The latest installment (v28) 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, enlisting help-related finds, which reflect this month’s blog theme. You are such a wonderfully generous, warm, and engaged group. I am deeply appreciative and 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 – Resilience Help

Life is filled with challenges. When you experience difficulty, disappointment, and disaster, what helps you bounce back? In Resilience, Linda Graham, MFT, author, therapist, and teacher share helpful insights and practices. Graham defines resilience as “the capacity to bend with the wind, go with the flow, and bounce back from adversity.” She believes that “resilience is teachable, learnable, and recoverable.”  The practices presented are based on the brain’s ability to adapt, and the recognition that flexibility is the core of resilience. It is easy to get derailed by life’s small and big challenges. By experimenting with some of the 130 plus exercises in the book, you can train your brain to “respond skillfully,” cope with stressors and difficulties, and not just survive, but “You will thrive.”

“Resilience is teachable, learnable, and recoverable.”

— Linda Graham, MFT

2. Interesting Product – Storage Help

The first phase for getting organized focuses on editing and letting go of things that no longer serve a purpose. I like to say, “Release the things that have overstayed their welcome.” However, once that first phase is complete, choosing how to organize the remaining items comes next. I discovered some beautiful organizing products from Open Spaces and couldn’t wait to share them with you. They are simple, elegant, and perfect for organizing like-with-like items. These small storage bins that come with or without lids in an array of lovely colors can be used in bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens, offices, playrooms, and more. They are an excellent solution for storage help.

3. Interesting Resource  – Virtual Organizing Help

The pandemic has changed my organizing business. While I’ve been working in-person with clients for over 27 years, I’m currently only offering virtual organizing services. Existing and new clients love working this way, including the shorter, highly focused, and more frequent sessions. As one of my clients said, “Working virtually for one hour is productive, doable, and not overwhelming.”

Professional development has always been a top priority for me. Last month I completed my training and became credentialed as a Certified Virtual Professional Organizer (CVPO.) To acknowledge this shift to virtual organizing and express my gratitude to my clients for their loyalty and trust, I created a Client Loyalty Program. The more virtual organizing sessions you have, the more organizing credits you will receive. Are you curious about how virtual organizing can help you? If so, let’s talk. Call 914-271-5673 or email me at linda@ohsoorganized.com.

4. Interesting Article – Worrying Help

One of my favorite pieces of advice from my Uncle Lew is, “Let’s leave worry as a last resort.”  With an abundance of uncertainty and anxiety about tomorrow, it can be even more challenging to stop worrying. In Nicole Pajer’s Huffington Post article, 15 Things Therapists Do When They’re Worried About The Future, there are excellent coping strategies and ways to help you.  They include ideas such as keeping routines, developing a support system, practicing gratitude, being physically active, and remaining present. Practicing daily mindfulness meditation, doing yoga, and taking walks in nature significantly reduce my anxiety and worry. Those activities focus on presence, movement, and gratitude.

5. Interesting Thought – Enlisting Help

Every person experiences challenges at one time or another. Remember that when you are struggling, you don’t have to be alone on your journey. Enlist help. Find compassionate, helpful support from your friends, family, colleagues, and professionals, including organizers like me. We are here for you. “You are not alone in this.”

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

As professional organizers, part of our work is about helping clients learn new habits and skills. We also help them release the unessential to create space for the things, activities, and people that are most important. I do this in my own life and thrive on established routines. I know many of my colleagues do too. However, there is something to be said for having solid habits and alternatively being willing to change things up. When life is chaotic, we tend to crave certainty. So our routines create a stabilizing, comforting force. There are other times when we desire change, yet we aren’t sure what that might be. Possibilities exist, but we don’t know what or how to pursue them. We might feel overwhelmed or stuck.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about the “expanding my universe”  journey. The experiments revolve around me trying new activities. The goal was to create an open environment for discovery, surprises, and possibilities to emerge. It’s been an incredible adventure so far and one that I am excited to continue.

Since I was unclear about what to explore, I began collecting ideas. I continue to add new ones daily. I’ll have to live a long life so that I can try them all. To keep some sense of order and balance, I made a list and organized my ideas into seven categories, including creative, education, event, excursion, mind/body, nature, and not my comfort zone. Having just completed two weeks of doing six experiments from the list, I realized that I choose a different thing to do from each of the six categories, but one.

“Every moment is a chance to note what’s happening inside. Every moment is another step on your tour of discovery.”

— Rohnan Gunatillake

By challenging some of our habits, we make space to expand possibilities to learn and grow. While I had multiple takeaways during the past few weeks of experiences, I’m about to share with you one single discovery made from each of the six experiments. I hope that you’ll feel encouraged to explore something you’ve been thinking about. What is possible?

6 Discoveries That Will Expand Your Possibilities . . .

1. Nature – Loosen the Muscles

My first experiment I wrote about in detail. You can read the full story here. For a quick recap, though, I bought food I don’t regularly eat, from a place I rarely frequent, and ate it outdoors at a park I don’t often visit. My biggest takeaway was this . . .

My habits have, at times, prevented me from experiencing new things. Challenging my choices in even small ways will help me gain new perspectives and stretch my possibility muscles.

2. Excursion – Savor the Pace

I spent a gorgeous fall day at the New York Botanical Garden to visit the spectacular exhibit of the Brazilian landscape designer and artist, Roberto Burle Marx. I’ve been to the garden many times with my husband, Steve. However, on this trip, I went on my own during a weekday. The day was lovely as I walked, photographed, road the trolley, ate lunch, and wandered around the garden store. I moved at my pace, respecting my inner voice as it guided me along. There were no negotiating, rushing, or disrupting of thoughts. My most significant takeaway aside from affirming how much I love being surrounded by beautiful greenery and taking photos was this . . .

Making time to explore by myself at my own pace is just as essential to me as the time I share with my loved ones.

3. Not My Comfort Zone – Navigate Wobbly Paths

I don’t know about you, but for me, wearing a harness while navigating a rope course and jumping off of a 43-foot platform at Spins Hudson was way outside of my comfort zone. I didn’t know what I was capable of until I tried. I wrote about this experience in last week’s post. You can read more about it here.  My biggest takeaway was this . . .

Every day requires a leap of faith. Self-doubts, naysayers, and hardships are part of life. Navigate these wobbly paths by drawing from inner strengths and supportive guides. 

4. Mind/Body – Merge Pursuits

For several years I’ve been hearing good things about Encourage, a newish yoga studio near me. My oldest daughter, Allison, loves practicing yoga and has tried on many occasions to spark my interest in doing it too. We even took a class together in Brooklyn a while back. Decades ago, I did some yoga, but eventually, I stopped. I decided to try it again for one of my experiments. And guess what? I loved it so much that I ended up signing up for additional classes. The teacher and studio owner, Al, is a gentle, calm soul. His teaching combined movement, mindfulness, meditation, humor, and philosophy. This single yoga class connected many of the things I’ve been exploring in the last few years. My biggest takeaway was this . . .

It takes time to connect life’s dots, so keep exploring. Enjoy the serendipitous surprises that arise along the way.

5. Education – Put Love in the Frosting

For those of you that don’t know this about me, I love cupcakes. Partly I like eating them (chocolate/chocolate is my favorite,) but what I also love is decorating them. The more colorful and sparkly, the better. I have many happy memories of baking and decorating cupcakes with our daughters, Allison and Cassie.

Inspired by this passion, for my fifth experiment, I took a cupcake making class at the Institute for Culinary Education (ICE.) The school is located in New York City’s Financial District, across the street from the Freedom Tower. While I enjoyed demystifying how to make buttercream frosting (which has a ton of butter) and learning which ingredients define red velvet cake, the entire experience wasn’t as satisfying as I hoped it would be. There was too much chaos in the kitchen when fending for ingredients and supplies. It made me appreciate the organization and process that I have in my kitchen at home. But what I really missed was that feeling of love, connection, and teamwork that has been integral to baking with our daughters. My surprising takeaway was this . . .

It’s not just about doing. It’s about doing things with love with the people you love.

6. Event – Be Brave

For the sixth adventure, my husband and I attended “What’s Your Story?”  This was a storytelling event at Tompkins Corner Cultural Center in Putnam Valley based on “The Moth” format. Eight people from different walks of life shared a true story about their lives that spoke to the core of who they were. When introducing the program, the moderator, and also one of the storytellers said by “sharing them [the stories], we share ourselves.”

After listening to the performers, Steve and I began reminiscing about our life stories. Which ones were significant? What did we remember? What would we be willing to share at a mike in front of a room full of strangers? How vulnerable would we let ourselves be?  Remind me to tell you about the night of the crazy rabbits. It was a poignant and uplifting evening filled with laughter and tears. My main takeaway was this . . .

What a brave thing it is to put yourself out there, be vulnerable, and share a piece of who you are.

There will be many more experiments to come. Possibilities abound. How they will connect and evolve, I don’t know. But I am excited to see what will transpire in the coming months. What resonated with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

To be fair, there are many elements that contribute to organizing success. In fact, I write about some of them in my article Top 10 Organizing Success Secrets. However, there is one aspect that is essential to the organizing process. Without it, there is no moving forward. With so many engaged members of this community that are professional organizers or pursuers of organization, I bet you’re guessing and wondering which “key” I’m thinking about. The most important action that contributes to your organizing success is letting go. Without the willingness, strategies, and ability to do that, it’s going to be pretty near impossible to experience the organizing success you’re looking for. 

Why is that? Organizing isn’t just about setting up systems, putting things in containers, and making things more accessible. It’s not just about re-arranging what you already have. Organizing is about assessing and creating an environment that supports who you are, how you live, and what you do. That happens only when you’re willing to let go of the things, ideas, habits, and behaviors that don’t support your goals and values.

Letting go is essential.

Just because it’s essential, doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. I know this from personal experience.

This past year I spent a lot of time letting go as I cleared out and prepared my parent’s home of 57 years for sale. It wasn’t easy sorting through all of the memories or letting go of the stuff. But in order to organize what remained, get the home ready for a new family, and move on, letting go had to happen. In the process, I learned a few things that I shared along the way on my blog. In addition, I had the opportunity to talk with my buddy, John Hunt from Smead about these ideas for the Keeping You Organized podcast.

In this 2-part series, we talked about the . . .

Ten Ways That I Learned to Let Go.

 Ten Ways That I Learned to Let Go: Part 1 - Linda Samuels

Ten Ways That I Learned to Let Go: Part 2 - Linda Samuels

What do you think is the most important key to your organizing success? Is letting go at the top of your list, or is there something else? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Come join the conversation!

When we need help, we don't always think about building a team. It’s more common to think that we can or should do everything ourselves. Maybe we consider enlisting help from one person, but a team? Not so much.

In the last few years, I've realized the importance of building teams that are invested in a single purpose. While we can accomplish a lot on our own, creating a team can greatly influence the outcome and experience in positive ways. Teams have many advantages that include reducing stress, boosting creativity, increasing fun and providing emotional support. The teams I focused on building in the last two years were Team Wilma and Team ICD.

Team Wilma

Wilma is my mom and has vascular dementia. She's always been fiercely independent, so the idea of enlisting help has never been one of her strengths. She was the person that helped others, which is something I admired and found inspiring.

At a point it became clear that I needed to gather a team of people, affectionately named, Team Wilma, to help us navigate life with the changes happening because of her illness. Keeping her safe, healthy, and happy have been our top priorities. Without family, friends, caregivers, medical professionals, and household vendors, this would be have been daunting to manage. I am so grateful for all the people that love my mom and are part of Team Wilma.

Team ICD

Building Team ICD was one of the first priorities when I became ICD (Institute for Challenging Disorganization) President in 2014. I knew that without our current, incoming Board and management team working together, we were going to have a difficult time accomplishing our many initiatives. We invested in getting to know each others' strengths, doing team building exercises, strengthening communication, and working towards shared goals to benefit ICD.

On July 1st, I handed the baton to Sue West, the current ICD President. I'll remain on the Board (team) for another year as Immediate Past President, but it will be Sue that will lead us. It was a wonderful feeling to pass on this strong, well-meshed team.

All teams require effort, patience, nurturing, and adjustments. Sometimes team members get added or subtracted. Each member adds value. The key is harnessing that value and making each member feel appreciated and essential.

As you think about getting organized, are you feeling overwhelmed and frustrated? Are you trying to do everything on your own? Maybe it's time to build your team...Team Organize! Who will be the fantastic members of your team? Will you enlist help from friends, family and professional organizers? Will you need donation resources or removal professionals? Will you enlist additional emotional support from a therapist or coach? Going it alone is possible, but building a team of people that are focused on a common goal to help you can make all the difference.

Who will you include on Team Organize? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Come join the conversation!