Day 20: Clearing the clutter
It's spring time now and that can only mean one thing: spring cleaning. I don't know why spring became the the time to clear everything out and get rid of the excess in our lives, but that's apparently just how it is. Maybe it has to do with all the storing up of stuff and accumulation of new things during winter. We have to make room for the new, and that means getting rid of the old and unused.
I bring this up because of someone in the nerdfighter community who has decided to do a bit of spring cleaning in his life recently. I understand why he went all out with this, but I think it was a bit excessive, and may cut him off from from some good dialogue in the communities he is a part of. Someone else I sort of know has even further and just removed her presence from the internet altogether. I was sad to hear that, but sometimes we just need a detox from things like the internet when they start to consume more of our lives than necessary. In fact, one of Maureen Johnson's 18 Things to Do Whenever is to "Spend one week completely offline." The point though, is to come back refreshed and with your priorities in check.
In order to keep your priorities in check though, sometimes it helps to clear away some of the clutter that was overwhelming you before. For instance on twitter I like to go through the people I'm following and get rid of the people that don't update or whose tweets don't appeal to me anymore, or those who update waaayyyyyy too much (don't worry, if I'm still responding to you, then you most likely haven't been cut...it's mostly "celebs" or themed twitters). I used to be following way more people than were following me, but within this past month the trend has reversed itself and I'm happy. It lets me see the tweets I want to see and leaves room for all the IRL friends that are finally starting to catch on to the trend. Or on facebook, I'll go through and get rid of applications I just don't use anymore or that were taking up too much of my time.
One thing I won't do is delete a profile altogether....with certain exceptions (mainly sites that I signed up for on a whim, but never really used or didn't catch on, or even required a paid membership to use). I don't do this because there are people on those sites who I only talk to on that site because they aren't on one of the others I'm on (like friends that are on MySpace, but refuse to jump on the facebook bandwagon). I like to keep the lines of communication open however I can. They are friends for a reason and I don't want to abandon them even if I don't use the site that they use more.
Off-line is somewhat of a different monster though. I'm a bit of a pack-rat and tend to accumulate a lot of stuff that I just don't need. This is an area I can agree more with the person I mentioned at the beginning. I'm still at a time in my life when moving from place to place tends to happen quite frequently (in fact I'll be moving...somewhere....this summer) and I sometimes need to have less stuff in order to move easier and not take up more space than is needed. Plus, just having more stuff than I need is a waste. If I'm not using something anymore (clothes, books, etc), then I need to either throw it out or give it to people who have a use for it.
Where do you stand on all of this? Is there clutter in your life that needs clearing? Something you need to detox from? Let me know down below. Also, check out today's (April 20th) entries from
miner_beth and alanlastufka for more discussion on this.
And if my BEDA buddies (or anyone else who reads this, aka my unofficial BEDA buddies) could leave some suggestions or demands for things/topics to blog about, I'd much appreciate it! Thanks y'all!
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Today was awesome because Dr. Noise uplaoded a new Trock (Time-lord rock...Doctor Who themed music) song on youtube that you can check out here
I bring this up because of someone in the nerdfighter community who has decided to do a bit of spring cleaning in his life recently. I understand why he went all out with this, but I think it was a bit excessive, and may cut him off from from some good dialogue in the communities he is a part of. Someone else I sort of know has even further and just removed her presence from the internet altogether. I was sad to hear that, but sometimes we just need a detox from things like the internet when they start to consume more of our lives than necessary. In fact, one of Maureen Johnson's 18 Things to Do Whenever is to "Spend one week completely offline." The point though, is to come back refreshed and with your priorities in check.
In order to keep your priorities in check though, sometimes it helps to clear away some of the clutter that was overwhelming you before. For instance on twitter I like to go through the people I'm following and get rid of the people that don't update or whose tweets don't appeal to me anymore, or those who update waaayyyyyy too much (don't worry, if I'm still responding to you, then you most likely haven't been cut...it's mostly "celebs" or themed twitters). I used to be following way more people than were following me, but within this past month the trend has reversed itself and I'm happy. It lets me see the tweets I want to see and leaves room for all the IRL friends that are finally starting to catch on to the trend. Or on facebook, I'll go through and get rid of applications I just don't use anymore or that were taking up too much of my time.
One thing I won't do is delete a profile altogether....with certain exceptions (mainly sites that I signed up for on a whim, but never really used or didn't catch on, or even required a paid membership to use). I don't do this because there are people on those sites who I only talk to on that site because they aren't on one of the others I'm on (like friends that are on MySpace, but refuse to jump on the facebook bandwagon). I like to keep the lines of communication open however I can. They are friends for a reason and I don't want to abandon them even if I don't use the site that they use more.
Off-line is somewhat of a different monster though. I'm a bit of a pack-rat and tend to accumulate a lot of stuff that I just don't need. This is an area I can agree more with the person I mentioned at the beginning. I'm still at a time in my life when moving from place to place tends to happen quite frequently (in fact I'll be moving...somewhere....this summer) and I sometimes need to have less stuff in order to move easier and not take up more space than is needed. Plus, just having more stuff than I need is a waste. If I'm not using something anymore (clothes, books, etc), then I need to either throw it out or give it to people who have a use for it.
Where do you stand on all of this? Is there clutter in your life that needs clearing? Something you need to detox from? Let me know down below. Also, check out today's (April 20th) entries from
miner_beth and alanlastufka for more discussion on this.
And if my BEDA buddies (or anyone else who reads this, aka my unofficial BEDA buddies) could leave some suggestions or demands for things/topics to blog about, I'd much appreciate it! Thanks y'all!
*****************************************************************************************************************************
Today was awesome because Dr. Noise uplaoded a new Trock (Time-lord rock...Doctor Who themed music) song on youtube that you can check out here