by wwm | May 10, 2020 | FromUM, Uncategorized
I wrote this originally as a guest post for a site called Minimalism Defined. The author of that blog has since taken their site down, and I don’t want to let this post disappear – so I’m re-posting it here. I think it’s particularly...
by wwm | Apr 1, 2020 | Old Drafts, Uncategorized
I just got an email with a subject line of “Today is the day!” For a split second, I was a little excited. It’s always nice when “today is the day” for something fun. When it’s the day for Christmas, or the day to start vacation, or...
by wwm | Mar 29, 2020 | Uncategorized
The other day I was thinking about some of the odd, almost-pedantic habits that I’ve acquired over the years. The thing that many of these habits have in common is that they front-load a bit of effort to save a lot of effort and hassle down the road. Some...
by wwm | Sep 16, 2016 | FromUM, Uncategorized
It’s an easy trap to fall into. Societally-speaking, “being organized” is the thing that’s valued, so that’s what we prioritize. As long as our stuff can fit into the containers we have, on the shelves we have, in the storage spaces we...
by wwm | Mar 9, 2015 | FromUM, Uncategorized
When I was a kid, our school made us a simple offer: read books, get free pizza. Our teachers would set reading goals for us, and when we met those goals we’d get a free personal-size pizza (donated by Pizza Hut). Of course there were some kids who were pretty...
by wwm | Oct 16, 2012 | FromUM, Uncategorized
I read a tweet the other day that said “decluttering is as simple as picking up each item, and making one of the following choices”. It linked to a blog post showing six different options for what you could do with the item. Sigh. The problem has never...
by wwm | May 17, 2012 | FromUM, Uncategorized
A reader raised a fantastic point a ways back. She has a kid, and she has family members that want to help by offering some clothes so she doesn’t have to spend a bunch of money. This comment speaks perfectly to the desire to be frugal and accept the help, while...
by wwm | Apr 25, 2012 | FromUM, Uncategorized
Most people have a positively elephantine amount of possessions. All you have to do is look at the increasing size of homes and the unending construction of more and more “mini-storage” units to see that there’s a problem. Now add to that the fact...
by wwm | Apr 14, 2011 | FromUM, Uncategorized
“But I paid $1000 for that!” This is the sound of frustration, as yet another consumer (we’ll call him Joe) learns a very hard, yet very valuable lesson. Let’s look at how he got here. An Illustration Joe spent $1000 on a piece of exercise...
by wwm | Jan 8, 2011 | FromUM, Uncategorized
Everybody makes a big hoopla about January 1st. Parties are thrown, television specials are aired, people talk about what’s past and what’s to come, and they make resolutions – fantastical promises of what they’re going to accomplish in the...
