One of the many hats that I wear includes one that represents the Organizing Coach part of me.

(in fact, that’s how I got started in learning about today’s Social Media, when I started experimenting with writing blogs for my organizing coaching business and moderating a network that I created on Ryze, called Sort Thing Out - Getting Organized which has since faded into the background, with the advent of Twitter and Facebook and who knows what’s next!)

Recently I’ve been doing a series of presentations about Decluttering and Organizing, including a 10 week course at OLLI-Rutgers Continuing Education and several workshops at the Edison Public Library and Sayreville Public Library.

We’ve been covering a whole host of topics, including decluttering and organizing electronic files.

So, I figured I better walk the walk… especially after experiencing a system meltdown. What better time to do some much needed e-cleaning?

In digging through e-archives, here’s an blog post that I wrote back in 2005 from a blog that is no longer active:

Thursday, October 13, 2005
“Living with Less”

As a follow up to my previous post on gift-giving, here are a few thoughts, coming from a local Holistic Moms group meeting and from other sources that I’ve read about in the past, regarding how to curb the excess materialism and prevent the “buy me!” syndrome with your kids:

1. Ask your relatives to cut back on the number of presents they give to your kids (this is a tough one, especially with “old school” family members, or long distance grandparents).
2. Ask for clothes, instead of toys.
3. Request gift certificates, savings bonds, or money for college fund.
4. Suggest giving books, instead of toys.
5. Donation Birthday Party, where guests are asked to bring either new or gently used books, videos, etc. to donate to a local charity. I did this with my kindergartener, for two years in a row. It wasn’t easy, he wasn’t too happy about it, but I did remind him, quite often, that he would be getting the toys on his “list” from us, and from his aunts & uncles.
6. For every new toy received, an old toy has to be donated.
(There are definitely more ideas out there, this is just a quickie summary).

Otherwise, as moms, we find it very frustrating to try to fight the Media, the Mega-toy stores and the Message that society conveys: “gotta have that! I NEED to have that!”.

What are your thoughts or suggestions on how we can make a difference with our children to curb the excess toy syndrome? What is the “little something” we can do every day, to try and reinforce this change of habit with our kids, to “Live with Less” stuff? Feel free to post your thoughts in the Comments section.

Is this still relevant today?

With today’s economy, can we learn to live with less, regardless if you have kids or not?

What can you clean out today? (Got any old hats or baseball caps like the one above that have lived past their prime?)

Let me know if you do any releasing, clearing, or decluttering today.

…leaving you with Eva’s Edict: “Throw It Out Thursday”

• Take 10 minutes and sort through a pile to release today. Leave a comment or tweet me back with what you’ve released.

Talk to you soon,
Eva Abreu, NJ Social Media
Twitter: @Eva_Abreu

Creative Commons photo credit: Flickr wfyurasko