The Clutter-Busting Handbook: Clean It Up, Clear It Out, And Keep Your Life Clutter-free - Softcover

Emmett, Rita

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802777171 ISBN 13: 9780802777171

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2005

Synopsis

THE CLUTTER-BUSTING HANDBOOK is a streamlined guide to uncluttering your life from the best-selling author of THE PROCRASTINATOR'S HANDBOOK. We are the clutter generation, inundated by a seemingly daily or weekly influx of clothes, accessories, gadgets, catalogs, mail, and e-mail. Clutter crowds our lives, is a chief source of stress, contributes to sidetracked dreams and opportunities, and can cause guilt and anxiety. If clutter is a problem in your life, then Rita Emmett--herself a reformed clutterer--can help you tame it. This concise, energizing guide gives readers insight and direction as well as proven tips, methods, and strategies that will change lives for the better. Emmett reveals the four primary causes of clutter; that cluttering is a habit that can be broken; the powerful connection between clutter and procrastination; how to help a pack rat part with unneeded objects; and how to prevent clutter from returning, forever. As entertaining as she is helpful, Emmett offers practical advice on separating what you need or truly want from what you have been hanging onto for the wrong reasons. Her combination of experience and good humor--based on her hundreds of seminars and advice received from people all over the country--will win over the most reluctant convert.

About this title

About the Author

Rita Emmett is a professional speaker whose seminars on “Conquering Procrastination” are immensely popular. Her clients have included AT&T, Mercedes-Benz, and the National Kidney Foundation. Ms. Emmett lives in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Reviews

Everyone has a corner in his or her home or office that has become a catchall for a wealth of "stuff." In this entertaining read, Emmett (The Procrastinator's Handbook) aides clutter collectors in identifying "When Enough Becomes Too Much" and doles out advice on how to achieve and maintain an inviting and airy living space. A "Recovered Pack Rat," Emmett argues that living or working in a cluttered environment can take a toll on one's physical and emotional well being: "When you are surrounded by confusion, you feel confused; when you are surrounded by junk, you feel junky." This slim but thorough book helps readers tackle problem areas like closets and garages, and also includes tips on emptying e-mail accounts and clearing out ordinary paper clutter. Emmett lists 50 ways to get rid of and limit unwanted items, naming various charities and online auctions and making suggestions such as share magazine subscriptions with friends. Throughout, she includes helpful "clutter quizzes" that identify bad habits and gives readers practical tips on how to remain focused. With its sound advice and upbeat, encouraging tone, this book will motivate readers to get a jump on their spring cleaning.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Clutter-Busting Handbook

Clean It Up, Clear It Out, and Keep Your Life Clutter-FreeBy Rita Emmett

Walker & Company

Copyright © 2005 Rita Emmett
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780802777171

Chapter One

Computer Clutter

Some people say that the single best paper-clutter reducer is the computer. Well, it’s true that a piece of paper can be tossed once it’s entered into the computer, but then what about all that computer clutter?

All of the principles for getting control of paper apply to computer clutter as well. To say that you will return to an e-mail and handle it later is exactly the same as setting down a paper on your desk and putting off that decision.

Address the following areas of computer clutter each week. Delete:

• cookies (that is, text files stored on your computer from Web sites you’ve visited)*
• temporary Internet files
• contents of your recycle bin for PC or trash file for Macs
• junk mail
• old e-mails that mean nothing to you now
• old versions of any new programs you have installed
• cartoons and goofy pictures that your friends have sent you, and anything else in your download directory you don’t need

And just as with paper files, give your computer files names that mean something to you so you’ll be able to retrieve them.

Another tip: If you just need to skim a file, try to do so on the screen and avoid printing it out. Otherwise, you will have added to your paper clutter.

*Cookies can track how often you visit a site, or save your logon name and password. Sometimes these files include graphics and sound files that gobble up a lot of computer memory.

E-mails
“I’ll finish reading all my new e-mails first. Then I’ll come back and reply to this one.” Such a plan inevitably leads to wild e-clutter. Treat e-mail – whether at home or at work – as you would treat your snail mail.

• Delete the junk mail without opening or reading it.
• Make decisions about e-mails the minute you open them.
• Reply to every one that you can right away.
• The ones that you cannot reply to immediately should be put in an “Urgent” file so you can get to them as soon as you have the time.
• After replying to an e-mail, delete it or set up a file folder for it.
• Rather than carrying each person’s e-mail to individual folders, group them in categories (friends, work, special interests, clutter tips, awaiting response)
• Don’t get sucked into forwarding jokes, poems, and stories when you don’t have the time to do so.
• Every time you start to write an e-mail, ask yourself, “Do I have time to do this? Is this the best use of my time right now?”

Continues...

Excerpted from The Clutter-Busting Handbookby Rita Emmett Copyright © 2005 by Rita Emmett. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802777171
• ISBN 13: 9780802777171
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208