If I had a nickel for every time I said, “If only they let me run things …” then I’d probably have enough money to hire the arms and legs I need to make all of my great ideas happen. It’s not a new concept: good managers are good at delegating. But great managers have elves who come to their front porch and carry away the clutter.

What?  You don’t have any elves?  Let me introduce you to the next best thing:  GoodDonor.org.  I swear, I grinned for three days straight when I discovered there’s a service you can access online (in your jammies, on your couch, at any hour of the day or night) – just type in your address and you’ll get a list of dates when a collection truck is driving through your neighborhood to pick up donations for their partners (ex: Goodwill, Vietnam Veterans of America). Then those partners will sell your gently used items to support their worthy causes. All you have to do is find a corner of your house where you can pile those donations (mine is a laundry basket in the back of my closet) and wait for pick up day.

Every time I turn around, one of our boys has outgrown a perfectly good pair of pants. Now there’s no muss, no fuss, I just fold them up and pop them in the donation basket. Likewise, when I get an itch to finally sort through the hall closet, I’m not just shuffling clutter from one room to another. Having a plan in place (and a place for my stuff) encourages me to get rid of what we’re not using anymore. Now, if only they’d let me run things … I’d find elves for us all!