I spent the last two days organizing the clutter in my room and I’m only 1/4 done with the task. Tomorrow will be another day set aside for organizing and decluttering. I don’t think I’m much of a pack rat but how come I still end up with piles of stuff. Paper clutter is the worst – I have print-outs of all sorts going back to don’t know when.

I have set aside the last day of each month as my recycling/decluttering day. I do separate out paper and cardboard “trash” for recycling but because I don’t take them out, the movable clutter remains in the apartment. So starting this year, on my recycling day, I’ll take out all the recyclable stuff and place them into their respective recycling bins.

I have also set a forbidden zone in my room: Absolutely no paper, books, magazines or catalogs on the floor. From my experience, once a paper pile develops, it stays there till the next new year resolution day. And because a paper pile can only go so high, another new one will spawn within a short time. So no more paper pile on the floor this year!

While I was back in Malaysia, I was inspired by the greening the environment section in the local newspaper. Somebody said that he will shower only once a week to conserve water!! Ever since I came back, I have been using my own shopping bags when I go grocery shopping. That has drastically reduced the monstrous mountain of plastic bags in the closet.

And lastly, when I think I need to get more stuff, I should sing this line from U2′s Beautiful Day:
What you don’t have you don’t need it now!