Clutter Creep - The Silent Killer to your Decluttering Success
You’ve spent hours upon hours working on decluttering and organizing your home, yet it never feels done. What gives? When it comes down to it, the fact is that as much as you can put effort into getting things OUT of your home, you can’t completely prevent things from coming IN.
How to Travel with only a Carry-On
You are on vacation and arrive at your destination ready to unwind and finally take that much needed deep breath. Your entire flight is flowing upstream like salmon to the baggage claim where it is guaranteed that your bag will be the last one to spit out of the center of the carousel. The smell of coconut sunscreen and the warmth of the sun is calling your name…you drift off into la-la-land only to snap out of it to an empty baggage claim. The conveyor belt is mocking you as it disappears into the depths of the airport innards. No bags left. Your entire vacation is now prefaced with panic and then an unplanned shopping trip to replace the items you need for the day. All your photos of the trip are highlighted by your tie dye “My mom went to Mexico and all I got was this T-shirt” shirt and your memories are of washing your underwear in the sink only hoping it would dry in time to wear to dinner the next day.
Golden Windows
Have you ever found yourself in a place of heightened productivity and/or organization? It may be realizing you’ve recently made multiple trips to the donation center, had the sudden urge to purge a closet, or the unexplained need to buy a new planner and allllllll the accessories. Whatever the behavior is that reveals itself and sparks a feeling of “wow, why am I feeling like this?” might be the result of being in or entering what Lisa Woodruff of Organize 365 calls a golden window. A golden window is a span of time where the stars seem to align perfectly and your energy, productivity and desire for organization is at it’s peak.
5 Ways to Combat Task Paralysis
Your family just left the house and you have an entire 3 hours to yourself at home on a Saturday afternoon. Ahhhh the things you can accomplish! You can rest! You can cross some things off that never ending to-do list! You can maybe even nap!! You have been looking forward to this window ever since the last time it happened 6 months ago. But as soon as that door closes and the house is quiet, that brain that has been so looking forward to getting! things! done! is stuck and that clock keeps ticking while you scramble to figure out how to move forward. It’s like you have 2 flat tires at the bottom of your legs.
You Have 5 Minutes
Picture this: you wake up to an emergency evacuation being called for your neighborhood due to a wildfire inching it’s way toward your house (or any natural disaster). You have 5 minutes to gather your belongings and leave. You may or may not have a home to return to. Aside from the obvious - people and pets - what would you bring and why? Do you know where these items are in your home? Try it out now - set a timer for 5 minutes (don’t cheat!) and gather what you can remember off the top of your head. Did you miss anything?
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
We can use the power of friendship to help motivate us in other areas of our life too. Say, decluttering or organizing your home! It wouldn’t be hard to find another person in your circle who is also looking to get control of their home and many people with this goal encounter very similar roadblocks like having a hard time letting go, motivating to do the work, or not knowing where to start. Hashing out your goals with someone else will keep you moving in the right direction.
Invisible Family Load
You’re driving to work and remember you need to schedule a dentist appointment for your oldest child. You also decide you should check your family’s passports to make sure they are far from expiring as you have an international trip coming up. On top of that, you are trying to decide if you can figure out dinner with what you have at home or if you should swing by the grocery store on the way home. You sigh and think about how your tween is doing at school - the day after a “horrible” fight with her best friend. Sound familiar? Especially if you are a woman, this might sound familiar to you. You might have seen it called “mental load” or some other variation. Regardless, I’m sure you are immediately reminded of the fact that many women these days are burdened with an invisible burden of to-dos, responsibilities, and feelings that we manage, usually without second thought.
Seasonal Decorations
It’s that time of year. We have a bunch of holidays ahead of us, each with it’s own vibe. Halloween is spooky, Thanksgiving is harvest, Hanukkah is sparkly and Christmas is festive. If decorating for the holidays brings you joy, this can be a lot of fun, but also can bring a lot of things into your home that are used for very short periods of time. That is unless you are decorating for these holidays in line with the retail calendar. Thankfully, I haven’t seen any friends decorate for Halloween in July - yet.
4 Things I’m Saying NO to for the Rest of 2024
In my last post, I talked about things that I’m saying YES to for the rest of 2024. When you are busy and frazzled, NO can be the easy answer, especially if you have kids. Everything just feels like a lot and one more thing could be your tipping point. So let’s talk about the 4 things I have decided to say NO to for the rest of the year.
4 Things I’m saying YES to for the Rest of 2024
I recently listened to some very old episodes of a podcast highlighting the host’s YES list and NO list and I thought it would be fun to do my own spin on it. While in the world of decluttering and organizing, it feels like we are saying “no” to a lot of things, I wanted to start with my YES list because there are still a lot of things to say “yes” to!
The Power of a Brain Dump
I don’t know about you, but my brain is all over the place lately thinking about squeezing all we can into the last few weeks we have left of summer break, back to school, work, travel plans, and more. If your brain feels like that cluttered basement of yours, it might be time for a brain dump.
Back to School
With August just around the corner, Back to School isn’t far behind. If you have school-aged children, you most likely have already started thinking about it. Fretting about it even. Let’s not fret! With just a little time planning, we can turn back to school into the easy peasy transition it should be.
Mindful Shopping on Amazon Prime Day
It’s no wonder people are frustrated with all the stuff in their homes. The temptation of a good sale, the excitement of a new & improved item, the rush of that box showing up on your doorstep. They’ve got many of us pretty good. This is a great time to reflect on our shopping habits over the past several years and prepare for the temptations and urgency that are ramping up.
The purpose of this post is to prepare you for the coming days. Knowledge is power and while I’m sure you already know how this time of year makes you feel, it doesn’t hurt to have a little reminder or perspective going into it.
Organizing Tiny Spaces: Dorm Room Edition
Organizing and maintaining a tiny space can be just as - or even more - challenging as a large space. You need to get creative, prioritize, and be a real problem solver as you try to Tetris all of the things into a limited area. Dorm living is a great example of this challenge!!
The End of School Pile
If you have school-aged children, you know about the dreaded pile of schoolwork that comes home that last week of school. The actual amount varies from year to year, usually a lot less as the child gets older, but it’s inevitable and bound to be on the receiving end of your side-eye as you put off tackling it for “a better time”.
10 Ways to Save your Summer
With school break just days ahead for us here in northwestern Vermont, it’s time to share some life-saving tips that I turn to year in and year out. From the most simple to some that require a little planning, I hope to help ease a little of the craziness so you can lean into the fun of a summer with those you love the most.
The Mom Effect
Have you ever done your holiday shopping only to realize when you are wrapping that you went way overboard? So much so that you put some items aside to gift during the next holiday or birthday? When you see it all in front of you at once, you can easily recognize that it’s…a lot! Well this is what happens when I’m sitting with clients after we’ve sorted the area we are working on. Not all the time, but many times, we end up with a lot of something (sometimes it’s toiletries, socks, or toys) that has been gifted to them over and over by a single family member. This family member clearly has a very big heart and loves this person a lot. But they don’t see the pile in front of them like we do. The full-sized bottle of body wash in that scent they know you like are great…when there is a need for a new bottle. The really nice thick wool socks are amazing…when you don’t already have 3 unopened packages stuffed in your sock drawer. Sending gifts on auto-ship might end up in taking away the beauty of the thoughtful gift in the first place and result in a pile of items that they can never ever get through even if they tried.
Why I Love the Dump
So why? Why would a person enjoy a place where things go to die? While I do not love the idea that we as a species are filling these sites with items that could otherwise be reused, recycled or repurposed, I do find beauty in the act of letting go. Being able to appreciate what we have and know when we are no longer in need of something is a great place to start when trying to take control of our home. Just because you have something doesn’t mean it’s valuable or useful to you anymore. Our things don’t define us.
The Seasonal Switch
Here in Vermont we are lucky enough to enjoy 4+ seasons (don’t forget stick season, mud season and fake spring 1/fake spring 2) every year. While enjoying the weather changes, we also get to enjoy the routines of moving out the old - in this case winter - and bringing in the new - spring/summer.
The piles of wet mittens are replaced with piles of wet pool towels. Coat after coat after coat on the hooks in the mudroom are replaced with hats, bathing suits and beach toys. It’s like starting a new chapter of a book - so much possibility and promise of adventure ahead.
Embracing the Benefits of Downsizing
While generations ago the ideal life included the biggest house, now it’s about the biggest life.