Blog
Tips, tricks, and ideas to reference for a simpler, stress-free life
Try a MAJOR closet purge
Does this scenario sounds familiar? Your alarm startles you out of bed. You drag yourself into the shower with hopes of becoming more alert. When finished, you stand in front of your clothes hoping a stylish, fashionable outfit will jump out of the closet and onto your body. When you realize this is an impossible feat, you rifle through the enormous pile of clothing on the floor in search of something...anything...that's clean and unwrinkled that you can throw together in a hurry so you're not THAT late for work.
Get in the habit
Habits are formed when nerve cells that fire together wire together, and creating a new habit takes time. A habit is like walking through grass; the more you walk on the same path, the more the path forms. When you stop, the grass grows back.
Maintaining order and organization is a skill that can be developed and learned, similar to creating a new habit. The more you practice those skills and habits, the easier it becomes to maintain organization.
The costs of buying in bulk
Nearly every budget-conscious, coupon-clipping website suggests that one of the best ways to save money is by buying in bulk. In many cases, this is true. To a point.
I used to be…
When we keep bringing items into our home without releasing anything, our homes become bloated and stagnated. Let's consider previous hobbies or previous roles we used to play.
How do I feel?
The question, "How do I feel when I walk into this room?" and your response to the question offer tremendous insight into how your home is affecting you, whether its a negative reaction or a positive one. "How do I feel..." is an open-ended, gentle question intended to delve into areas that lift your spirit versus areas that suffocate and/or frustrate you.
My approach to paper memorabilia
Nearly everyone has a box (or more!) of memorabilia - special items they want to keep in order to remember an event or a person or a trip. Greeting cards and letters fall squarely into this category.
Procrastination
Sometimes procrastination plays a role in a client’s disorganization. For example, they’ve got a pile of clothing lying on the floor of their closet that they need to take to their tailor for alterations. And that pile has been lying there for weeks or months, and now it’s grown to include other items of clothing that need to be washed, folded and/or hung up.
“I’m never going shopping again!”
I’ve been working with a client who has lived with her husband in their 2000 square foot home for the past 25 or so years. Career pursuits and busy lives meant that home organization fell to the bottom of the list for years and years, but now they’re ready to purge what they don’t want any longer and organize the rest.
No regrets…except one
One question I get asked most frequently by my clients is: "So Shannon, have you ever donated or thrown out something you wish you had kept?" And I always answer this question the same way…
I miss you, Dad
I don't usually write too much about my personal life other than my Small Space Stories posts, but today is the fifth anniversary of my dad's passing and I couldn't let the day pass without "publicly" acknowledging him. You see, my dad was a pretty incredible person. Humble as can be, he touched so many people's lives with a smile and a genuine interest in learning about others.
Support or suffocate?
Does your space support you or does it suffocate you? This question really gets to the heart of how you might feel about your home and its contents.
Less is more
If you're looking for another reason to live with less, how about this: A 2014 study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that people who lived in cluttered environments were more likely to overspend than those who lived in uncluttered spaces. The studies' findings concluded that cluttered environments decrease self-control and increase the likelihood of impulse spending.
Snack attack
My clients, who are big snackers, had a pantry full of canned goods, boxed pasta, dry baking goods, and so forth, but the pantry was bursting at the seams from a plethora of full, half-full, and nearly-empty (and even a couple of completely empty) boxes of individually-wrapped snack items.
The neverending to-do list
As a small business owner, I wear many hats (bookkeeper, writer, editor, marketer, presenter, networker, volunteer, web designer, and, MOST importantly, professional organizer). Plus, I, like most people, have a plethora of items that need to get done at home. The result of this is a seemingly never-ending list of items that need to be completed. But to-do lists are a way of life for most, if not all, of us.
Today
I began subscribing to Success magazine after I picked it up on a whim in an airport a few months ago. Filled with great articles on personal and professional development, it has been exactly what I've needed to read during my "year of balance."
These paragraphs really resonated with me, so I had to share. From John Addison's "The Pursuit of Happiness" article in the February 2017 issue…
Home is where the stress is?
How do you feel when you walk into your home at the end of a work day? Does your home feel like a sanctuary - a soft spot to land after you’ve finished a busy day and a stressful commute? Or does it feel like an added stressor that you’d rather run away from?
How to minimize distractions
As your cell phone rings and the television is blaring in the background, you receive a text from your friend who wants to meet you for drinks tomorrow night, but before you can check your calendar and respond, you receive a message via messenger from your sibling asking if you picked up your mom's birthday gift. Meanwhile, an ad for prescription medication drones on and on with an extensive list of potential side effects, and your seven-year-old asks when dinner will be ready, and you realize you haven't given dinner any thought.
Clothing swap
When swapping out winter clothing for lighter spring/summer attire, it’s a great opportunity to perform a closet audit. Take a look at which items were never or rarely worn versus your go-to items and determine what you want to hold onto for future use versus what you can give away. Consider which items you love, which you kinda-sorta like, and which ones make you cringe, and sort accordingly.
Reward yourself
Have you ever embarked on an organizing project, but midway through the project you lost steam, your momentum vanished and your excitement disappeared, so the project was never completed?
Feeling energized
I’ve been taking an online class from Janet Luhrs, a simple living advocate who I’ve followed for the past 20+ years and the author of The Simple Living Guide. The class is full of great information about leading a more simple and fulfilling life.
When addressing clutter, whether it’s paper clutter or stuff clutter, Luhrs uses the following terminology to help one determine whether or not to keep an item:
Does the item energize you, are you neutral with regard to it, or does it make you feel drained?
Start your journey
Choose clarity over clutter and fall in love with your home