Getting rid of things has got to be one of the most liberating things we can do.  It’s also a great way to start the new year.  When your space is clean, you aren’t feeling identified by your stuff.  You aren’t distracted by things, and you really get the chance to feel creative.  Many of you told me clutter is the biggest deterrent to your inspiration, and it’s easy to see why.  

I don’t know about you, but the hardest thing to control at our house is paper.  It’s a project that Never Ends.  Piles seem to grow themselves like weeds.  That’s why we have a simple motto to try to keep things under control:  

Don’t bring stuff into the house in the first place.

It’s a New Year’s Resolutions that does double duty to keep that paper under control.  It makes your life simpler and, by total default, greener.  Shall we get started?

1. Get Off of Mailing Lists for Junk Mail

How many catalogues and fliers do you and I get in the mail?  All we have to do is order one thing and we’re on the company mailing list forever.  It’s annoying.  You glance at some of the catalogues and requests for donations.  You toss most of them.  Why not keep that clutter from entering your house? 

Call and get your name off mailing lists.  I started about two years ago.  Now when we come back to the US, our waiting mail pile is small and tidy.  We’re helping the environment because those ads that we’d just toss aren’t coming to our house.  One less ad is produced with virgin trees and nasty chemicals, shipped with fossil fuel, and tossed in our trash pile.  And, umm… it’s a really great project to work on when things get slow at the office.

2. Avoid Generic Junk Mail

In Berlin, students are often hired to go to apartment buildings and put advertisements in everyone’s mailboxes.  We got at least an ad or two a day until we put this sign on our box:

(Meaning: Please No Junk Mail!)

Stickers like these are pretty common in Berlin.  I imagine there’s got to be a solution for keeping ads out of your mailbox in places that don’t speak German, too.  (This is where you come in.)  Any ideas for reducing junk mail that enters your house?  One company, Catalog Choice, supposedly helps people in the US.  Do you know any other tricks?

There’s no better time than today to start bringing a little peace into our lives, and one less advertisement would certainly do it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 9:45 am and is filed under How to: Livin' with Less, How to: Living Eco-Savvy, How to: Thrifty Tricks, Our World: Berlin Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.