Welcome to the brand new year, in a brand new decade! Doesn’t it make you want to get things all spick-and-span and orderly, to start 2010 fresh?
We Americans are lucky – most of us have too much stuff. It’s a good problem to have, really–and a good problem to solve. De-cluttering experts recommend some general rules of thumb:
- Handle every piece of paper that comes into your house only once.
- Don’t bring anything home that you don’t have a place and purpose for.
- For every new possession that enters your house, one must leave.
This can translate into some simple actions: have a recycling bin for paper near the place where you sort your mail when you bring it in the house; visualize where something will go (and what it will be used for) before you purchase it; and for every book you get, send one out!
It’s a great time to get organized, actually. If the behavior of past years is any predictor, Wish List books are going to be pouring into the system for the next couple of months, as folks read their Christmas and Chanukah presents and post them. You don’t want to miss your Wish List book because you don’t have credits. So now’s the time to go through your book shelves/piles/mountains and post the books you will not read again (and that meet club criteria for swapping, of course). Get them out of your house and into the next reader’s happy hands, and get credits for your upcoming PBS orders!
Those of you who are buried under snow, we wish you well! Be careful if you have to drive, keep warm, and remember that a cup of hot chocolate and a good book can go a long way toward curing the winter blues. Don’t forget the marshmallows – life is too short to skimp on the marshmallows.
To all of our members: Let’s have a wonderful 2010!
Richard
and the PaperBackSwap Team
Tags: 2010, Cleaning House, Decluttering
