Clutter's Last Stand

Fly Lady is helping me with how to de-clutter and Don Aslett in Clutter's Last Stand is radically altering my thinking on what I need to not have. You can order a used copy from Amazon for under $3 plus shipping. Or, instead of buying it, you can read a little here. He talks about junkees who have junk bunkers for their stuff. Here are a few quotes from Aslett:

• Why wait until clutter has choked you to death before casting it off?
• "But these things are valuable," you say? What about the value of the life and time to store, to clean, to insure, to transport, to protect--what does that cost?

• Remember, it's not just "Is it faster or neater?" but "How often will I use it?"
• School teachers, too, are right in the running for the Junk World Series. (LOL, I'm a retired teacher who substitutes and thinks I might need some of my junk when I sub.)
• Junk doesn't generate self-esteem or fulfill our ambitions--only we can do that. "Owning" is like theory, totally worthless if not put to use.
• The secret is to assemble the most meaningful documents and materials, prune them down [into scrapbooks or write a book as I did].                                     
• Leaving junk to a family is often more an act of revenge than of love. It's pathetic how families are broken apart, divided into a mass of quarreling maniacs squabbling and suing over dead people's junk. . . Don't burden someone else with your junk. Spend it, give it away, sell-it--don't leave for heaven with it. Cash in your clutter before you crash--start at age forty-five just to be safe.
• Most of us wear only about 20 percent of the clothes in our closets.
• Anything that crowds the life out of you is junk. Anything that builds, edifies, enriches our spirit--that makes us truly happy, regardless of how worthless it may be in cash terms--isn't junk.
• De-junking is a true miracle that will happen to you; and I guarantee it's the best anti-depressant going.

In the last chapter Asletts quotes Matthew 6:25, 28-29; Ecclesiastes 5:10  and Ecclesiastes 3:1-6. A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

I have a poem from chapter nine in my book that I rap for good classes when I subsititute and last week in one class the students who knew I was working on a humorous speech on clutter (but clutter's not funny) suggested I write a new rap on the clutter of us old people. Mind you, some of them have cluttered bedrooms, they say, but our generation introduced houses with more storage and holds on to old technology. Yesterday the high school students enjoyed it. It is in draft form here, and I have yet to memorize it and polish it for the rap. It is written from the viewpoint of a young person.

Grandma and Grandpa

Mom and Dad

Can we have this discussion

Without repercussion?

We know you might be busy

But some of your junk might be risky

And you are stuck

With the junk

In the trunk

Bins, baskets and boxes galore
Mucho papers might ignite

A horrible eye sore

Get it out and take a peek

We know this will take

More than just a week

No more shoulder pad

Move to a new fad
And all the vests you had

Junk just makes us mad

The world is now digital

No more rigid you all

Slides no longer square and small

Slides on Power Point that’s all

Put your books on Kindle

Just make DVDs a rental

No more overhead projector

An Elmo we expect director.

Old technology is all junk

Old technology smells like a skunk

Get you some spunk

Get rid of that junk

Get rid of that mail

Have a garage sale

To fund our education

So we can help the nation

Call yourself mature?

Saving stuff is not a cure

Want less to dust for sure?

Junk is like manure

All this clutter

Makes us sputter

But, if we can help you

Make the house look new

Then no more clutter

Will make us sputter

Grandma and Grandpa

Mom and Dad

Can we have this discussion

Without repercussion?