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Peace of Mind Organizing

Make space. Find peace. Feel joy.

Articles tagged with emotions

The joy of finishing the long-delayed project

13 November 2015 | Comments [0] »

This past weekend, I experienced the thrill of an empty basement in my own home. My husband and I live in a two-family home built in 1908. (We used to rent out the downstairs apartment, but now we live in the whole thing.) It has a scary unfinished basement that I joked was straight out of Silence of the Lambs. The limestone foundation walls and plaster-and-horsehair dropped ceiling shed dust onto the floor that is so bad we have special “basement shoes” so we don’t track dust around the house.

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Getting past the barriers to getting started

7 May 2015 | Comments [0] »

Do you struggle to create (or maintain) order? You may need to declutter emotional barriers first.

Recently, a client of mine shared that she struggles with keeping her kitchen as clean and orderly as she’d like. It suddenly became a more pressing issue because some workers would be over in the next week to make needed repairs.

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Worth repeating: Getting past internal barriers

9 April 2015 | Comments [0] »

I originally wrote and published this post in February 2011. I’m happy to say that my internal barriers to doing Quickbooks have pretty much vanished, though I still have some trouble making it a priority. (But at least I don’t dread it.) Perhaps you have some internal barriers that are getting in your way. If so, I hope you’ll find this helpful.

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Worth repeating: We all have fear

25 June 2014 | Comments [0] »

I wrote this post five years ago, but it still rings true. Recently, I purchased a greeting card whose front bears this quotation from George Addair: “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” Distinguishing between when your fear is protecting you and when it’s limiting you can be a tricky thing._

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Worth repeating: Too many choices

5 February 2014 | Comments [1] »

Having too many choices can be paralyzing, as I reflected in this post written two years ago, just before I bought my iPhone 4S.

I’m buying an iPhone this week. Yay! I’m a fan of Apple products and love my iPod Touch (which is a now a senior citizen) almost as much as I love my iPad. I adore my MacBook. And I hate my cheap little Android phone. So this week I’m going to invest in an iPhone and I’m really excited about it.

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Worth repeating: My adventure with a professional organizer

6 September 2013 | Comments [0] »

Back in 2009, as a requirement for the CPO-CD® program, I hired a professional organizer to help me in my home. It was a great experience and I blogged about it at the time. The post is still true (and, I think, interesting). I really loved being in the client’s shoes, and, four years later, I still reflect on that experience when I’m working with clients.

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Focus on what you've accomplished, not what's yet to be done

29 August 2012 | Comments [0] »

I did the first of what will be a number of team organizing jobs for a client recently. In that first session, my five-person team made some amazing progress. It seemed like life-changing progress. I was thrilled.

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Too many choices

12 March 2012 | Comments [0] »

I’m buying an iPhone this week. Yay! I’m a fan of Apple products and love my iPod Touch (which is a now a senior citizen) almost as much as I love my iPad. I adore my MacBook. And I hate my cheap little Android phone. So this week I’m going to invest in an iPhone and I’m really excited about it.

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Getting past internal barriers

2 February 2011 | Comments [0] »

This the year that I’m all about creating new habits and routines. (At least so far.) In the past two months I’ve created strong habits surrounding cleaning up my yard and keeping the bedroom bureau top clear of clothing. I’ve also whittled my email inbox down to zero every day since January 2. (I’ll blog more about that another day.)

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My favorite blog posts of 2009

29 December 2009 | Comments [3] »

I wrote just over 150 blog posts in 2009. Last week, I clicked through them and picked out some of my favorites to share with you in this post. The first go-around, I selected 24. But I figure that’s more than you care to see in one post. So I’ve cut that number in half.

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Facing down the fears lurking in the clutter

18 September 2009 | Comments [2] »

As Shannon and I discuss in Declutter Happy Hour, sometimes people don’t want to work on clutter because it’s just plain scary.

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We all have fear

11 August 2009 | Comments [3] »

Recently my husband and I went to a family reunion held at a ski resort in Pennsylvania (it was the end of June and there was no snow). He and I rode a chair lift up to the top of the mountain to enjoy the view. I don’t ski and I’ve only been on a ski lift a handful of times. Neither of us heard the mumbling attendant’s instructions to pull the restraining bar over our heads and lock it in place in front of us. So we were riding up the mountain with nothing preventing us from falling out of the moving chair.

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My adventure with a professional organizer

12 June 2009 | Comments [1] »

As I blogged about the other day, I hired professional organizer Karel Worley, of Clearing Your Path, to come to my house and help my husband, Barry, and me declutter our basement.

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Have a Declutter Happy Hour any time you want

11 June 2009 | Comments [2] »

At the end of March, life coach Shannon Wilkinson and I started offering a four-week telecourse called Declutter Happy Hour.

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Why does decluttering feel so hard?

5 June 2009 | Comments [2] »

When it comes decluttering, which is usually the the first step of getting organized, getting started is often the hardest part.

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Declutter Happy Hour starts tomorrow!

30 March 2009 | Comments [0] »

Our first “Declutter Happy Hour” session begins tomorrow, March 31, at 2 p.m. central. If you haven’t signed up yet but are intrigued, head on over to the Declutter Happy Hour website and check it out.

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Announcing Declutter Happy Hour!

18 March 2009 | Comments [0] »

Recently, I’ve been blogging quite a bit about how hard it can be to get rid of clutter, not just because it’s hard work that’s difficult to find the time to do, but because of emotional barriers to the work, or unhelpful beliefs that get in the way.

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Take the poll: Emotional barriers to decluttering

16 March 2009 | Comments [0] »

On Friday, I posted about emotional barriers to getting organized. Jim Dietzel from Rubbermaid’s blog suggested in a comment that I do a poll on the various emotional blocks folks have when it comes to decluttering.

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Emotional barriers to getting organized

13 March 2009 | Comments [5] »

Earlier this week, I wrote about unhelpful beliefs that can stop you from being able to let go of stuff. Today I want to talk about emotional barriers that can come up when you’re trying to get organized (or even just thinking about it).

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Decisions and clutter

5 March 2009 | Comments [0] »

When I talk with clients or give talks, I’ll often make this statement:

Clutter is nothing but delayed decisions.

And then I’ll urge folks to make decisions, rather than delaying them.

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