Clutter here Clutter there, Clutter can accumulate Everywhere!

Here is a question for you fellow clutterers… when was the last time you sorted through your bookmarks, favourites, or whatever you call the address of your favourite places on the Internet?

Do you go through them:

• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Seasonally
• Yearly
• Every once in a while you get a new computer and the browser is empty
• You can delete bookmarks?

I have to admit that I just never get rid of mine and in fact, I don’t even get a clear out when I change computers or browsers because I am computer savvy enough to be able to migrate my bookmarks.
I’d love to put up a poll of readers, but really don’t have any to speak of yet — however, I suspect a lot of people with cluttered homes would likely have cluttered bookmark lists as well as hard drives. Of course at the same time I know sometimes these organizational-emotional things don’t cross such boundaries, but I bet for many they do.

I know I bookmark many things just because they are just so very interesting and I want to be able to come back to them when I have time to really take a good look at them — others I want to share — others I just want to prove they exist — and being a writer, some I just want to be able to call on as a reference. Mind you for the last category I will most often cache the page on my own drive in case it might disappear into the ether on me.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get to really Spring Clean on my bookmark list, but… I do hope some day to put them into better order so I can find them more simply and also will have places for the new pages to roost.

~ Dusty
D Cluttermouse

Anchorless

Where does cluttered life come from?

I don’t know all the reasons in my own life — let alone anyone else’s — but one aspect of my own cluttered existence might have clues in a need for an anchor in this turbulent life. Perhaps others can work without a net and can launch out on their own without a firm anchorage or base camp. But I am not that sort.

I have heard that a person who was insecure in their relationships; and who had low self esteem; might end up turning to toys as friends when other children do not become that emotional outlet. This lack might increase if for some reason that self confidence doesn’t develop during school years. Deep within, objects take on the position of friends. That means that to get rid of an object that has long been in your possession is like abandoning a close friend. Someone who might already be a bit sensitive would have problems with that.

I think that this would be how they felt as a child and so getting rid of their possession feels like they are abandoning someone — even if they never really had been abandoned.

I was insecure and had little self confidence — this is true. I also feel an emotional attachment to objects. I always have for as long as I can remember — even from before I was 5-years-old.

Now the rub is that even with this self realization, I feel nearly helpless. This is because the feelings are real and I am tortured with the thoughts of giving up prized possessions. I dreaded being given the family couch when my parents bought a new living room set. This is because I knew it would be very, very difficult for me to get rid of.

It took a monumental effort to cast off that couch and I was nearly at a break-down point at the time. Other issues happening with regards to the move I was being forced to make at the time had me at the breaking point already.

I simply didn’t have a place to put a couch in my new suite. I could at least keep the armchair rocker from the living room set. That really helped — along with me bracing for the separation for weeks.

I don’t know how to separate those feelings I attribute to objects. I try. I am also very logical — as well as emotional — and it is very stressful trying to cope with the illogic of the whole situation. Objects do not have feelings and I should not be attached to objects — especially when the attachment is harmful and the emotions attributed to the objects might even be painful ones.

Anyhow, that is a glimpse into some reasons behind clutter. It is hard not to gain clutter when objects become friends. Objects become anchors that hold us to our lives… other people could anchor themselves to friends… or some could anchor to locations. But when we are taken from our safe locations, our possessions become our anchors… makes you think about the homeless with their shopping carts, doesn’t it?

~ Dusty
D Cluttermouse.

Hard Drive

I am considering my next computer moves…

I need more hard drive space somehow. I also need to get some sort of way to work with Windows. I have moved onto an Apple OS X system a year ago last December and that MacBook has a 120Gb hard drive. It is pretty much full. I also have a desktop PC that I was using regularly until I got the MacBook and it has a 5Gb hard drive and a 120Gb hard drive — both of which are filled-to-the-gills. That PC is running a Windows XP system. I still have the Windows 98 system I used before that which has 3Gb, 5Gb, and 30Gb hard drives in it… mostly full and a third desktop system which has no OS but does have a 10Gb or 20Gb SCSI hard drive in it. I mention the later because it is my intention to incorporate the SCSI storage system in with my Windows Desktop system somehow.

Of course being the cluttermouse I am, I do still have all three of those desktop computers as well as a box of hard drives between 500Mb and perhaps 50Gb in size in addition. I do have a hub networking my two desktop computers as well as using its wireless capability to network this MacBook to the network and hence the Internet.

I do still plan on getting an external hard drive for my network — either 500Gb or 1Tb in size. (for the less computer savvy they are reasonably large drives still.) I’d be able to install Windows onto the external drive to use with the MacBook whenever the MacBook is connected to the network — and I would want an external drive robust enough to take travelling with me.

Still… I would worry about just filling up the external drive unless I can learn to control my hoarding ways. I’ll have to work on just how to do that.

I think one of the first things I would have to do is work out a formal system of backing up my system, software, and work files. Right now I have no system and so I worry about what I have and have not got saved as backups. That means may redundancies as well as probably having missed backing up some important stuff.

The other thing is to ensure that I have figured out just what things I do not need to keep on any hard drive at all like music and videos. Really I only need to keep on hard drive what I am currently listening to or planning on listening to in the near future. It would also be important to have some sort of online catalogue of the off-machine files so that I can find them to put back onto the computer as needed. I would plan on storing music, movies, TV shows, audio books, and eBooks on DVD.

Storing things on CD or DVD also requires a person copy the files to fresh DVD or CD from time to time as the DVDs and CDs degrade over time even if not used. They can be backed up perfectly if you do so before the media degrades. That is the benefit of digital media.

Now I guess I do need to get the external hard drive as well as to make a few plans on how to use it effectively. I also have to plan how I will be networking my 2 or 3 desktop computers… perhaps I will coalesce my three computers into just one? (That also includes making sure I have legit system software for each machine.)

Now… how to plan without over-planning… how to do and actually get it done?

~ Dusty
D Cluttermouse

More Than Just Stuff!

Clutter can be many things!

A person who has problems dealing with a clutter of clothing in their closet, or pop bottles under their porch can have issues in other areas too. For instance their bookshelves might be cluttered with more than books… or even nice displays of knickknacks…

A case in point is my computer. As much as I organize things, my hard drive space is very overcrowded. Who would have thought that a 120 Gigabyte hard drive would become nearly full so quickly! I just find it very difficult to get rid of any file once I have it on my computer. If I know that I have replaced something and that I won’t need to go back to the original… and I am 100% sure of that, then I can… most times.

Thankfully I have a DVD burner and can copy files onto DVD for archiving. That has meant that periodically I can copy my downloads directory onto a DVD and clear that space out. I can also take recorded media that I have downloaded and save that to DVD rather than leave it on my hard drive leaving only what I currently am listening to or viewing. It does make a difference.

Still… I can hardly figure out just where so much of my hard drive space has gone.

I do plan on getting an external hard drive for my notebook computer and that will be in the Terabyte size range. (1000 Gigabytes.) Still I hope to get my self organized so that I don’t clutter it up.

Sometimes it seems the more room we have, the more space we take up!

I remember when 1 Megabyte was HUGE!

~ Dusty
D Cluttermouse