The newest release (v40) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature has my latest finds, which inform, educate, and relate to organizing and life balance. These unique, inspiring, clutter-related discoveries reflect this month’s blog theme.

You are a passionate, communicative, and engaged group. I am deeply grateful for your ongoing 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? – 5 Best Clutter Discoveries

1. Interesting Workshop – The Motivation to Declutter

Are you struggling with staying motivated? You’re not alone. Studies show that anywhere from 40-90% of the population experience low motivation, which can negatively affect their personal and professional lives, education, relationships, and ability to achieve goals (such as reducing life’s clutter). But there’s good news - help is here.

Join me for a lively one-hour online workshop – How to Boost Motivation – 7 Familiar Challenges & Simple Solutions, on May 18th @7:00-8:00pm EDT. During this workshop, you’ll learn what motivation is, its most common problems, and practical strategies to overcome them. Get ready to become unstuck, increase your motivation, and start taking action toward your goals. Don’t wait - register now!

2. Interesting Podcast – The Stress of Clutter

Do you get overwhelmed and stressed by the clutter in your life? Some professionals, like myself, specialize in helping people sort, unclutter, and organize their belongings. The American Psychological Association’s podcast episode 227 features Deacon Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., psychology professor and expert on the study of chronic disorganization and clutter.

Ferrari discusses the reasons we accumulate so much stuff, the challenges of dealing with clutter, the research about the impact of clutter on stress and anxiety, and how to declutter your life. Ferrari says, “…it [our possessions] could be a trigger to something in the past. And that’s one of the reasons it’s harder to declutter because it brings back either positive or negative emotions.”

“Clearing clutter will give you the space and energy to focus on what is most important to you. ”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

3. Interesting Read – The Elimination of Clutter

In Essentialism – The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, author, speaker, and podcast host Greg McKeown helps you eliminate the non-essential and focus on the things that matter most. McKeown says Essentialism is not about saying “no” more often but asking, “Am I investing in the right activities?” It’s not about “how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done.”

This happens by being intentional and by actively making decisions about your life. McKeown says, “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.” What is cluttering your life and taking you away from what’s most important? Choice is at the core of being an Essentialist. He says, “We often think of choice as a thing. But a choice is not a thing. Our options may be things, but a choice-a choice is an action. It is not just something we have but something we do.”

If you are ready to be inspired and reduce the non-essential clutter in your life, I highly recommend reading Essentialism.

4. Interesting Resource – The Donation of Clutter

Would you like to declutter your overflowing closets and dressers while helping the environment? Using For Days “Take Back Bag,” you can easily ship unwanted goods, including clothes, socks, undies, shoes, linens, and even ripped, torn, or stained textiles. For Days will give “your oldies…a new life.” With their recycling partners, they keep goods out of landfills. The $20 cost of the Take Back Bag covers shipping. You receive an equivalent credit to your account, which can be used as cash for future clothing and home goods purchases.

In addition to the Take Back Bag program, their swap system lets you recycle at any point or exchange for credits For Days’ purchases of clothing and home goods. For Days embraces “circularity and zero waste.”

5. Interesting Thought – The Editing of Clutter

We accumulate stuff, filling our homes and minds with many things. Some are useful for a time and then can be released. What happens when we keep adding and never edit? Your spaces and thoughts become full, which can cause you to feel overwhelmed and unfocused. Choose to edit. Be ruthless. What has overstayed its welcome? What can be released? What deserves your time and attention? Clearing clutter will give you the space and energy to focus on what is most important to you.

Do you have an interesting clutter-related discovery? Which of these resonates with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

Letting go is usually intentional. At least, it seems purposeful most of the time for my clients and me. Holding on can create stress, conflict, overwhelm, disappointment, confusion, or anxiety. The same can be said for the process of letting go. Thinking about saying ‘good-bye’ to things or situations can be its own type of challenge. However, when we finally let go, it allows for open space, growth, and relief.

I often consider letting go like a muscle that needs exercise and practice. The more you use the letting go muscle, the easier the process becomes. Decision-making goes more smoothly, too, as you set boundaries or rules around what stays or goes.

What happens when you accidentally let go? You might wonder how someone can unintentionally let go like one giant, whoops. I experienced this last week.

You are probably familiar with the term “inbox zero.” Some set a goal to have no (as in nothing, none, nil, zilch) emails in their inbox. Instead of keeping all emails visible, you route incoming emails to specific, organized locations to achieve a clear inbox. They can move to the trash, action, or archive folders along with a cue to follow through on a trusted task list.

Let’s return to my saga. With full disclosure, I can’t tell you exactly how it happened, but I remember that multitasking was involved. I couldn’t repeat the mistake if I tried. But the result was that I accidentally deleted all the emails in my inbox and couldn’t get them back. There were about 100, and I had responded to most but not all of them.

My first reaction was panic. Then I tried to undo the error. In my frenzy, I think I made things worse. So, I stopped. I took several deep breaths and asked myself, “Linda, now what?” There were several options, including getting on the phone with tech support to see if they could help retrieve the deletions. I lacked time, confidence, and patience for that option. I was also in the middle of several deadlines and needed to focus on those instead of my big mistake. I knew how quickly my day could have deteriorated with negative self-talk, paralysis, and frustration. Those weren’t good options.

“Letting go allows for open space, growth, and relief.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

I felt calmer when I recognized that some emails could be retrieved through the “sent” email box if needed. In addition, if I missed something important, the sender would hopefully resend it to me. If you sent me an email and I never responded, please resend it. Thank you.

Letting Go: Unexpected Benefits

It’s been over a week without those deleted emails, and it’s been OK as of today. I let go of a lot and discovered some things along the way.

• There is no perfect.

• I’m human and make mistakes.

• Life goes on even without a full inbox.

• The most important things were handled.

• I recognized growth in how I kept my initial panic to a minimum.

• Resilience was visible as I quickly recovered from ‘the incident.’

• Multitasking can be dangerous.

• Appreciate the improved focus with fewer emails visible.

• Be grateful for the empty inbox, even if unintentional.

• Acknowledge the available time doing fun things like planting my small vegetable garden instead of stressing over retrieving emails.

• Find the humor in the situation.

• Remember the big picture.

In the end, letting go, while unexpected, was valuable. I’ve recovered from the mishap, appreciate a less full inbox, and feel lighter and less encumbered.

Have you ever let go accidentally? If so, what happened? What did you discover? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

It’s not officially spring yet, even though we turned our clocks forward an hour, and spring’s cues began emerging weeks ago. Our beautiful purple crocuses have come and gone. I notice new growth daily- a patch of green here, some yellow blooms there. Seeds planted are beginning to flourish.

I appreciate the present and am simultaneously in awe of what will come next. What a hopeful time of year this is!

While the seeds I mentioned were literal ones yielding plants and blooms, there are other seedlings. You . . .

• Plant new ideas

• Create positive habits

• Change behaviors

• Alter mindset

• Chase goals

• Experiment

• Nurture relationships.

These require patience, compassion, consistency, awareness, trust, and receptivity. When we tend our garden in this way, those seeds will thrive.

Coach and artist Jane Pollak, CPCC, said, “Before you know it, the seeds you plant will leaf.” What a powerful idea! While you’re in the planting or becoming phase, it seems like nothing is happening. It’s hard to see any progress or change. The seeds sit quietly in the dirt. Movement and growth are imperceptible. You wait while occasionally adding water and fertilizer to stimulate growth.

While next might be nothing because you over or underwatered, more often, growth will be visible in time. I see this with my virtual organizing clients. The seeds planted begin with a goal and a desire for something else. Less clutter, more time, more space, or less stress. We use that seed idea and work to get there. I love helping with these internal and external transformations.

• Challenges with letting go bloom into ease of releasing.

• Stress caused by clutter morphs into calm from clearer spaces.

• Being overwhelmed by full schedules develops into relief by creating boundaries.

“Before you know it, the seeds you plant will leaf.”

— Jane Pollak, CPCC

You are now on the other side. You’ve patiently done the work. You’ve tended your garden even when you were unsure. You trusted the process so you could succeed. Your seeds have leafed.

What will be your next step? Do you want to reassess? Do you want to bask in the gorgeous blooms? Are you ready to plant new seeds to nurture? Progress and growth are yours. How will you build from here? What tiny step are you able to take? How can I help? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

There are times when you’re in a state of flow. You work almost effortlessly on your projects and goals. You lose track of time and are in that creative, exciting phase. At other times, you’re not just stuck but overwhelmed. It feels impossible to move forward and determine your next step. The deluge is heavy, like a huge weight pressing down on you. The list of what needs accomplishing seems so large that it interferes with your focus and motivation. Instead of moving forward, you procrastinate, engage in distractions, or do nothing. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

Being overwhelmed is the number one reason my clients contact me for help. Organizing their space, time, or stuff can seem insurmountable. We work together with the big picture in mind, approaching it one small step at a time. And you know what? When we do that, we break through the overwhelm barrier and make progress.

My clients aren’t the only ones who get inundated. It happens to me too. I recognized that something had felt off for me this winter. It hasn’t been a typical season in the Hudson Valley. We barely had any snow, which disturbed my sense of balance and seasonal cycles.

Recently, I came across an image and phrase that resonated with me. An author described the feeling of a winter’s snow and wrote, “the quiet is even quieter.” When I read that, I recognized it was what I’d been missing. It’s not that it’s loud where I live. However, a significant snowfall covering the woods with a thick white blanket creates calm, silence, and that long pause. Things stop.

That unique winter quiet settles my mind as a deep, luxurious exhale. The silence helps me reset. Guess what happened? Last week, we finally got substantial snow. I was so excited when I woke up with the backwoods covered in white. I felt lighter, with a positive shift in my energy and mood. The frosted, peaceful landscape reduced my overwhelm and opened my mind enough to figure out what to do next.

A Simple Path Forward

After enjoying my breakfast and sipping my hot mug of coffee, I had an idea for encouraging forward movement. Using a low-tech solution, I grabbed a piece of paper and some pens to make a chart. It took about 10 minutes to create. I listed my upcoming projects for the next several months. It included project names, due dates, brief notes, and the next step for each project. It felt good to get them on paper and out of my head. I experienced an immediate sense of relief seeing this high-level view on a single sheet of paper. But the most significant benefit was the next step column. Rather than listing the bazillion tasks for each project, I listed only one tiny thing to focus on.

This simple exercise propelled me forward. Within a few days, I completed one of the projects. Now I have my roadmap with clear instructions of what to do next for the others.

“Consider the big picture, yet approach it one small step at a time.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

I recognize how the snowfall helped me overcome my overwhelm and inspired the chart. However, snowstorm or not, you can use this helpful tool anytime you feel overwhelmed. There are moments when it’s beneficial to do an entire brain dump of all tasks, steps, projects, and thoughts. However, that doesn’t always work when you’re upset. Doing a total brain download can intensify those feelings. When that’s the situation, consider my ‘next-step’ approach instead.

What helps you figure out next when you’re overwhelmed? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.