Top 5 Ways to Make Resolutions Stick
The new year is a natural time to make new resolutions. Whether your resolutions are goals or habits, these five tips will help make them stick.
Organizing Past Decision Blockers
It’s very easy to beat oneself up for not finishing tasks like decluttering, but there are usually pretty good reasons for it. Sure, laziness or lack of motivation can play into it, but what makes tasks difficult is not the actions, but the decisions involved. In fact, my favorite definition of “clutter” is Barbara Hemphill’s “postponed decisions.”
When Clutter’s Not Clutter
OK, I haven’t always had nice words to say about clutter, but today I’m happy to report a fresh perspective on clutter.
One Man’s Struggle With Clutter
Stuff, clutter, trash, get rid of it……Have you heard this before from your wife? But, Honey it’s stuff I might use…Shoot, I shouldn’t have used the word stuff.
Celebrating Freedom Though Organizing
Saturday we celebrate Independence Day and the birth of our country. This country grants us many freedoms, but it’s amazing the barriers we impose on ourselves. I have found organizing to be a great liberator.
Why the Garage is the Best Place to Start Organizing
It is very common for me to meet with a potential client who can’t decide if she wants to begin with organizing the cluttered bedroom, the cluttered kitchen, or the cluttered home office. For me, it’s always a clear choice: the garage.
Why I Hate Clutter
I hate clutter because it feels like death. (Can’t accuse me of burying the lead.) Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about your purposeful collections, piles of laundry, or ongoing project, sprawled across you table. I’m talking about that excess stuff, with no plan for movement.
Don’t Bring a Trash Bag to a Clutter Fight
In the movie, The Untouchables, there is a scene where an assassin comes to kill the Sean Connery character, who (after a derogatory remark) notes that he has brought “a knife to a gun fight.” He then shoots the assassin. I am reminded of this scene, every time a client tells me “You wouldn’t believe how much I have already thrown out.” In the war on clutter, the trash bag is not the right weapon.
A New Theory on Tossing Old Clutter
There are a lot of reasons for why it is hard to toss our excess stuff, that I have discussed in this blog. For example, there’s clutter from the past that holds sentimental value and there’s clutter for the future that we might need “someday.” Today, however, I want to share a new theory on why we keep clutter, that I don’t believe has ever been addressed before. I call it the check register theory. Here it is.
Getting Organized for 2014
Getting organized is a very popular New Year’s resolution, but like so many resolutions, it can be a very difficult one to keep, without some simple guidelines. Here are some simple guidelines.
Something the Middle Ages Actually Got Right
The modern definition of clutter is a collection of things lying about in an untidy mass, which I find woefully inadequate. It doesn’t address the value of these “things.” The origin of the word clutter, is from the Middle English, clotter, which means to clot. I actually like that better.
The Best Answer for the Worst Clutter
This past weekend an article came out in Minnesota’s Star Tribune that featured an interview with organizing guru, Peter Walsh. In it, Walsh states "Clutter isn’t really about stuff at all. Rather, it’s about our relationship to stuff. Clutter becomes a problem when people look for meaning, support and affirmation from their belongings, instead of from other people." I couldn’t agree more. I’d like to describe an approach I take, to illustrate this point.
