Clutter

April 28, 2008

Goodwill Rejects

Goodwill is an excellent service for decluttering as they will take just about anything. However there's two things that I have seen that they will not accept:

• Children Toys
• USB Printers

They won't accept Children Toys because of all the reported lead recalls. I guess they don't want to have to figure out which toys are safe and which ones have been recalled. Solution: I guess the best thing to do is to trash any toy that you don't want anymore. If you know its safe you could always ask around at work to see if anyone needs it.

Not sure why they won't take USB Printers. I guess they have so many of them that they can't get rid of them, or they don't have any means to test to see if the printers work. Can you image the number of printer drivers they would need to have on a computer? Solution: If your printer is in good shape, use Freecycle to get rid of any printer you don't need. I wouldn't bother putting any cheap USB printer on eBay, you probably won't get much for them.

April 25, 2008

Recycle Books

If you have a lot of books, you should consider removing some of them so they don’t clutter your library. There’s no reason to keep a lot of books that you’re not going to use anymore.

GotBooks.com is a great service because, not only will they take any books that you have, but they will even comes to your house to pick them up. This is perfect service for us since we have a couple of flight of stairs from the street level. On Wednesday, we left nine boxes of books and they took all of them!

If you don’t want to donate your books you could always visit a used book store and resell your books. This is a good option if you have some first editions or some valuable books.

In 2002, when I moved from San Jose to Boston, I sold a few books to the “Recycle Books Store” in San Jose. They gave me $30 for 10 of my books. I am pretty sure that my books are someplace in the store today. Not all my books were accepted since they were outdated technical books or were old travel books. I guess having Photoshop 5.5 Visual Quick Start and 1996 Florida Travel wouldn’t sell very well.

I discarded most of the remaining books in the recycle bin at the Woods Apartment complex in South San Jose.

If you’re in the San Jose area, you should check out the unique book inventory at the Recycle Book Store.

Recycle Book Store
1066 The Alameda
San Jose, CA 95126
(408) 286-6275

April 23, 2008

Decluttering Paper Maps

Last night I was doing some cleaning in one of my small bins, which was appropriately labeled "Maps". I setup this bin last year to store any maps that I found while I was cleaning the basement. I wanted a single source for all my maps, so that when I needed a map I would only have to look at one place.

When I went through the bin, I was amazed at how many duplicate maps that I had and how many of them were outdated. After going through what I had, I ended up throwing most of maps into the recycle bin.

I don’t have any antique maps, most of the maps I have are from 2000-2003 and are street maps of California and New England. They aren’t worth anything, I don’t even think GoodWill will even take them; at least I am sure the maps would end up in the trash anyways.

I also discovered that I have a lot of maps from the American Automobile Association (AAA). These maps are free to AAA members. There’s no value in keeping these maps since I can visit AAA and get a new one when I need it. Even if there’s no new roads on the map, newer maps are easier to read and can have more useful information.

Folded maps were useful in the past, however today there are some really better-quality electronic alternatives to paper maps. On the Internet, Google Maps, and MapQuest are a good clutter free alternative to maps. They can provide helpful information about locations and even the ability to search for businesses around the location. TomTom is a great solution while driving, it’s easy to use and can be updated for free.

Take a look at the maps you have in your home. Do you really use them that much? When was the last time you looked at them?