Peace of Mind Organizing

Get 30% off Elfa at The Container Store until February 16

13 January 2026

This year they've partnered with Queer Eye's Tan France!

It’s Elfa sale time! Between now and February 16, all Elfa at the Container Store is 30 percent off.

I love the Elfa system of closet solutions and drawers. I use lots of it in my home and recommend it to clients all the time. The extra-narrow cabinet-depth drawer drawer systems, for example, are game changers for under the bathroom sink!

I use Elfa in my own home, in a closet in my office in my old home and to store my yarn stash in my apartment. I also have a single bank of drawers in a closet to handle some kitchen overflow. I love my Elfa file cart, which I have repurposed into a three-drawer unit on wheels. It lives under my desk and stores all my Bullet Journal supplies as well as a few other office supplies.

I’ve been using and recommending Elfa for 18 years and the quality has remained consistent, I’m happy to say! Now’s a great time to buy some. If you need design help, they have planning tools on their website or, if you’re close to a store, you can make an appointment to work with one of their designers at no charge.

My 2026 Word of the Year: ENJOY

29 December 2025

Each year, I come up with a word of the year (WOTY) to inspire me throughout the year. Some WOTYs have been more successful than others. Last year’s word, FLEX, turned out to be a good one. It reminded me that I wanted to flex my mental and physical muscles all year and stay flexible in my body and spirit.

As I’ve done for the last few years, I thought about my WOTY as part of my end-of-the-year float in a flotation tank. I actually came up with it while I was showering after the float.

My Word of the Year for 2026 is ENJOY.

It feels right because it’s sort of an amped up version of a goal that has topped my goals list for the last several years: To do more things that I want to do and fewer things that I don’t want to do. As I contemplated making ENJOY my word for next year, I thought about how it would give me the freedom to choose enjoyable activities. I noted that I want to enjoy:

• Learning
• Socializing
• Creating
• Relaxing
• Exercising
• Working

In this season of my life, this feels fantastic.

Do you come up with a Word of the Year? If so, please share what it is in the comments!

Worth repeating: Alternatives to gift wrap

15 December 2025

I wrote this post eight years ago, in 2017. When I re-read it this morning, I actually got excited about some of the ideas I’d come up with for non-traditional gift wrap. So I wanted to share it gain today!

I just left The Container Store. This time of year, their displays feature Gift Wrap Wonderland, where they have rolls upon rolls of beautiful gift wrap. I love The Container Store, truly I do. But as I looked at all that wrap I thought to myself, “Why do people need to spend all this money and storage space just to wrap gifts?”

When I got home, I started thinking about alternatives to purchasing gift wrap. There are so many! This is the list I put together in about two minutes. Can you add anything to it?

1. Gift wrap from last year
2. Gift bags, rather than wrap (they take up less room and are so easy to re-use)
3. One type of wrap, like kraft paper or a solid color. Then you don’t need multiple rolls.
4. Newspaper comics, if you subscribe to a newspaper
5. Aluminum foil
6. Kitchen parchment
7. The liner paper from a gift box (my favorite is the illustrated paper that comes inside my monthly Barkbox!)
8. Completed pages from coloring books
9. Decorated printer paper or newsprint or a former grocery bag
10. Kids’ art that you might otherwise discard
11. A lovely piece of cloth
12. Roadmaps (who uses those to navigate any more?)
13. A family tree printed from your genealogy software
14. Beautiful wall calendar pages from a previous year

That’s just off the top of my head. If you love spending money on gift wrap and finding a place to store it in your home, please don’t let me stop you. But when you get a little creative, you can save money, use your storage space for something else and charm the gift recipient with your creativity.

Photo by David-Olivier Gascon on Unsplash

Worth repeating (again): My love/hate relationship with homemade gifts

11 December 2025

I wrote this post a dozen years ago after reading an article on homemade gifts in Martha Stewart Living. The link is still live—it’s updated regularly and the projects are different from the 2013 article that inspired this post—but the message is still the same. Please think hard before giving non-perishable homemade gifts. It can be so hard for the gift recipient to let them go. And that isn’t helpful for folks struggling with clutter.

I’m a little bit crafty. I love beautiful, handmade items. I knit as a hobby and especially appreciate hand knits.

But I almost never give an item I’ve knitted as a gift. And that’s because I’ve seen among my clients a real difficulty in giving up an item that was a gift. And it’s even harder to give up hand-made gifts, even if they’ve never been used or loved. Sometimes the gift recipient just doesn’t share the taste of the giver.

I hate to urge people not to give handmade gifts, because I think they can be so wonderful. (I do actually give knitted items to people who have specifically asked for them.)

The current (December 2013) issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine has an article on creating hand-made gifts. (It’s been updated for 2025.) The photos are scrumptious.

This bacon jam looks delicious!

My big takeaway from the article is that there’s a wonderful middle ground between my reticence to give handmade gifts and my appreciation for the warmth and love behind handmade gifts. And that’s giving homemade edibles or other consumables. Gifts like homemade cookies, soap, beverages (like the homemade Limoncelli mentioned in the current article), or the creative aromatics pictured below are fabulous ideas.

Aromatic extracts: An unusual handmade gift

One year I gave away home-baked dog treats to my friends with dogs. (If that idea appeals to you, check out my dog-treat cookbook, You Bake ‘Em Dog Biscuits Cookbook). Another year I made and gave away biscotti. I remember the year my husband was in culinary school, he made gorgeous molded chocolates for gifts.

Making and giving a consumable gift is a great idea for those who feel the urge to make something for their loved ones. It’s a gift that will surely be appreciated. And one that won’t become clutter.

Photos by Maria Robledo. Courtesy of Martha Stewart Living. Copyright © 2013. For the instructions on making bacon jam and aromatic extracts (and other great things), see Love to Give: Handmade Holiday Gifts.

Worth repeating (again): Today's piece of holiday advice

1 December 2025

I wrote this post in 2017 and since then we’ve helped clients part with hundreds of pounds of no-long-loved holiday decor. It may sound like a paradox, but I believe it’s true: The more holiday decor you keep, the harder it is to decorate your home. I urge you to build some ease into your holiday season by following this advice!

Yesterday, I helped a client part with the holiday decor that she didn’t love and wasn’t using. Bags of decor left her storage room to find a new home with folks who will love and use it. She felt great about it (and so did I). When I got home, I wrote down this piece of advice for you.

My blog turns 19 this month!

17 November 2025

On November 10, 2006, I published my first post on this blog. It was entitled, What is organized?. Not surprisingly, it received zero comments. I’m pretty tickled to report that reading it now doesn’t embarrass me!

In the 19 years since, I’ve published 1714 posts (including my Worth Repeating posts, where I revisit favorite posts). That’s an average of 90 posts a year or almost two a week.

Writing a blog is a lot of work—particularly if you dedicate yourself to posting regularly. But for me it’s been well worth the effort. This blog has helped me personally and helped my business in so many ways. Here are a few:

• It helps my search rankings, which puts me in front of prospective clients. Blogging consistently for 19 years has been immensely helpful to my business.
• It lets clients and prospective clients get to know me and understand that I’m not perfect.
• It also lets clients and prospective clients know that despite my imperfection, I have expertise.
• It allows me to share my expertise.
• It’s allowed me to connect with people and companies throughout the world.
• It’s given me a lens through which to look at the world.
• It’s helped record my personal history so I don’t have to rely on my memory (in a way it’s a very public journal).

One thing I like about blogging, over relying on social media channels to reach prospective clients, is that a blog is less ephemeral. Past social media posts are harder to find. Now I have a 19-year library all in one place that anyone can search or browse. I also prefer the spaciousness of blogging that social media doesn’t permit. I can use as many words as I want.

This is my first blog, but it’s not my only blog. In 2012 I started a second blog, Organize Your Family History, which marries my passion for organizing with my passion for genealogy research. And in 2023, after I became a YNAB Certified Coach, I started a coaching practice called Peace of Mind Spending and established a blog on that website, where I write about money mindset as well as nuts and bolts posts around using the YNAB software.

Blogging regularly takes discipline. But it’s also something that can easily become a habit. I don’t pre-write (or even pre-plan) my posts. I just decide what to write each writing session. I don’t use AI to write my posts. I made my living as a freelance writer prior to opening my organizing business in 2005, so writing comes naturally to me.

I try to blog once a week on each of my blogs, though I’m the first to admit that doesn’t always happen. I include a link to the month’s blog posts in every issue of my monthly email newsletter, which is an easy way to make sure you don’t miss a new post.

I’m always open to blog post ideas from readers. If you have an idea for a post, please email it to me!

Photo by Jane Graystone on Unsplash

Happy surprises might be hiding in your mail

24 October 2025

Over the years, I’ve encountered many clients who don’t open their postal mail. Some take it to extreme levels. I get it. Mail can be scary. I remember back when I was dealing with credit-card debt I would be afraid to open the mail and see my statements.

But I’ve learned that the truth is the truth whether or not you know about it. And ignoring your mail never helps.

Moreover, when you open your mail, you may find happy surprises. This happened to me recently when I received a letter from my health insurance company. (I get my health insurance on the marketplace.) I fully expected it to be a notice of a rate increase for 2026. But I cringed and went ahead and opened it.

It was a check in the amount of $1,119.26! I was incredulous so read everything in the accompanying letter. Come to find out, by law there is an audit every three years of companies who offer health insurance through the marketplace. If a company doesn’t spend at least 80 percent of its proceeds from premiums on health care, its members are due a rebate. (I’m paraphrasing from memory and probably grossly oversimplifying.) I’d never heard of this rebate, so wasn’t expecting it. And if I hadn’t opened my mail, I wouldn’t have known about it!

Three weeks later, I received an email from my health insurance company telling me I should have received a rebate, so I eventually would have opened the envelope if I hadn’t thrown it away.

Just like clearing off your desk, putting away your clothes or emptying your email inbox (and lots of other things), opening your mail is easier if you do it every day before it becomes overwhelming. And who knows? Maybe your effort will be rewarded by a surprise check in the mail! (Or something equally nice.)

Photo by Wolfgang Vrede on Unsplash.