Before you read or listen:

Use the verbs in brackets in the right tense.

Lately, I, a maximalist, 1. ………. (yearn) to be a minimalist. I am not alone. “People 2. …… (to be) stuck in their houses and sick of their stuff,” Randy Sabin, who 3. …….. (run) estate and Internet sales, told me over the phone from Morris, Connecticut. “It’s staring them in the face. They have to dust it.” A survey conducted by the storage marketplace Neighbor 4. …….. (find) that quasi-house arrest 5. ……… (make) seventy-eight per cent of respondents 6. ………. (realize) that they have more possessions than they need. What to do with this First World surplus? Your children 7. …….. (not want) it. The son of a friend, when offered his pick of items from his grandfather’s estate—an antique clock? an Emmy?— 8. …….. (take)  a toilet plunger. In my apartment, it’s got so cluttered that sometimes, when I 9. …….. (leave)—usually to acquire more stuff—it 10. ……… (cross) my mind that I should leave a “Dear Burglar” note, urging the intruder to help herself.

Then go to https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/28/a-guide-to-getting-rid-of-almost-everything-decluttering and check your answers.

 

Key: 1. have been learning; 2. are; 3. runs; 4. found; 5. has made; 6. realize; 7. don’t want; 8. took; 9. leave; 10. crosses

 

Glossary

• to yearn – to desire something strongly, esp. something difficult or impossible to obtain
• toilet plunger – a device consisting of a handle with a rubber suction cup at one end, used as a force pump to free clogged drains and toilet traps
• to deaccession – to sell or otherwise dispose
•  galore – in large numbers or amounts
• grate – a framework of metal bars in a fireplace, which holds the coal or wood
• to weld – to weld one piece of metal to another means to join them by heating the edges and putting them together so that they cool and harden into one piece
• to behoove – to be necessary; to be worthwhile to, as for personal profit or advantage
• stomping ground – a favorite or habitual resort; familiar territory
• tax write-off – a tax deduction of an amount of depreciation, expense, or loss
• to simmer – to be in a state of subdued or restrained activity, development, etc
• smorgasbords – a wide range of something; a variety

 

Practice Makes Perfect

Read the article: How to Declutter Your Workspace in 5 Minutes or Less (https://www.inc.com/wanda-thibodeaux/how-to-declutter-your-workspace-in-5-minutes-or-less.html) and decide of the statements below are true or false?

 

1. A clean desk is indispensable when trying to come up with some innovative ideas.

2. Our habits can make us less sensitive as to how much rubbish there is on our desks.

3. The article says your colleagues don’t deserve appreciation for lending you their office equipment .

4. According to the author of the article, tangled cables could be a home to spiders.

5. Tip five says that once you’ve removed all objects from your desk, you should wipe it with a disinfectant thoroughly.

6. Unless an original copy of a document is essential, scan it and upload it on cloud.

7. If a thing on yor desk is useless, just ditch it!                                           

 

 

Key: 1F; 2T; 3F; 4.F; 5T; 6T; 7T

 

Discuss

• Are you a maximalist or a minimalist?
• Do you collect anything?
• Do you have a problem with getting rid of things you no longer need?
• Do you just throw things away or use other ways of discarding them?
• Do you donate clothes to charity?
• How do you feel about recycling things?
• How do you feel about the tip: If you haven’t worn it in a year, toss it!

 

Explore it more to create your own teaching-learning experience!

 

How to declutter your mind

If your brain is a heaving mess of work and life to-dos, find some focus with these straightforward steps from Ryder Carroll, creator of the Bullet Journal.

 

Read: 

https://ideas.ted.com/how-to-declutter-your-mind

 

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