plan for managing email! Any email that can be taken care of in 2 minutes goes in the reply folder while any email that needs additional processing time goes into the waiting folder. Simple, right?! If you'd like, please go read the article! I highly recommend it!

Now that you've developed a way to sort through mail, it's important to go through ALL your mail! Yes, all 99,999 emails have to be looked at! Sorry, buddy, ain't no easy way to go about that. It just has to happen. Break this task up throughout several days. Take two 30 minute daily sessions to clear through old email. Make sure that you are also clearing through new email as it comes in!

While you are clearing through email you should also be sorting it into categories, instead of simply archiving them. The categories will differ from person to person, but every person will have several. Think of these categories as ongoing conversations or ones that have already ceased. Say for example, you are a student that just finished interning at a law firm and  have many correspondence emails in your inbox. Create a folder that will specifically archive these emails. Don't just toss all those emails in that folder, decide which are important and should be kept. Remember, we aren't just relocating the mess, we are sorting through it. You might have many categories such as bills, bank statements, online receipts, etc. So again, let's say you ordered something from Amazon and have received an email confirmation for your order. Put that email in the "Waiting" folder. Once you get your package move that email to your "Receipts" folder. You might want to keep the email confirmation for a few months and then purge it. Some receipts you might not want to purge at all, for example large/expensive purchases whose receipts have been sent to your email.

These are my folders, which are also color coded.
 Please don't freak out when you read Mass Murder Inc.
It's a research project that I worked on- scary name, I know. 

Now that your necessary mail is sorted, what to do with all the junk mail? Most email providers already sort out some junk mail, but I bet you still receive a lot of mail that clutters your inbox. Maybe you purchased something from Company Y and now you constantly receive newsletters or promotional emails from them. Well, instead of just sending them to trash make sure they don't enter your inbox any more. Search at the bottom of these emails for an unsubscribe link or button. Click it and deselect yourself from all their promotional emails. If you do this to every unwanted email that comes into your inbox, in a month you'll see the difference! Also, as in regular snail mail, make sure that you use discretion when signing up for online services or making purchases. Look for options that let you deselect having promotional emails sent to you.

An example of what the unsubscribe section at the bottom of the email might look like. 

Having learned about managing your inbox, do you feel any more powerful about tackling your emails? I hope so! Tell me of your success stories!

Bests,
TagukMook