Fifty Ways To Leave Your Clutter: Part Two

In case you missed Part One, here it is: Fifty Ways To Leave Your Clutter: Part One

Here are 11-20 – Check back next week for the next installment!

11. Post on an email list of a local group. It is amazing what people will come and haul away.
12. Find a place to pass on your old computer and other high-tech goodies. Even though you paid big bucks for them, when they become useless, it doesn’t make sense to hang on to them. They aren’t going to have a miraculous healing or rise from the dead. Call the people who service your computer and ask for information about charities or recycling centers that can use, recycle or refurbish old computers and other techie toys.

~~ How About a Trade, Wade ~~
13. Create an exchange – magazines, books, coupons, whatever. Take a box to work and start a swap by placing a sign on the box inviting others to contribute and to help themselves.
14. Have a “trade party”. For example, invite your friends over who wear about the same size and style as you. Everyone puts out the give-away clothes and let everyone swap. Or have a poker night for those CD’s you haven’t played in decades. (I’ll see your Rod Stewart and raise you one Duran Duran) Donate the leftovers.

~~ Choose to Donate, Kate ~~
15. Find a worthy cause and donate to it. Donations won’t make money, but you might get a receipt to use as a tax deduction. No matter what you contribute, someone will love it.
Whatever you give out comes back to you. If you give things away with
kindness and a generous heart, kindness and generosity will come back to
you. Maybe not from the same place you gave your things to, but it will
come back to you from somewhere.
Bill, a salesman, said an amazing amount of pens flow into his life
and it would break his heart to just throw them out, but he truly
accrues more pens than any one person could use in a lifetime. One day
his chiropractor’s receptionist said that her pens always walk away.
Problem solved … for both of them.
Don’t forget to always call first before delivering your donation. Put the
donations where you’ll trip over them when you’re heading out to your car.

Some places that would love your donations:
• Salvation Army
• Goodwill, Inc.
• Synagogues, Churches and St. Vincent DePaul Society
• Thrift shops that raise funds for worthy causes
• Shelters for the Homeless or for Battered or Abused Women
• Foster homes
• Hospitals – magazines, gently used toys or clothes (especially sweats for patients in the ER who’ve had their clothes cut off or ruined)
• Doctors offices – magazines, ball point pens, toys for a “kiddie korner”
• Nursing homes – craft supplies, plants, magazines, blankets or afghans, anything that might brighten up a day for someone who never has visitors. (You might even deliver it in person and visit with a lonely soul)
• Quilting guilds or sewing classes at schools can use your material and needlework supplies
• College students might want your old cookware, silverware, lots of stuff. Ask
• Any fund-raiser that has a “Silent Auction” would love your unused items that are still in their original boxes.
• Schools can use art or office supplies, materials for decorations or class projects, Also might want crafts or something to keep kids busy until their parents are home from work.
• Theater Groups – furniture, wall hangings, clothes, jewelry
• Animal shelters – old towels/linens for animal bedding or cleaning up
• Books can be donated to libraries for the “Friends of the Library” fund raisers, or to school libraries for the students to use.
• Some charities will accept or even pick up old cars, office equipment and furniture.

~ They’ll Come to You, Lou ~~
You will have to bring your give-aways to most places. However, in some areas, there are groups that will put you on their calling list and phone you every six weeks or so, when their truck will be in your neighborhood. All you have to do is put your bags or boxes of stuff outside and they will pick it up.
16. Call Disabled Veterans, Viet Nam Veterans, Purple Heart Veterans, Amvets or Salvation Army to come and pick up

~~ Dispose Where It’s Safe, Raphe ~~
17. Contact your town clerk or sanitation department to check where you can safely dispose of environmentally hazardous materials such as old batteries, motor oil, paints, insecticides, aerosol spray cans, and so forth.

~~ Call People Who Know, Beau ~~
If you don’t know how to find a worthy cause in your area,
18. Call those folks who know, such as:
• Librarians
• Village or Town Clerk
• Clergy
• Community Leaders
• Aldermen
• Family Service Center

~~ Help Those in Need, Reed ~~
19. Set up in your home (or at work) a big plastic bag or a box. Give this donation container a place to belong – a closet, pantry, corner of the garage. That way, anytime anyone makes the decision to get rid of something, they can put it in the donation container. (or the container can be for your next garage sale.)
20. Use creativity when you give to others. Misha, a nurse, delivered to a Battered Woman’s Shelter six old suitcases, each with a stuffed animal inside. She explained to our seminar group that although the suitcases were “un-trendy” they were better than the plastic bags many of the women carried their belongings in. When someone asked her what if the woman didn’t have a child to receive the stuffed animal, she replied that most women in these circumstances would welcome a teddy bear to cuddle. Don’t you love the creativity and caring?

Rita Emmett is a “Recovered Pack Rat”, a Professional Speaker, and best-selling author of The Procrastinator’s Handbook; and The Clutter-Busting Handbook.
Go to www.RitaEmmet.com for info on Stress Management, Procrastination and Clutter. You will find books, CDs, DVDs and even on-line courses.
To subscribe to her free monthly “Anticrastination Tip Sheet” with quick short tips & ideas to help break the procrastination habit, go to the first page of her website www.RitaEmmett.com. Rita can be reached at 847-699-9950 or REmmett412@aol.com.