Menu

Peace of Mind Organizing

Make space. Find peace. Feel joy.

Articles tagged with clutter-clearing

10 things you can throw away right now

26 April 2021 | Comments [0] »

I led an organizing team in a basement last week and enjoyed watching the clients experience the freedom of letting go of three carloads of unneeded belongings. It made it so easy to organize what they decided to keep.

Tagged with: , , , ,

The phrases that make me cringe and smile

23 January 2017 | Comments [6] »

When I’m working with a client, a few phrases make me cringe when I hear them come out of the client’s mouth. And a few make my heart sing.

Tagged with: , ,

Staying on top of your email inbox

19 December 2016 | Comments [0] »

I’m struck by how similar our email inboxes are to physical clutter. Many people deal with physical clutter, but I bet even those who manage to keep a tidy home have email inbox clutter.

Tagged with: , , , ,

Confessions of an email hoarder

13 October 2016 | Comments [3] »

I openly admit that I have been an email hoarder. I abandoned my emails on my old Windows computer when I switched to the Mac in 2008. And since then I had a tendency to hang on to all emails that might possibly come in handy some day.

Tagged with: , , , ,

Worth repeating: Eliminating the extraneous

29 January 2016 | Comments [0] »

My desk needs some serious help at the moment, probably because I’m spending too little time in my office these days. This weekend, I plan to focus on creating more visual peace in my office. I’m taking inspiration from this blog post, which I first posted on February 18, 2013. I’m so glad I signed up for Jen’s program and I wish she were still offering it!

Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Worth repeating: An empty drawer is a beautiful thing

11 January 2016 | Comments [1] »

My team and I helped a client declutter and organize her entire home last week and we were able to make a huge impact—because the client parted with so much. She was so ready to let go of the excess that was weighing her down and she made amazing decisions. As we took out bag after bag of denotable items, the rooms seemed to get lighter.

Tagged with: , , , ,

Worth repeating: Shifting your perspective by shifting your furniture

5 November 2015 | Comments [0] »

Nearly three years ago, I moved my desk 90 degrees. The impact was immediate and amazing! I’m still loving the placement of my desk, so I thought I’d repeat the post I wrote about it in 2013.

Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

An empty drawer is a beautiful thing

26 January 2015 | Comments [3] »

My team and I helped a client declutter and organize her entire home last week and we were able to make a huge impact—because the client parted with so much. She was ready to let go of the excess that was weighing her down. As we took out bag after bag of denotable items, the rooms seemed to get lighter.

Tagged with: , , ,

Got cabin fever?

11 December 2014 | Comments [0] »

A winter storm has hit both coasts of the US, bringing rain, snow, and generally unpleasant weather to much of the nation. If you find yourself trapped inside by the weather, here are some organizing tasks you can accomplish. (I published a similar list in a February 2010 post called snowed in?.)

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Worth repeating: Decluttering my keys

8 July 2014 | Comments [0] »

About ten months ago, I decluttered the copious keys in our house and posted a step-by-step explanation of the process. I’m happy to report that the key bin has not attracted more clutter and we’ve found having labeled keys for our friends’ and neighbors’ homes to be really useful! Here’s that post.

Tagged with: , , , , ,

10 things you can throw away this weekend

9 May 2014 | Comments [0] »

It’s basement season for my business. I’ve been in a lot of basements recently and my teams have helped make them much more enjoyable and functional spaces. I keep seeing the same sorts of items, so I decided to a create a quick list of items that I frequently see people unnecessarily hanging onto in basements (and other parts of the house).

Tagged with: , , , , ,

Less stuff, more living: A review of Clutterfree with Kids (+ giveaway!)

21 February 2014 | Comments [13] »

Joshua Becker, the founder and editor of the popular Becoming Minimalist website, sent me a copy of his new book, Clutterfree with Kids for a review and giveaway. Here’s the review. At the end you’ll see how to enter to win an autographed copy of the book.

Tagged with: , , , , ,

Decluttering my keys

2 September 2013 | Comments [7] »

I’m a big believer in having one place where the keys are placed when coming in the door. In our house, it’s been a coated-wire basket just inside the back door, where we enter from the garage. We now automatically drop our keys right in the basket.

Tagged with: , , , ,

Small change, big impact

30 July 2013 | Comments [0] »

My husband and I have lived in our home for 22 years. (Well, four of those 22 years we lived in New York City, so I guess it’s 18 years.)

One of the big frustrations in the house for all those years was the master-bedroom closet had sliding doors. These were oversize sliding doors—in other words, each one was more than half as wide as the closet.

Tagged with: , , , ,

Shifting your perspective by shifting your furniture

11 March 2013 | Comments [3] »

I’m not somebody who switches furniture around. I know there are people who consider that fun, but I’m not one of them. I typically agonize over the placement of furniture and once it’s done, that’s that.

Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Eliminating the extraneous

18 February 2013 | Comments [12] »

I recently signed up for the fabulous Workspace and Studio Redesign program offered by Jennifer Hofmann of Inspired Home Office.

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Less really is more

23 January 2013 | Comments [9] »

I just spent some time as a houseguest of my friend, Shannon Wilkinson, who moved into her lovely home in Portland just six months ago.

Tagged with: , , , , ,

Just do it

9 November 2010 | Comments [0] »

Tagged with: , , ,

The cost of keeping stuff

10 September 2010 | Comments [6] »

I gave a talk this week called Letting Go of the Tough Stuff. One of the points I made in that talk is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Many clients don’t like to part with items they don’t use or love because those items cost a lot to buy. Or they feel the item is worth something and they can’t just give it away, but selling it feels too complicated or labor-intenstive, so it gets put off.

Tagged with: , , ,

Last June on the blog

22 June 2010 | Comments [2] »

Inspired by my friend, Margaret Lukens, I’ve decided to point out some of my favorite from this blog from Junes gone by. June is usually a pretty busy blogging month for me (though not so much this year). I had so many posts to choose from that I’m going to split the recap into two posts.

Tagged with: , , , ,

Snowed in?

8 February 2010 | Comments [2] »

Here in St. Louis, we have just a little snow on the ground, with a little more expected this afternoon. Those of you on the east coast, however, are pretty much snowed in. I just communicated via email with a friend in Maryland who said they got two feet of snow and were out of power for 36 hours. Yikes.

Tagged with: , , , , ,