New Year's Project: Clearing out the Clutter

Have you ever had nightmares about being in a confined space, or a weight pressing down on you? This is how I feel about clutter. It's hard for me to sleep in a room full of clutter, and I've had nightmares about the day I will have to clean out the rooms full of papers, nick-nacks, clothes, gadgets, appliances and junk from my parents' house. Sometimes I wonder if firemen or paramedics would be able to help my parents in an emergency amidst the clutter.

I don't buy the argument that people who never get rid of anything are thrifty. When you can't find something, you run out and get a new one. Or spend an hour looking for it.

Over the holidays, I've been de-cluttering my house. Boxes of stuff went to Goodwill, bags of papers went to the shredder, cupboards were organized, and junk got tossed.

Getting rid of things I didn't need or enjoy was key, otherwise, I'd have wasted my time shuffling things from pile to pile and room to room and cramming things into closets and drawers. There's still more to do, but I'm seeing the benefits from what I've done: I'm more relaxed in my house and I'm more organized, which saves time. I don't spend as much time looking for things, and I'm less likely to buy something I already have.

Even though my house is only 800 square feet (74 square meters), I have plenty of room to work out and fix meals. The last owners, a husband and wife, moved to have more room for their stuff. A mutual friend said the husband ended up regretting selling this house, which had been his grandparents' home. Time was when parents raised their kids in houses this size (many still do). No doubt, it had something to do with young adults wasting no time moving out, and the rarity of 30-year-old offspring moving back in.

A few ideas I've used to organize the stuff I kept:

Unconventional places for storage. Towels and hot rollers don't have to go in the bathroom.

By keeping the fridge cleaned out, I don't have to run out and buy more food storage containers.

Beautiful containers where they'll be seen. This is where I store things to take to Goodwill.

De-clutter the counters, and there's no need for a big kitchen. Ever wonder how chefs make enough food in a single car for a train full of people ? They must be organized.

My research and writing center...

...which is also my dog's gym.

Comments

30-second Fix for a Cracked Stick Blender

Use Mighty Fixit (if you still have some from 2012) or Rescue Tape (which looks like a similar product) to fix a cracked stick blender. After I fixed the attachment, I washed it in the sink and the tape held up. I also wrapped a knife handle several years ago, and it's been through thousands of washings.

Moving on to YouTube

Remember when the blogosphere was a wild ride? Doctors, writers and researchers dove into research, picked apart studies and stood up to official advice and conventional wisdom that didn't work. We found each other in the comments and made a community. Along the way, Dr. T. Colin Campbell's research got exposed as shoddy by an English major, Tom Naughton made us laugh, "safe starch" fads made us scratch our heads, "Diabetes Warrior" Steve Cooksey almost went to jail, CarbSane trolled everyone who was anyone, and CarbSaneR trolled the troll. Now it's very quiet. Blogs don't come up in Google search results anymore and even if they did, most of the bloggers have stopped writing. That's why I've moved on to YouTube. Videos do come up in search results and my shorts--which are mostly what I make--get pushed out to hundreds of people or more. My videos are on food and health (biohacking), but also on growing things and fixing things. If you...

Holiday Dinner Tip from Restaurant Pros: Limit the Menu

After watching some people online getting freaked out about trying to put on holiday dinners and getting overwhelmed to the point that they're thinking about canceling the whole thing, I thought I'd put out a restaurant tip that will help people put on a dinner with less aggravation. A big complaint among the frustrated home cooks I've seen is that family members are not contributing to the dinner. But a bigger problem I see is that their menu is just too big. One lady's family is having her make 12 dishes all by herself, and some of these dishes look pretty complicated. Watch the video here or read on. The reason this is aggravating is that more dishes mean more shopping, more prep, and more cleanup. It's hard to make several dishes that will all be ready at the same time. Even though I used to be a prep cook at a restaurant, I've put on Thanksgiving dinners myself, and I cook from scratch almost every day, there's no way I'd try to make a 12-course di...

Fly with Reuteri

If you're planning to travel by plane and you want to keep enjoying the benefits of l. reuteri yogurt, you might have gotten sticker shock from the price of l. reuteri probiotics. MyReuteri * costs $46 to $83 for 30 capsules, depending on the CFUs (colony-forming units, or the number of viable microorganisms). If you're thinking about economizing by putting some yogurt in a sturdy container and taking it with you, you can do that. I'll break down the pros and cons and look at some alternatives. Photo from Unsplash . Cost Yogurt might be less expensive than probiotics, but it isn't free. A half-cup serving costs about 70¢ to make if you start with a previous batch. It contains about 90 billion CFUs if fermented for 36 hours. This is a lot less than $5.56 for two capsules of 50 billion CFU MyReuteri, but for a one-week vacation, you'd only save $34 by eating yogurt instead. (You can freeze any unused capsules for later.) Furthermore, the yogurt would have to go in ...

The Inner Circle Site is a Maze!

If you're a member of Dr. Davis's Inner Circle site, you know how hard it is to navigate. But I have a YouTube Playlist of videos I've created on using the site--finding yogurt recipes, using the search function, uploading lab tests, finding which lab tests you should take, and more. All videos are under 11 minutes, the longer ones have chapters and time stamps in the description, and in about 30 minutes, you'll be navigating the site like techno-boss. Link here .

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog