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The Manual’s Guide for Controlling Clutter

top 5 tips controlling clutter
Where’s your weak spot for clutter? Is it your desk? Your garage where you stock more tools than Home Depot? Or maybe your closet where you stash a little of everything?

Everyone has clutter—that doesn’t mean everyone is a hoarder like those featured on some TV shows where they suffer the thought of discarding just about anything. If you’ve seen those episodes, you know some can have severe difficulty letting go of old tires, mildew-filled books, even empty soda cans. Those are extreme cases linked to mental disorders. But normal clutter shows up in just about everyone’s home as a result of day-to-day living and if you’re aware enough you can stop it in its tracks before it threatens to take over your life.

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Lauren Rosenfeld, author of the newly published Breathing Room, offers strategies for decluttering even if you think you don’t have a problem. “Many men have an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mindset about clutter,” says Rosenfeld.

Here are five tips to push into practice:

1 – Listen to your significant other. If you are living with someone and your clutter bothers them, find out why and be willing to negotiate. “Don’t value stuff over your relationship,” says Rosenfeld. “A lot of men can’t understand why it’s a problem for someone else, but if it’s making the other person uncomfortable then it is a problem.”

2 – Don’t be defensive. “Most everyone has a “don’t touch my stuff,” kind of mindset,” says Rosenfeld. Instead of letting clutter be the trigger for an argument, really communicate and find a strategy that will make both of you comfortable in your shared living space.

3 – Start small. There are some clutter warriors out there who decide they’ll “attack” the garage on a weekend. “Clutter isn’t the enemy,” says Rosenfeld. “People make the mistake of thinking they’ll clean out the garage in a short period of time. Then they get tired, barely see results and decide there’s no point in proceeding.” It’s better to designate a small area to clear first. Then when you successfully clear it, you can celebrate the progress and move to other areas.

4 – Take inventory of what you have. A lot of people build up clutter because they can’t find that roll of packing tape or hammer and go out to buy new ones; then they wind up with more than they need. Create a space for items that you find yourself searching for.

5 – Be aware of clutter before it snowballs. If you can’t even find the top of your desk then clutter has stacked up to a point that may be overwhelming to deal with. Work on strategies to clear the surface on a more frequent basis. Same goes for electronic clutter. It’s easier to delete unneeded emails when they come in instead of facing tens of thousands to clear through after a certain period of time.

[Photo credit: trekandshoot, Shutterstock]

F1 Saudi Arabian GP live stream: Watch Formula 1 for free
Formula 1 driver exiting turn.

The F1 Championship continues with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix commencing soon. It's going to be an exciting race with Max Verstappen sure to want to build on his victory in Bahrain earlier this month. If you're keen to see the latest F1 Saudi Arabian live stream, there's a particularly great way to do so and even better -- it won't cost you a cent. Intrigued to know more? Here's all you need to know about how to watch the thrilling race.
Watch the free Saudi Arabian GP live stream
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is being aired for free in Austria and Luxembourg. This is great news for those in the countries, but devastating for residents traveling abroad who want to watch the action unfold live in their local language -- especially when it's free-to-watch at home. It's only fitting that an Austrian currently in the United States would want to watch the race in Austrian and not English, right? This is completely safe and legal to do with a VPN like NordVPN. Just install it, choose to the location you wish to connect to, then fire up broadcast. The free streams are ORF in Austria or RTL Zwee in Luxembourg.

Unfortunately, there isn't a free Saudi Arabian GP live stream for residents of other countries. Elsewhere, folks will need to tune in through a local broadcast partner. The race is available on ESPN in the United States, and the best way to tune in is through fuboTV, which offers a one-week free trial to new customers In the United Kingdom, it's available on Sky Sports F1, and over in Canada it's being broadcast in English through TNS and in French through RDS. There are some other options available as well -- below we'll talk you through the different ways you can tune in locally in the United States in more detail.

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Calvin and Hobbes mastermind Bill Watterson is back – but no tigers this time around
Calvin and Hobbes comic Bill Watterson is back with a project nothing like his famed comic strip
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Get ready, comic and graphic novel fans. Calvin and Hobbes comic strips provided daily humor to newspaper readers for more than a decade. Now, its creator, Bill Watterson, is returning with a grown-up tale that’s nothing like his famous comic strip featuring a cute six-year-old boy and his even more adorable stuffed tiger.

The Mysteries, authored by Bill Watterson and illustrated by John Kascht, will of course be picture-perfect. However, the tale will be a dark one. Its description on Amazon calls it a “fable for grown-ups.” Readers will head back in time to a long-ago kingdom experiencing unexplainable challenges during The Mysteries. A king wants to end the madness and sends his knights to figure out why these calamities continue to inflict on the kingdom.

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Side by side: See how a pitcher changed his windup because of new MLB rules
The MLB rule changes are altering the game. Perhaps most noticeably, the new rule book is changing the ways pitchers pitch.
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If you didn't think the new rules changed the way big leaguers play the game, think again. The newest rule book additions, covering everything from enlarged, pizza box-sized bases to how infielders can line up before a pitch, are being felt by players and viewers alike. For some players, it's out with the old and in with the new, as the old ways are no longer legal.

Perhaps the most obvious comparative look comes from this Reddit thread, which highlighted a post from @pitchingninja. It shows Luis Garcia, pro Venezuelan baller and Houston Astros pitcher, throwing as he might have last season versus this season, when the new rules took effect. It's a dramatic before and after that shows just how significant some of these MLB rule changes may prove to be.

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