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Would You Rather Be Decorating or Celebrating?
As children, we all loved the holidays. All the presents and decorations and wonderful tasty treats—the stuff of everyone’s childhood memories! Conveniently for us, we didn’t realize what a tremendous amount of effort went into the beautiful memories our families created. Now we want to make the season magical for our own families and friends, but we often pay for the sense of wonder with a to‑do list that squashes our peace of mind and compounds our stress levels.
What if you spent the holidays in a spirit of family and celebration, instead of overwhelmed by stuff that doesn’t matter?
A big part of holiday labor is decorating. Given our predisposition to buy, buy, BUY, many of us have huge collections of holiday decorations already, and we add more every year. When it comes time to decorate, it can be like we’re opening a retail Christmas store in our homes. Tons of work, and then we’re drowning in decorations! Is it really necessary to go so overboard?
Maybe we overdo for the kids, or to conform to family tradition …[Read more]
 PROGRAM NOTESHow do you get started organizing when you feel completely overwhelmed? One step at a time sounds logical, but it doesn’t answer the question, “Which step do I take first—and why?” Truly, when the task is big, any step is the right one. A start is what’s needed. So let’s talk about some quick and dirty ways to get unstuck and to begin the task of digging your way out of your project. Pretty soon, you’ll be sweeping up after the project is done.
PROGRAM NOTES
Your bathroom is a very private place. Besides using it for the obvious reasons, you start every day there, getting showered, shaved, and coifed for the day. Later, you go back to get ready for bed. You spend a lot of time there, but most visitors to your home don’t. They use the other bathroom—the public one, or the one the kids use. That means your bathroom is your very own place to treat as you wish.
Here’s the problem: if a space in your house isn’t seen by the public, then it tends to get neglected. I’m always surprised that we’re motivated to clean a room when others will see it, but we have no energy for the spaces we use the most often. And we’re the ones who have to live with the mess …[Read more]
PROGRAM NOTES
Our bedroom is our sanctuary. It’s where we go to sleep and get restorative rest. It’s where we go for naps—when we can spare the time for one! It’s where we share intimate moments with our partners.
Clutter can put a damper on everything that takes place in your house, especially in your inner sanctum. It creates a bunch of negative noise in your mind, and all that racket prevents restful sleep.
I once worked for a tall young man who piled all his clothes—clean and dirty—on the bed. When he was ready for bed, he slept crosswise on the bed …[Read more]
PROGRAM NOTES
If you’ve made progress clearing paper piles in March, then cleaning up your home office is a great next step, because it’s not just the papers in the office that are out of control—the supplies and the equipment are, too! Removing the paper from the desktop and other surfaces uncovers what’s buried beneath. Now it’s time to deal with the rest of the office.
Here’s a strategy for putting your office area in order.
PROGRAM NOTES
My clients offer a lot of explanations for why they can’t part with the stuff that clutters their lives. Below are some of the reasons I hear the most often. I’d like to offer some ways to think differently about what to keep and what to let go.
“This cost me a lot of money.”
Okay, so what? Are you using it? Do you like it? If it’s just gathering dust because you don’t want to admit that you made a buying mistake …[Read more]
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Gayle Goddard, CPO®, professional organizer and owner of The Clutter Fairy in Houston, Texas, offers one-on-one organizing, workshops, and ongoing support to help clients conquer clutter and focus on what they really want. [MORE]
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