Conquering Clutter
b'America has 3% of the world\\u2019s kids\\u2026 and 40% of the world\\u2019s toys. We\\u2019ve got clutter, right here in River City.\\nIn our opinion the best decluttering advice, from Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist, is to \\u201cslow the accumulation of new possessions.\\u201d In other words, don\\u2019t let all that junk in the front door in the first place.\\n\\nBut assuming your household missed that memo\\u2014 as ours both have\\u2014 in this episode we discuss:\\n\\n* non-vehicular nonsense\\n* our kids\\u2019 anxiety about purging toys, even long-forgotten ones\\n* the personal blind spots we have when clutter-clearing (Margaret has T-shirts from HIGH SCHOOL)\\n* the procrastination-enabling, problem-compounding reality of owning a storage unit\\n* the great unused potential of the back of your closet doors\\n* why the roasting pan you use once a year can become your toy room\\u2019s greatest strategy\\n* the surprisingly plausible \\u201csuper-fun cleaning party\\u201d\\n\\nAmy organizes a little bit at a time; she thinks emptying a junk drawer a day is the key to a tidy home.\\xa0Margaret says her house is way beyond the help afforded by cleaning out her makeup bag on a Tuesday afternoon. But wherever you lie on the clutter continuum, this episode is full of ideas for eating that elephant. One delicious bite at a time.\\nHere\\u2019s some links to research and resources discussed in this episode:\\n\\n* the UCLA social science study in 2012 that shows our collective clutter-induced doom: Life at Home in the 21st Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors\\n* \\u201clow self-worth apparel\\u201d\\xa0as defined by creativity guru Julia Cameron\\n* the \\u201cdecluttering burst,\\u201d from\\xa0Courtney Carver of Be More With Less\\n* the \\u201c30 Day Declutter Challenge,\\u201d from Liz Neiman of the Love and Marriage Blog\\n* from Beth Teitel for the Boston Globe: Today\\u2019s Families are Prisoners of Their Own Clutter \\n\\nThis episode is brought to you by Blinkist, which distills the best takeaways of popular non-fiction into 15- minute \\u201cblinks\\u201d you can listen to or read while you\\u2019re on the go. Check out decluttering \\u201cblinks\\u201d like Marie Kondo\\u2019s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up or Julie Morgenstern\\u2019s Organizing from the Inside Out with our special code: http://bit.ly/freshblinkist.\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'