How did we get here? Only a few years ago, you had to read a magazine in the waiting room of the doctor's office or commiserate with fellow patients over your ailments.  At the airport, you talked with other travelers about where they had been or were going or daydreamed while watching the planes take off and land.  Today, each of us carries a handheld device with a screen that displays a...

While I typically invite you to think rather than tell you what to do, it would be a dereliction of duty to deprive you of my favorite decluttering principle. Rather than agonize over emotional, space, and financial considerations, I recommend a simple use standard.  If I have not used it in a year, I free it from the confines of my home by repurposing it or performing an interment.        The...

Now that you are a faithful sentinel guarding your homestead against an invasion by anything you will not effectively use and removing an existing item for each new one you bring in, you can turn your attention to repurposing the unused objects trespassing in your home.   I do not write “dispose of” as that implies loss.  Repurposing gives an item another useful life, redirecting it to someone...

You do not need to be a television show-worthy hoarder to have far more than you use.  A cursory review of our closets, kitchen drawers, and garages provides ample evidence for all but the most fastidious.   I am not approaching this subject from a moral or value standpoint, criticizing extravagant spending.  No, my approach is practical.  We should avoid the money squandered, environmental...

Each of us can point to circumstances not of our own doing to justify a lack of accomplishment (economically poor family, "bad" parents, fat genes, surname ends in a vowel, etc.).  All of them may be an impairment, but do not consign us to defeat.  By taking responsibility for our response, we may prevail against them.  They Did It Bad upbringing?  Oprah rose above an impoverished childhood and...