Did you know your clutter might be costing you $3000+ a year? Proposterous you say! Maybe, for some of us, but for a lot of disorganized people, the time spent tripping over accumulated junk and searching through papers is quite literally costing dollars. “In a recent survey of 200 executives of 1,000 of the nation’s largest companies, respondents were asked: ‘What percent of time do executives waste because they or their assistants can’t find things?’ The median response was 4.3 hours a week, based on a 40-hour week.” (When Time’s Money, Organizing Pays Off) At a salary of $30,000, the cost of searching for important papers, measured in lost time, is about $3,376 per year. Ouch. What’s worse is that even if you’re an organized person, the act of being so when you own more than you need still wastes time and money.
Before I eliminated all the time wasting actions in my life, I eliminated all the time wasting products I owned. The old running sneakers in your closet and that cashback coupon you can’t seem to find is starting to take its toll. It’s a fact, living with less, means less to manage. Less to manage translates into a lifestyle that naturally saves you money. It also keeps you free to change your lifestyle and travel without the worry of included baggage, insurance against damage, the need replace things when their lost, etc. It’s stunning how much “stuff” we own that we don’t use. I’ve had a practice over the last 6 months to “minimize” what I no longer need. It fits in perfectly with phase 2 of lifestyle design testing, elimination.
Actions: Evaluate how being disorganized and owning that which you don’t use is costing you. Sell or trash junk you haven’t used in months.
Goals: Live better, cheaper, and more organized with less to manage.
I understand why a lot of lifestyle designers promote living with less. Several of them are some sort of digital nomad, traveling from place to place working through the internets, but some are like Leo Babauta with 5 kids, and realize that it just makes sense. I won’t kill this idea, because its been done, but here’s my practice, one that will start you on the road to living with less. It will increase your productivity and save you money, upping your abilities to live differently.
The idea is straight forward. Evaluate what you own, if it’s not something you’ve used in the last 3 months or is completely seasonal, sell it, craigslist it, or trash it. Here’s what it looked like for me just last month…
- Craigslist sold 4 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, an old cell phone, an old router, a keyboard, and some computer memory. I trashed 6 pairs of sneakers I somehow thought I would use again, or needed as “backups” which have traveled with me across the country and through three different apartments, completely useless in all of them. I realized I have about 35 t-shirts and only wear about 11 of them, I threw out 8 of them. In the end, I freed up space in my closet, made roughly $55 and save a few pieces of furniture could fit everything I own in a medium sized truck.
What’s it look like for you?