Marvin the Martian knew the joy of getting new gadgets. You may not be getting a new illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator each week, but you still need to organize all the stuff that comes with your new doodads. Watch this video to see how I organize my gizmos. That kaboom, that Earth shattering kaboom… That’s the feeling you get when your new technology is organized and orderly.
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Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and today, we’re going to talk about how to organize all this stuff that comes with your cool, shiny new gadgets. I just got a new phone, I’m so excited about it, so I was inspired to do this video. I get questions about this all the time, so let me go through my 7-step checklist for you with all the things you need to do with these gadgets.
The first thing you want to do is look at the receipt and figure out what the return policy is for the gadget. You might be surprised by how short it is, it might even be 14 days, 15 days, so make sure you understand that.
Then, number two, you want to take that information and write the last date that you are able to return that item right on the box. So for example, like this: What this does for you is not only get you kind of aware of what’s the last day I’m going to be able to return this if I have trouble, but then when you run into this box on the shelf later and it’s past this date, you can throw the box away. How about that? So you might want to keep it if you sell things on ebay or you have your own reasons for that, but most of the time it’s okay to throw the box away.
The third thing you want to do is label any of the cords and cables that came with your gadget. So here’s my charger, I’m going to use my label maker to make two labels; I’m going to label both ends of this so that I can see it whether it’s behind furniture or wherever it is. And then, what that’s going to do is prevent what I have seen so many times in so many homes which is the giant octopus box of cords and cables that nobody wants to throw away because they’re afraid they don’t know what it goes to, so they don’t want to throw away something that’s important. So, if you label these things you’ll never have that problem again.
The next thing you want to do is take care of any rebates that are related to your product. So, you’re not going to get that great price they told you at the store if you never mail the rebate stuff in. So check on that; make sure that gets done.
The next thing is to read the quick set-up guide that comes with so many of these gadgets. Now, I know these things should be intuitive, and I know that you’re busy, but these little quick start guides are made just for people like us who want the little shortcut instructions. So you might learn something very crucial, like whether to plug the USB thing into your computer before or after you install the drivers. I mean it really might mess something up so just humor me, take a second, and read that quick start guide.
The next thing you want to do is protect your device from loss or theft. So look at what you got and think, “If I’m a person that finds this, and I’m honest and I just want to return this to somebody, how easy would it be for me to figure out who owns this and return it?” and make that happen. So you can just go into, in a phone, the owner information, and you can put in there an alternate phone number, not your cell phone number so they can reach you, and put “reward if returned”, so they have a motivation for that, and make sure it’s easy enough to figure out who this belongs to. You can also put an address label right on the case, and there are other services like, of course, Apple has Find My iPhone. Make sure this is all registered and set up so that it all works correctly to do that.
And the last thing on our little checklist is to finally file away the documentation and the receipt and anything you’ve got left after the return period is over. So again, the box might not be necessary, but you might want to have the manual. I would suggest to you that you go and try to find this manual electronically before you go and file it and keep it, because it is obsolete as soon as it’s printed, and there is most likely a more updated version on the support section of their website, so think about that.
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