Spring is a fun time of year. It’s a welcome change from grayer winter days. I’m continually amazed by the new beautiful blooms appearing every day. The daffodils are starting to wilt as the tulips and lilacs are emerging. Growth radiates hope and possibilities as the landscape becomes greener and more colorful.

Lightening up and letting go are integral to the spring season. However, sometimes, the letting go process can feel overwhelming. You might be trying to decide what to let go of or are challenged with activating.

There are many ways to work through to the other side. One letting go strategy is so effective that I highly recommend trying it. I’ve used this myself and with clients, and it always works. I’m using this exact strategy now, which I’ll share.

Value of a Deadline

You might want to edit but are having difficulty beginning. Perhaps you want to declutter because guests will be visiting. Maybe you feel like your space is piled with stuff that you no longer want. Or, you’re thinking about downsizing and letting go of the excess. Your “why” is clear, but you’re procrastinating.

One of the best letting go strategies is to combine a deadline with accountability. For example, I have a donation pick-up scheduled this week with GreenDrop®. They are a nationwide resource that accepts donations through pick-up or drop-off locations. Knowing GreenDrop® will be here on a specific date incentivizes me to let go now. I’ve been filling bags and boxes of things I want to release. When I set the deadline, I gave myself enough time by factoring in my other commitments.

Here's the thing. Could I let go of even more? Sure! However, given the time I have to edit, I’m letting go of enough to make a difference. The good news is I can always schedule another pick-up when I’m ready to say goodbye to more.

Letting Go Questions

I often think about letting go. Sometimes, it’s about unhelpful thoughts or time challenges. Yet, right now, I’m focused more on editing the physical stuff- things like clothing, household wares, linens, books, cosmetics, or pantry items.

When decision-making, I ask letting go questions like:

• Has it overstayed its welcome?

• Does it fit?

• Do I still like it?

• Is it damaged beyond repair or even repair-worthy?

• Do I use or wear it anymore?

• Is it expired?

• Is it taking up space and no longer worth the real estate?

• Has it served its purpose?

• Is it necessary?

• Am I ready to say, “It’s been nice knowing you?”

“One of the best letting go strategies is to combine a deadline with accountability.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

Do I ever get stuck? Of course. I expect it, but I don’t let that deter me. I focus first on the less challenging items. Then, I circle back to the trickier things and make a decision. I might keep those things a little longer or let them go. It’s a low-pressure, fluid process.

Do you use deadlines to facilitate letting go? What works for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts and invite you to join the conversation.

If you need help with letting go, reach out anytime. Please email me, Linda, at linda@ohsorganized.com, call 914-271-5673, or schedule a Discovery Call. Letting go is possible, especially with support.

For almost three decades, I’ve enthusiastically helped people edit and get organized. Recently, I’ve become my own client and leaned into some organizing self-help. My motivation to let go of the extraneous was partially influenced by this summer’s tiny house vacation. While I no longer am obsessed with moving into a tiny house, I want to live in our right-sized house, but with less stuff.

Our home isn’t disorganized or cluttered. Things have a place. My husband, Steve, and I can easily retrieve and return items to their designated ‘homes.’  However, there are belongings that have overstayed their welcome. Those are the things that have been stored for a long time and are no longer used, needed, or wanted. They are taking up physical and emotional space. Their time has come to move on.

After returning from vacation, I set a long-term goal to reduce the amount of stuff I own. My plan isn’t a detailed room-by-room-do-this-by-x-date proposition. It’s a low-pressure, loose plan. I added one simple daily repeat on my to-do list that says, “Edit & release some stuff.”  There is no expectation other than to do something. I spend 15-60 minutes editing what I feel like working on that day.

In the last two weeks, I edited and organized clothing, shoes, handbags, toiletries, cleaning products, paper goods, dishes, and glasses. Additional edits included candles, vases, office supplies, books, photos, cards, letters, memorabilia, personal and business files, and email inbox. These items were from the dining room, entryway, laundry room, kitchen, office, main bedroom, and bathrooms.

I let go of

• Five 13-gallon bags of trash

• Two 30-gallon bags of trash

• Two 30-gallon bags of clothing and home goods for donations

• One bag of books for donations

• One bag of paper for recycling

• One bag of paper for shredding

• One container of pens for a friend

Like with all experiments, come learning. My ‘edit & release some stuff’ plan is no exception. There will be more insights, but here are seven discoveries I made so far.

7 Best Organizing Self-Help Discoveries Made With My New Simple Plan

1. Track Your Progress

There are many ways to enjoy progress, but for me, tracking with a simple chart helps me review and acknowledge my accomplishments. I created a Word document with three columns- date, area worked on, and result. Taking photos or journaling can also be helpful.

2. Respect Random Approach

Typical organizing wisdom encourages us to organize one area before moving on to the next. I’ve shared that advice with many clients. However, as logical as that sounds, it’s not always possible or desirable. Clients sometimes get bored working in one area or encounter emotionally charged belongings they are not ready to organize. With my approach, I gifted myself the option for randomness. Instead of a specific plan of what to edit each day, I let myself choose more intuitively. Which area do I feel like working on today? It keeps the pressure low and the satisfaction high.

3. Honor Your Emotions

Is organizing emotional? It can be. While editing, I experienced a range of feelings like happiness, joy, sadness, ambivalence, resistance, frustration, annoyance, guilt, exhaustion, satisfaction, and love. I let my emotions have the space to surface. When editing my cards, I found a beautiful, love-filled note written by my mom for my 40th birthday. I felt sad that she is gone and simultaneously felt her love and encouragement. 

4. Trust the Exit

Honestly, if I wasn’t logging my progress and noting the stuff I said goodbye to, I wouldn’t remember what was gone. I have no regrets and don’t miss anything that I released. It feels good.

“It’s liberating to live with less.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVPO™

5. Live With Less

As each area or space is edited, I appreciate having less. For example, when I open the sticky note drawer, only my favorites are there, and the never-used ones are gone. When I get dressed, the clothes I like and wear most are in my closets and drawers. They have space to breathe, and it makes it easier for me to select what I’m going to wear. It’s liberating to live with less.

6. Rethink Your Space

One of the benefits of letting go is the opportunity to rethink your space. Having less visual and physical clutter makes it easier to improve flow and organization.  As I released stuff, I cleaned and asked a few questions. Is the space working as is? Or, could it use a slight tweak? Some areas were set. However, for others, I made improvements. For example, after the kitchen edit, I inserted freestanding cabinet shelves. This made use of wasted vertical space and also improved access to frequently used dishes.

7. Engage Self or Outside Help

While I’m making progress, I recognize the value of enlisting help. While I have released a lot, I’m pretty sure if someone supported and asked me questions as I edited, I’d let go of more. Help with facilitating decision-making is invaluable. For now, I continue to go it alone, coaching myself through the process. I will leave the door open to reach out for help if needed.

Have you been editing and organizing? Are you doing it on your own or did you get help? What did you learn? Did any of my discoveries resonate with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

An essential part of getting a fresh start is being able to let go. It’s challenging to move forward when we hold on to life’s physical stuff, habits, thoughts, or relationships that don’t support who we are or where we’re going. Even though we may intellectually understand this, doing something about it isn’t always so simple. Our belongings often come with emotional attachments, which make it more difficult to part with them. Of course, there’s no need to let go of things just to let go. However, if you’re in a transition, want less stuff, or are clearing out your parents’ home, then releasing to move forward is an integral part of that process.

Last week, I was invited back as a guest on WNYC’s “All Of It” show with the fabulous host, Alison Stewart.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Listeners had the opportunity to call in and ask their most pressing organizing questions. While we talked about many things, the focus of this show was primarily on clearing out your parent’s home. Alison started the show by reading a passage from her book, Junk, which she wrote after clearing out her parents’ home of 55 years with her sister and friend.

One of the ideas we discuss in the organizing industry is “safe passage.” What we’ve noticed is that when we help our clients find meaningful homes for the possessions they want to let go of, it eases their emotions and attachments and helps them feel good about releasing them. So, for example, giving items to family, friends, or charities that benefit or that the recipients appreciate provides this safe passage. 

Many excellent resources were discussed during the WNYC show. I’ll share those along with some additional ones.

Resources for Letting Go

1. Art Supplies – Materials for the Arts is a New York organization that collects art supplies, art books, audio and video equipment, beads, jewelry, fabric, flat-screen TVs, musical instruments, office supplies, paper, picture frames, power tools, trim and sewing notions, and more. They make the materials available for free to nonprofit organizations with arts programming, government agencies, and public schools.

2. Books – Better World Books is a for-profit e-retailer that collects and sells new and used books online and matches each purchase with a book donation to Book-for-Book. Sales generate funds for literacy and education initiatives in the United States, the United Kingdom, and around the world. Visit their website to find a book drop box near you.

3. Clothing and Household – Many places accept donations of clothing, household items, books, furniture, toys, electronics, and a variety of things. Depending upon your location, some of these organizations will pick up your items. Resources include:

• Furniture Sharehouse

• Goodwill

• Housing Works

• Vietnam Veterans of America

4. Medical Equipment and Supplies – The Afya Foundation supports ongoing health missions worldwide with a focus on disaster relief. Recognizing that after surgery, illness or death, families often have unneeded medical supplies and equipment, they accept these supplies and give them a second life by donating them to others in need. They will take underpads, adult diapers, gauze, IV supplies, manual wheelchairs, walkers, canes, crutches, and more.

5. Records (LPs and More) – WFMU is having a Record Fair April 26-28, 2019 at the Brooklyn Expo Center. They are collecting interesting and eclectic vinyl records and CDs. They will use the records to fill in their music library and generate funds for the station. 

The Archive of Contemporary Music is a non-profit that collects and preserves recorded popular music and music-related materials from around the world. This includes all music formats (LPs, CDs, 8-tracks, etc.), music-related memorabilia, posters, personal papers, press kits, sheet music, songbooks, books, videos, and more.

6. Recycling and Trash – When clearing out a home, heavy lifting will be involved. The Junkluggers are an excellent resource for taking away trash, donations, and recycling. They aim to donate as much as possible and will provide you with a tax-deductible receipt. When I cleared out my parents’ home of 60 years, they were my go-to source.

7. Reflections – Letting go often involves the physical process of removing things from their environment. In points 1-6, I provided you with resources for doing this. Another aspect of letting go is navigating the emotional part. Like Alison Stewart, I also cleared out and sold my parents’ home this past year. It was an emotional process and a big learning experience. It’s one thing to help others, it’s quite another to manage a project like this for your own family. It gave me a deeper appreciation of the emotions and challenges my clients experienced when I helped them. While I wrote many posts during this process, for my final post in the series, How to Say Goodbye and Let Go With Love, I shared ten gentle ways that I learned to let go. 

Behind the Scenes at WNYC

To listen to WNYC's "All Of It" January 18th podcast with listener questions, their stories, my responses, and more, click here. My segment is the first 20-plus minutes.

To move forward and get a fresh start, letting go happens. Your focus and energy will be on physical possessions or emotional attachments. It helps to have tools and resources. Do any of these resonate with you? Do you have other favorite letting go resources? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Join the conversation!

The newest installment (v15) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature is here with my latest discoveries that inform, educate, and relate to organizing and life balance. I’ve included unique and inspiring clutter-related finds, which reflect this month’s blog theme.

You are a wonderfully engaged group. I look forward to your participation and additions to the collection I’ve sourced for you. What do you find interesting?

What’s Interesting? . . .

1. Interesting Read – Mind Decluttering

As many of you may know, I’ve been delving more deeply into the mindfulness arena and thinking about the relationship between mindfulness and organizing. One of the books I recently read was Mindfulness for Beginners – Reclaiming the Present Moment – And Your Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn, author and developer of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR.) While mindfulness meditation isn’t about clearing our mind of all thought, it does help to declutter the thoughts we are having along with improve our focus and appreciation of the present moment. Jon Kabat-Zin defines mindfulness as “awareness, cultivated by paying attention in a sustained and particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” There is both formal and informal mindfulness practice. He describes how to engage in these complementary practices. He says, “Mindfulness reminds us that it is possible to shift from a doing mode to a being mode through the application of attention and awareness.”

2. Interesting Product – Essentials Decluttering

Do you frequently misplace your keys or wallet? Part of the clutter management process is establishing a “home” for everything. This is especially important when it comes to creating a place for our essentials like our cell phones, keys, or glasses. This cleanly designed Grab N’ Go has designated compartments to house essentials in addition to cut-outs for charger cords, and a space to hold pens and a notepad.

3. Interesting Resource – Things Decluttering

Bravo that you’ve decluttered your clothing and household items! However, now the items you’re ready to let go of are creating more clutter and piles. The Give Back Box is an easy, painless, and free way to ship your donations by UPS or the US Post office to a an array of charity partners that sell the items to generate revenue to fund community-based programs like job training and placement services and support financial education and transportation. Declutter while doing good for others!

4. Interesting Tech  – Cord Decluttering

The loose cords we use for our digital devices can create clutter in even organized spaces. With these easy to use and fun-looking leather “cord tacos” from This Is Ground, you’ll easily be able to store and transport your cords.

5. Interesting Thought – Life Decluttering

Clutter and the chaos that it can bring is part of life. Clutter also presents us with an opportunity to discover, learn, decide, reimagine, and transform it into something simpler and less overwhelming.

What are your interesting finds? Which of these resonate with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Come join the conversation!