I feel that I have lived many lives. I was a child. Then I was a young married adult. Before I knew it, I was a mother. I was a divorcee. Then I was a widow. I was a retiree. Now, I am an older married woman and entrepreneur. Just as the role I played in my life has changed so has my wardrobe, hairstyles, and my home. The home that suited me at one point does not still suit me. Does your home still suit you? My different homes Sometimes your home just happens when you are on…
Gift giving is something we all do. Sometimes it’s spontaneous but more often we know ahead of time that we plan on giving a gift. There are always the expected birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, as well as weddings and graduations. And, of course, the hostess gifts. 3 tips to help you stay organized and on top of your game when it comes to gift giving. 1. Keep a list of people you give gifts to on a yearly basis and a budget amount you would like to follow. I keep a running list of people in my journal that I give…
As a parent, you may be all too familiar with the endless piles of school paperwork that accumulate over the course of a school year. From graded assignments to artwork and school messages, it can be overwhelming to sort through it all. However, decluttering your child’s schoolwork at the end of the school year is essential so that you don’t end up with stacks of schoolwork when your child heads off to college and beyond. Let’s look at how you will decide what to keep and what to toss. What to keep at the end of the school year As…
,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…
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…
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…
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….
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….
Spring has finally arrived, and we want to spend more of our time outdoors. Having a clean, clutter-free outdoor storage area makes our time outside even more inviting and relaxing. Many of us have a lot of “stuff” that we store to keep our yards, decks, patios, and any other outdoor areas a place of relaxation. Decluttering our outdoor storage areas makes it easier to maintain our outdoor areas and saves us time so that we can enjoy them. Outdoor storage areas can get messy and cluttered throughout the year. Because they are not in our main living area it…
Once a year I deep clean and reorganize my laundry room. Part of the process is to take a hard look to see what I am storing on my laundry room shelf. It’s a scary thought, I know, but since I only do it once a year, I can handle it! The maintenance during the year is mainly keeping the floor clean and restocking supplies. Now it has been a full year since I worked in this area beyond maintenance, and it is time to re-evaluate the space. I have open shelving in my laundry room, and it is a…
