The latest installment (v26) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature is here with my recent discoveries that inform, educate, and relate to organizing and life balance. I’ve included unique and inspiring fresh start-related finds, which reflect this month’s blog theme. You are such an incredibly engaged group. I am grateful for your presence, positive energy, and contributions to this community.

I look forward to your participation and additions to the collection I’ve sourced. What do you find interesting?

What’s Interesting? . . .

1. Interesting Read – Fresh Start Goals

Hot off the press is the insightfully written organizing book, Organizing and Big Scary Goals – Working With Discomfort and Doubt to Create Real Life Order by my colleague, Sara Skillen. I am a big fan of Sara’s blog and enjoyed reading her “how-might-you?” book, where she uses her organizer and coach lens throughout. While she includes a few how-tos, Sara weaves engaging, relatable stories throughout, including overcoming one of her challenges, the fear of bike riding. These stories help readers understand that finding solutions to their organizing challenges can be done in a relaxed, exploratory, and uniquely personal way. Sara concludes that “…big change can happen for anyone…by letting go of external messages, embracing their fear and discomfort, and asking for help when they need it…they can achieve unexpected results and stay consistent.” If you’re struggling with getting organized and reaching your goals, read Sara’s book, which offers you a compassionate fresh start.

2. Interesting Product – Fresh Start Papers

If your desk or kitchen counters are piled with papers, and you can’t find the ones you need, consider using this stylish desktop file, the Arc basket. You’ll be able to organize your VIP papers in an instant. It is spacious enough to accommodate the essential items, yet not so large as to overwhelm you or your space. This U Brands open file box is shown in green and also comes in white and pale pink. Give your desk or counters a fresh start with this sleek hanging files bin.

3. Interesting Perspective  – Fresh Start Clarity

Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist, spent his life preserving the world’s silent places by traveling the world and recording sounds. Many of these places are endangered due to the encroachment of modern life. In this short video, Sanctuaries of Silence, Hempton invites you to experience the preciousness of these beautifully captured explorations.

“Silence isn’t the absence of something, but the presence of everything.”

— Gordon Hampton

Life can be noisy. We have busy thoughts within combined with external physical distractions. It has become more challenging to hear our own thoughts, let alone experience quiet. Activities such as daily mindfulness meditation, yoga, and nature walks help me to create periods of silence. With a clarity of mind and calmness of soul, I am better able to be open, aware, and grateful for each moment, and a fresh start.

4. Interesting Season – Fresh Start Organizing

Winter can be more of an indoor season, at least it is for me. With this extra time inside, you might be feeling disorganized, overwhelmed, and unsure of how to move forward. Take this opportunity to reset your organizing goals, declutter the extraneous, and create the calm you deserve. Change is possible, especially with support. Enlist help from a compassionate and non-judgmental friend, family member, or professional organizer like me. You’ll be amazed at how much more you can accomplish when you work side-by-side with an organizing buddy. I’m ready to help. Let’s talk. Call 914-271-5673 or email me at linda@ohsoorganized.com.

5. Interesting Thought – Fresh Start Time

What is that phrase, “Attitude is everything?” When it comes to how we feel about a new day (or Mondays,) your approach to new can make all the difference with how you do or don’t do next. The start of the New Year gives us an attitude boost for a fresh start and new beginning. Yet the excitement can quickly fade. Remind yourself that you can embrace a fresh start any week, day, hour, or moment. Let go of what you didn’t do, cut yourself some slack, reset, and begin again. 

What are your interesting finds? Which of these resonate with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Join the conversation!

Possibilities open up when your space is clear. I use the word “space” to encompass not just the physical spaces we live and work in, but also the mental and emotional space that we carry within. These past few months, I’ve been deeply involved in clearing out our family home of 56+ years. It has taken most of my time and energy. As you might imagine, it’s been an intense and emotional process. The home was filled with thousands of papers, photos, furniture, dishes, collectibles, artwork, books, music, family history and memories to process and decide about.

As a family we had to choose, what was being kept, donated, sold or let go of. Tons of decisions were made to clear the spaces and prepare the home for next. Even as things exited, the memories and positive feelings about our family home remained. Those memories go deep and are ingrained within, way beyond the “stuff.”

The clearing of the spaces prepares for memories, possibilities, and experiences that a new family will have in our beloved home. This extreme letting go of the things from within the family home and ultimately the family home itself has been preparing me for a new phase of life...one that is no longer anchored in this home that I grew up in.

So as the layers of stuff have been peeled away, as the floors are sanded and the walls are painted, possibilities open up not just for me, but for others too. What will be is yet to be understood or known; yet I’m feeling hopeful about how things will evolve and shift. And while it's been a highly emotional journey, it's also the natural course of things. We aren't meant to keep our things forever. They, like the people we love, are with us just for a time. 

What have you noticed when your space is clear? What has transpired within and without from your cleared spaces? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Come join the conversation.

Success is such a personal thing, even when it comes to organizing success. We view and define it differently. Some of us are excessively hard on ourselves and barely allow any acknowledgment of success or progress.

Sometimes we’re so focused on our goal that we rush through the tiny successes along the way, barely noticing them. What I see most often with clients is how overwhelmed, especially at the beginning of a large organizing project, can color their definition and expectation of success. In those situations, “completely done” is what success means to them, and until that happens, they remain in a very negative place. As I said, success is personal. We experience it differently.

What does organizing success look and feel like for you?

While I recognize that we each define organizing success differently, when working with clients, I help them celebrate and acknowledge the small successes along the way. Because let’s be honest. No project gets done in one simple stroke. Projects only get done by working consistently over time, piece by piece, and by changing some habits and behaviors in the process. It’s essential to cheer yourself on, do a happy dance, or shout out some “woohoos!” with each small success. These will help you relive the success and propel you forward for more success. You’ve heard this before, and it’s worth repeating: Success breeds more success.

Remember that organizing success has a range in what it looks like. Here are some recent client and personal organizing successes that have brought about high fives, big sighs, and huge smiles:

• Editing a box of old papers

• Labeling toy bins

• Deciding to let go

• Creating a resource list for an organizing project

• Decluttering the corner of a living room

• Clearing and organizing papers and “stuff” from kitchen surfaces

• Packing for an upcoming trip

• Preparing tax information for accountant

• Unpacking and organizing the last few boxes from a recent move

• Editing and organizing child’s clothing closet

• Handling daily incoming mail

• Hiring an onsite shredding company to shred decades worth of papers

• Organizing a pile of papers from the office desk

• Making a to-do list for a massive organizing project

• Organizing past event papers into accessible files

• Seeing donates, trash, and recycling taken away by hauling company

• Hiring professional organizer to help with an organizing project

What does organizing success look and feel like for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Come join the conversation.

Do you ever feel like the clutter in your life is holding you back from living? Clutter appears in many forms along with how it keeps us stuck. It can be physical clutter like piles of papers or non-physical clutter like the negative thoughts we focus on.

In the newly released book, Embrace Conscious Simplicity written by my friend, Barbara Bougher, an organizer and coach and her colleague, Teresa Worthington, a social worker and life coach, they write about recognizing the outer and inner clutter “that distracts us from living our best life, and…about empowering our self to make conscious choices about what we want to keep and what we want to let go.”

Being in the organizing industry for over 23 years and from personal experiments, I’ve seen and experienced the transformations that happen when we give ourselves permission to let go of the clutter that’s weighing us down. I’m sure you have your own stories to share too, which I’d love to hear.

There are many hope-filled and inspiring stories shared in Barbara and Teresa’s book. They also included an extensive list of types of physical and non-physical clutter, which are useful in developing awareness about clutter that might be holding you back. As the authors express,

“Becoming aware of both the physical and non-physical clutter that we allow to take up our valuable time, energy, and space is how we begin to empower our self to transform our life.”

 Take a look at the lists. Which ones resonate with you?

 Physical Clutter Include Things…

• that we don’t love or use
• that are broken
• that are unfinished
• that are left out
• that we keep “just in case”
• that need a decision
• that are too abundant for a too small space
• that are other people’s stuff
• that are inherited

Non-Physical Clutter Includes…

• Emotional and mental clutter
• Communication clutter
• Word clutter
• Information clutter
• Gossip clutter
• Drama clutter
• E-clutter
• Noise clutter
• Time clutter
• Body clutter
• Financial clutter
• Spiritual clutter

I’d love to hear your thoughts. In what ways is clutter holding you back? What have you experienced when you’ve let go? Come join the conversation!