I was digging in the archives of 365 yesterday looking for another post when I came upon this little gem. I decided to share it with you again because this strategy has proven useful, at times, in convincing my loved ones to declutter some things. I hope it will work for you. Recently I was let in on a strategy on how to state a case or perhaps even get another person to come around to your way of thinking without their sensibilities being offended. The idea is to get people to think rationally about a subject without them realising that you are leading them in a direction they may not have … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Doing Christmas Differently Next Year
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom My girlfriend R stopped by my house two days before Christmas, looking mighty cross. She started spewing about how aggravated she was to be buying gifts for her many family members "just to be buying them something." Her family is Jewish, and they celebrate Hanukkah as well. She'd tried to tell her brother that they shouldn't exchange gifts, but his response was "Too late. I've already bought you something." In addition, they don't drawn names or limit giving to children, so everyone is giving a gift to everyone! R was definitely not feeling the holiday spirit. Here … [Read more...]
The Leading Question Strategy
Recently I was let in on a strategy on how to state a case or perhaps even get another person to come around to your way of thinking without their sensibilities being offended. The idea is to get people to think rationally about a subject without them realising that you are leading them in a direction they may not have considered. The trick is to broach the topic in the form of a question that you quite likely have the same opinion on. Once you are in agreement you steer the conversation, maybe even in the form of another question, in the direction in which you want it to go. Successfully … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom – Reaching into the Archives
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom I revisted the archives from September 1, 2010 for this post. It was titled "Cindy's Take on Avoiding Recluttering." This time I have published it with gift buying in mind. As appropriate, insert "the gift recipient" in place of "I" It’s bound to happen sometime; you’re going to have to break down and buy something. Before you do, consider these factors: Do I need it? Do I want it? Did I come into the store looking for this item, or did it just catch my eye? Would I be criticized if my spouse or family members knew that I had purchased this? Can I … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom – Alternatives to Gift Wrap
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom I am coming to the end of a multi-year Use It Up Challenge: To use up all the copious amounts of wrapping paper that I purchased on sale after Christmas like clockwork every December 27. TreeHugger has a great article on holiday waste and sites estimates of 4 million tons of wrapping paper and gift bags thrown away. My girl friend Corinna has made cloth bags that she reuses year after year. She does a lot of sewing and cloth crafts so my guess is that she was able to make these bags with remnants. Here are great step-by-step instructions; even a non-sewer can … [Read more...]
My ten tips for simplifying Christmas
Below are ten guidelines I follow to simplify my Christmas. They don't guarantee a stress free Christmas but they sure do help. Neither do they eliminate outside pressures to conform to the rest of society but we can make changes to better suit our princles. I hope you find them helpful as it is possible to have a very merry Christmas without all the expense, over indulgence, stress and clutter. Get organised ahead of time. Whether you have big plans or small the more you have sorted ahead of time the smoother everything will run and the more relaxed you will be when the festivities … [Read more...]
Mini Mission Monday ~ Get ready for Christmas
Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and "fun" for you to achieve some quick decluttering. This week at 365 Less Things we are launching a preemptive strike on the Christmas/holiday season. Time to do some pre-holiday decluttering and organising so when you break out those decorations, the guests arrive and the presents are opened, there is enough room to accommodate them. The more … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom – Decluttering Christmas
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom Please don't call me Scrooge, but I hate decorating for Christmas. In fact, I hate decorating for all holidays. To me, it falls under the category "another darn thing I have to do." So last year, I decided it was time to change that. I pulled everything out of the attic at one time. My hope was to get everything back into just the plastic bins and get rid of the boxes; that seemed like a reasonable level of reduction to me. I started early in December, wanting to be sure that anything that went to the thrift store had time to be resold before the end of December … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom – I’m Stocking Up For Christmas, Are You?
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom I've started stocking up for Christmas. I'm not entirely sure this is a good idea. In the past, when my children were younger, I'd sometimes see something six months before Christmas that I thought would make a good gift. By the time Christmas came 'round, I'd realized that my child was too old / too young / no longer interested in X, so now my gift needed to be re-gifted. (Do you call it re-gifting when it's never even been gifted once?) My caution about stocking up is compounded by my once good idea that went bad on me: Having a gift box full of a choice of generic … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Gift Buying Traps – Don’t Fall In!
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom Perhaps you're rushing about, buying some last minute gifts and stretching your brain to figure out what to purchase. Beware! There are gift buying pitfalls that you should avoid. They're the route to clutter for the recipient and likely a waste of money for you. Read before you buy! Trap One: Here Comes Another One, Just Like the Other One Susie enjoys her subscription to Better Homes and Gardens, so she'd surely enjoy a subscription to Good Housekeeping as well. Leslie has a life-figures drawing book that she really enjoys. Surely she'll enjoy another book and maybe … [Read more...]