Enjoy the newest release (v49) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature with my latest finds that inform, inspire, and relate to organizing and life balance. These unique letting-go discoveries reflect this month’s blog theme and time of year. Spring is a season for growth, change, and letting go of what no longer serves you.

You are an engaged, vibrant, and generous 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 Letting Go Discoveries

1. Interesting Workshop – Letting Go of Clutter

Do you feel burdened and overwhelmed by the clutter in your life? This transformative workshop can help. Spring is a wonderful time to let go and thrive.

Join me, Linda Samuels, Professional Organizer, for the empowering workshop – My Simple Organizing Plan. One workshop with your choice of two dates:

• April 22nd at 7:00-8:00 pm Eastern or

• April 24th at Noon-1:00 pm Eastern

  By the end of the one-hour Zoom workshop, you’ll have strategies for immediate change. You will:

• Uncover the hidden impact of clutter on your emotional well-being.

• Learn how to harness motivation to propel your decluttering journey forward.

• Acquire the skills to design a simple, personalized decluttering plan tailored to you.

Let go of the chaos and say hello to a calmer, more organized you. Reserve your spot now!

2. Interesting Article – Letting Go for Spring

Have you ever chosen a decluttering, letting go, or organizing project based on your Zodiac sign? Are you curious about which project aligns best with your sign? If so, you’ll love this!

In the Homes & Gardens article, What to easily organize this spring based on your Zodiac sign – it’ll turbocharge decluttering and banish motivation blockers, writer Ciera Cree explores star sign-adjacent organizing projects based on recommendations from astrologers and professional organizers (including me).

Ciera shares the astrologers’ advice and says, “Aligning your decluttering mission with your star sign will maximize efficiency...”  For example, if you’re an Aries (March 21st – April 19th), astrologist Rebecca Gordon suggests doing a “closet refresh.”

Based on Rebecca’s advice, I suggested, as a professional organizer, “To get your closet ready for spring, begin by removing darker, heavier clothing to make space for lighter, more colorful seasonal pieces.”

What is your sign? I’m a Scorpio. The astrologer suggests organizing my to-do list for spring home maintenance tasks. Which spring decluttering and letting go project are you looking forward to?

3. Interesting Read – Letting Go of Overwhelm

Feeling overwhelmed is the top reason people reach out to me for support. Their overwhelm comes from having:

• Too much clutter

• Too many projects and people to manage

• Unwieldy to-do lists

• Lack of time or

• Inability to focus on what’s valued most

In Overwhelmed – Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, author and award-winning journalist, Brigid Schulte explores why we’re so stressed out and overwhelmed and ways to create time for what matters most.

Schulte shares neuroscience research that “when a human is pressed for time, rushed, and caught up in overwhelm, that yellow blob [prefrontal cortex] does something alarming: It shrinks.” In addition, “when children are exposed to stress – often stemming from the overwhelm of their parents – it can alter not only their neurological and hormonal systems but also their very DNA.”

This is sobering stuff. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Schulte also provides readers with compelling research, stories, and many strategies. She advocates for:

• Letting go of unrealistic expectations

• Creating flexible work schedules

• Establishing parenting and domestic parity

• Setting technology boundaries

• Slowing down

• Having more leisure time

• Practicing gratitude

• Playing more

• Embracing ‘good enough’

• Taking intentional breaks

• Focusing on the present

What can you reimagine or let go of when you're feeling overwhelmed?

“Let go of the chaos and say hello to a calmer, more organized you.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

4. Interesting Resource – Letting Go to Help Someone Else

As you declutter and let go this spring, do you have bras you no longer wear that could benefit someone? Finding a good home for your belongings is a helpful strategy for letting go. You’ll feel better and more at peace when your things go to someone who will appreciate receiving them. In the organizing industry, this is known as providing “safe passage.”

A terrific non-profit organization, The Bra Recyclers, repurposes old bras and new underwear and gives them to people in need. Repurposing also keeps textiles out of landfills.

They accept regular bras, sports bras, nursing bras, and new ones with tags or women’s panties and men’s boxers and briefs in the package. With their “hassle-free solution,” The Bra Recyclers makes it easy to get your undergarments to them with this three-step process:

• Wash it

• Fill out the online form

• Mail or drop it off

Let go to help people and the planet.

5. Interesting Thought – Letting Go of What’s Keeping You Stuck

What is holding you back? What is keeping you stuck? What is no longer necessary in your life?

If you sense it’s time to let go, give yourself permission. Close your eyes and settle. Take a deep breath, hold it briefly, exhale slowly, and let it go. Repeat two more times.

Can you identify a part of your life that needs help letting go? It could include physical items, negative thoughts, overly busy schedules, or unhelpful habits.

How will you benefit from letting go?

New Season Inspires Letting Go Opportunities

When you release what is no longer needed, you make space for possibilities, calm, and what’s most valued.

What will you let go of this spring? Which of these discoveries resonate most with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts and invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want help getting unstuck, reducing overwhelm, letting go, and getting organized? I’m here to help. Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – local feel with global reach.

Please email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, call 914-271-5673, or schedule a Discovery Call. Letting go is possible, especially with support.

Life requires energy. How much effort do you spend on aspects of your life you have little or no control over? Are distractions and worry preventing you from moving forward?

Focusing your energy and choosing productive actions within your control will guide you toward more fruitful next steps. You may wonder how you can do that.

One option is to do an informal personal energy audit. This evaluation will help you understand where your time and energy go. Once completed, prioritizing next will become more evident.

What is a Personal Energy Audit?

In James Clear’s recent 3-2-1 Thursday newsletter, his idea influenced my thoughts about creating a personal energy audit. To do this, notice where you spend your time and mental energy on a typical day.

Once you have made a quick assessment, you’ll be able to:

• let go of energy drainers

• gather excess energy

• focus energy gains on productive actions

Clear says,

“Take all the energy you spend on…

• worrying about the past

• worrying about the future

• worrying about what others think

• worrying about if you might fail

…and channel that energy into one useful action within your control.”

What a fantastic and powerful call to action!

“Notice where you spend your time and mental energy on a typical day.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

What Will Be Your Essential Next Step?

Clear encourages harnessing those energy gains into just “one useful action.” Select one next small, doable step “within your control” that will result in a positive outcome. Doing that will help reduce overwhelm and increase laser focus.

What will your “useful action” be?

Is Your Energy Aligned with Useful Action?

You will expend energy each day. It is vital to notice where that energy is going. Do you focus on those things that aren’t in your control? Or are you aligning your energy with positive action?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support organizing, editing, planning, or focusing energy on useful next steps? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – local feel with a global reach.

Please schedule a Discovery Call, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, or call 914-271-5673. Focusing on what’s next is possible, especially with support.

Do you create obstacles for yourself before embarking on the next step? These might include a list of self-imposed pre-requirements before you can take the next step or tackle a new project.

Perhaps your goal is spring cleaning and organizing. While that’s a great goal, instead of beginning the process, you set parameters that make it nearly impossible to take the next step.

For instance, you prefer tackling this project in big time blocks rather than shorter, focused sessions. However, your life commitments and energy levels aren’t conducive to organizing three, four, or five hours at a time.

As a result, what happens? Things stagnate because you don’t have large swaths of time to move your project forward. You frontloaded the project with an obstacle that closed your mind to alternative solutions and experimentation.

Does this sound familiar?

What Are Toxic Preconditions?

A few weeks ago, I discovered the term “toxic preconditions” in Oliver Burkeman’s newsletter, The Imperfectionist. He learned this concept from James Horton, a social scientist who questioned why people who want to write more don’t.

Horton observed that some aspiring writers had “misguided beliefs” that might have seemed helpful but undermined their confidence, causing them to write less or not at all.

Burkeman says that what’s behind toxic preconditions is “the strong desire we have for some kind of guarantee – before we embark on a new activity, or even allow ourselves to relax into life – that it’ll all unfold safely and securely, that we’ll retain the feeling of being in control.”

He advocates how freeing it is to let go of that need for a “guarantee.” Burkeman says, “Getting past toxic preconditions is less a matter of being willing to step into the unknown than of realizing that you’re already in the unknown.” He goes on to say, “You never had control; all you had was anxiety.”

“Do you set parameters that make it nearly impossible to take the next step?”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

Letting Go of Toxic Preconditions

There are three aspects for releasing toxic preconditions:

1. Observe – Notice when you are putting up obstacles to the extent that you can’t move toward your goal or next step.

2. Accept – Acknowledge there are no guarantees. Instead, move forward with curiosity, openness, and a willingness to experiment.

3. Release – Let go of any preconditions that are toxic. Be willing to take that next step without first doing a, b, c, d, or e. Go forth without all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed.

I want to re-establish my daily walking habit. In the past months, I put up obstacles based on the weather, which I can’t control. I won't walk every day if I’m only willing to walk when it’s warm and sunny. I’ve been telling myself, “It’s too cold.” Or, “It’s too dreary.” If, instead, I adjust the parameters, like the length of a walk, wearing more layers, or walking inside instead of out, I’ll be more likely to reach my daily walking goal.

“Getting past toxic preconditions is less a matter of being willing to step into the unknown than of realizing that you’re already in the unknown.”

— Oliver Burkeman

What’s On the Other Side of Toxicity?

Let’s face it. Life has challenges. However, how often do you create obstacles and make things more complicated than necessary? If you tend to hinder your progress, I encourage you to explore new options. Release those toxic preconditions that aren’t serving you. Experience more movement, flow, and success.

Have you encountered toxic preconditions in others or yourself? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support organizing, editing, planning, or working on that next step? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – local feel with a global reach.

Please schedule a Discovery Call, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, or call 914-271-5673. Figuring out next is possible, especially with support.

Have you experienced stress and anxiety when working out what to do next? Those negative emotions and thought loops can contribute to doubt and inaction.

What if instead, you chose a more supportive way forward? What if next wasn’t so stressful?

There are lessons to learn about figuring out what’s next from various sources. These can help you progress in a quieter, more curious, and gentler manner. How would it feel if the next step was less contentious?

I will share three sources that have inspired and helped me: a crocus, a quote, and a message. I hope they will be helpful for you, too.

Three Lessons About Next

1. The Purple Crocus

I’m taking one cue about next from nature’s playbook. Spring is my favorite time of year. While I love the entire season, I especially enjoy pre-spring. Seeing tiny signs of color and growth slowly transform the gray winterscape is uplifting.

One of my most joyful sightings is when the purple crocuses with their bright green stems emerge from the dirt to bask in the sunshine. I’ve often written about my delight in spotting the crocuses and the hopeful feelings they evoke.

Lesson for Finding Next: Channel the confidence and energy of the crocus. Envision yourself emerging from indecision and gently take your next step. Allow the hopeful feeling that new growth brings to guide you forward. The crocuses bloom, and so will you.

2. The Quiet Quote

In Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks, he shared a Carl Jung quote about next that resonated with me. I thought you would appreciate it, too. Jung said,

“. . . quietly do the next most necessary thing.”

I love the emphasis on “quietly.” Do you often go forth loudly, brimming with self-doubt, putting up obstacles, or fighting every step of the way? Instead, what if you approached that next thing in a calmer, lower volume manner?

Lesson for Finding Next: Change the volume of your approach to next. Turn down the sound and minimize the obstacles to help you find next with greater clarity, curiosity, and focus.

“. . . quietly do the next most necessary thing.”

— Carl Jung

3. The Internal Message

The messages you tell yourself can help or hinder progress. I recently wrote about deviating from my routine for wrapping up last year and planning the current year. My departure from previous patterns, wasn’t just a change. It was more like I didn’t do any of those rituals, at least, not in the formal way I had been for many years.

Wrapping up the year and planning for the future involves several steps and requires considerable time. Given all that was going on, it didn’t happen. Here we are and it’s almost spring. I officially decided to stop berating myself for not accomplishing my self-imposed expectation, and instead focus on what makes sense at this juncture.

One of the tasks was figuring out my motto for the new year. It didn’t happen. Instead, I decided that the theme from last year, which served me well, gets to have another year to work its magic. With quiet ease and a gentle prompt, I remind myself, “You got this.”

Lesson for Finding Next: Repeating something that works isn’t cheating. Using the familiar to build from is a kinder, gentler path forward. Next doesn’t have to be complicated or completely different. Let next make sense for this present moment.

Reimagining How Next Happens

There are various ways to reduce stress and anxiety about determining your next steps. Nature's prompts, inspired quotes, and reframed internal messages can help you change how you navigate next.

How would reimagining next make a difference in your life? Which of these ideas resonate with you? What helps you figure out next? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support organizing, editing, planning, or figuring out your next step? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – local feel with a global reach.

Please schedule a Discovery Call, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, or call 914-271-5673. Figuring out next is possible, especially with support.