,Are your gifts a blessing? We like to think that our gifts are a blessing and not clutter. We picture smiling faces as the recipient opens our package. But what if that person does not need or want the item? What if the gift becomes just more clutter in their home? Then the gift becomes a burden. I recently worked with a mother who was decluttering her daughter’s bedroom. As we dug through the clutter, we came across multiple packages of bath bombs including one that was a red nose on a Rudolph card. There was also a plethora of…
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Did you know that April is the National Stress Awareness Month? It’s common to hear someone say that they are “stressed out” but what is stress and how are we aware of it? According to Psychology Today, we are aware of stress when we feel a disconnect between the situation in which we find ourselves and our resources to deal with it. Sometimes the stressful situation is very real, like when we are attacked by a dog. At other times the situation is imagined like thinking about heavy traffic each morning. Real or imagined, our bodies act the same way.…
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Do you think about how you will discard and recycle something before you bring it into your home? A while back I read that everything we buy eventually will end up in the dump. This was an eye opener to me. I thought that if I was responsibly discarding or recycling items it didn’t matter what I bought. We buy things on a whim, and we think that if we don’t want it later, we can donate it or recycle it. And, yes, we can. But eventually it will end up in the dump. My takeaway from this is to…
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A friend or family member may ask you to help with an extreme decluttering project for someone they love who is overwhelmed and is living with clutter. You care about the person and would love to help. Offering to Help with an Extreme Decluttering Project Offering to help is a wonderful thing to do. It is also very difficult. It will probably take a lot longer to complete this extreme decluttering project than you expect. Prepare yourself to meet with resistance from the person you are helping. First and most importantly make certain that the person with the decluttering project…
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Spring is rapidly approaching, and we want our homes to reflect the freshness and beauty of the season. Spring cleaning is a traditional way of making this happen. Concept of Spring Cleaning Spring cleaning is not a new concept. According to Wikipedia spring cleaning dates back to more than 3000 years B.C. Examples are the ancient Iranian Festival of Nowruz that is still practiced and the ancient Jewish custom of cleaning the house in preparation for the springtime feast of Passover. In the northern hemisphere, springtime weather is warm enough to open the house and still cool enough to keep…
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I had finished organizing and decluttering my desk and felt really good about it. Then I swiveled around in my chair and looked at my bookcase. Ugh! It really looked cluttered and disorganized. It was definitely time to organize the bookcase. How did the bookcase get that way? Like so much clutter that comes into our lives, it was filled with items that I had not made hard decisions on. There were books I had received that were not read and some of them had sat there for over a year. I had reference books that I no longer used.…
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February is Time Management Month. Can we really manage time? Intellectually everyone knows that we can’t control or manage time. This is what we can do. We can manage how we spend our time. We all know that time just keeps moving along. Twenty-four hours each day and we can’t change that. So, when we say time management what we are talking about is good choice management. You can’t save time – just spend your time wisely. Before I give you tips to get better control of your time the first thing to do is track how you spend your…
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We’re about a month into the new year and most of us set the intention to make some changes. We set some lofty goals for ourselves. Maybe we see ourselves as 20 pounds lighter or our home cleared of all the holiday clutter and finally the place that we can return to and relax. These are not realistic benchmarks for change. Instead of setting lofty goals that are overwhelming, start with small, modest, and realistic benchmarks for change that you can accomplish and build upon in years to come. Mark Twain stated, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.…
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Ask just about anyone what their New Year’s Resolution is and a large percentage of them will tell you something about getting organized. Some want to organize their garage, their attic, their basement, kitchen, closets, and the list goes on. It may not even be a specific project; they just say they want to get organized this year. Here’s the problem. Organized is not a destination. When someone says they want to get organized I want to ask what happens when you get there? Something has to change because anyone can get organized. The trick is learning how to be…
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Since Covid restricted our socialization a lot of us have not worn much jewelry beyond the earrings we put on during our Zoom meetings. Our jewelry has been neglected and unorganized for years. It is time to spend some time organizing our jewelry to see what we have. This season I plan to go to several events and one of them is fairly formal. I am certain that I have the jewelry that I need but I want to check it out and match what I have to what I plan to wear. Some of my jewelry needs repair and…
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