The latest installment (v26) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature is here with my recent discoveries that inform, educate, and relate to organizing and life balance. I’ve included unique and inspiring fresh start-related finds, which reflect this month’s blog theme. You are such an incredibly engaged group. I am grateful for your presence, positive energy, and contributions to this community.

I look forward to your participation and additions to the collection I’ve sourced. What do you find interesting?

What’s Interesting? . . .

1. Interesting Read – Fresh Start Goals

Hot off the press is the insightfully written organizing book, Organizing and Big Scary Goals – Working With Discomfort and Doubt to Create Real Life Order by my colleague, Sara Skillen. I am a big fan of Sara’s blog and enjoyed reading her “how-might-you?” book, where she uses her organizer and coach lens throughout. While she includes a few how-tos, Sara weaves engaging, relatable stories throughout, including overcoming one of her challenges, the fear of bike riding. These stories help readers understand that finding solutions to their organizing challenges can be done in a relaxed, exploratory, and uniquely personal way. Sara concludes that “…big change can happen for anyone…by letting go of external messages, embracing their fear and discomfort, and asking for help when they need it…they can achieve unexpected results and stay consistent.” If you’re struggling with getting organized and reaching your goals, read Sara’s book, which offers you a compassionate fresh start.

2. Interesting Product – Fresh Start Papers

If your desk or kitchen counters are piled with papers, and you can’t find the ones you need, consider using this stylish desktop file, the Arc basket. You’ll be able to organize your VIP papers in an instant. It is spacious enough to accommodate the essential items, yet not so large as to overwhelm you or your space. This U Brands open file box is shown in green and also comes in white and pale pink. Give your desk or counters a fresh start with this sleek hanging files bin.

3. Interesting Perspective  – Fresh Start Clarity

Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist, spent his life preserving the world’s silent places by traveling the world and recording sounds. Many of these places are endangered due to the encroachment of modern life. In this short video, Sanctuaries of Silence, Hempton invites you to experience the preciousness of these beautifully captured explorations.

“Silence isn’t the absence of something, but the presence of everything.”

— Gordon Hampton

Life can be noisy. We have busy thoughts within combined with external physical distractions. It has become more challenging to hear our own thoughts, let alone experience quiet. Activities such as daily mindfulness meditation, yoga, and nature walks help me to create periods of silence. With a clarity of mind and calmness of soul, I am better able to be open, aware, and grateful for each moment, and a fresh start.

4. Interesting Season – Fresh Start Organizing

Winter can be more of an indoor season, at least it is for me. With this extra time inside, you might be feeling disorganized, overwhelmed, and unsure of how to move forward. Take this opportunity to reset your organizing goals, declutter the extraneous, and create the calm you deserve. Change is possible, especially with support. Enlist help from a compassionate and non-judgmental friend, family member, or professional organizer like me. You’ll be amazed at how much more you can accomplish when you work side-by-side with an organizing buddy. I’m ready to help. Let’s talk. Call 914-271-5673 or email me at linda@ohsoorganized.com.

5. Interesting Thought – Fresh Start Time

What is that phrase, “Attitude is everything?” When it comes to how we feel about a new day (or Mondays,) your approach to new can make all the difference with how you do or don’t do next. The start of the New Year gives us an attitude boost for a fresh start and new beginning. Yet the excitement can quickly fade. Remind yourself that you can embrace a fresh start any week, day, hour, or moment. Let go of what you didn’t do, cut yourself some slack, reset, and begin again. 

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

Last month our conversations were about new beginnings and fresh starts. This month we’re focusing on change. As we move into the second month of the New Year, many of us are thinking about the changes we want to make. Getting organized is often top of the list as are losing weight, getting more exercise, eating more healthfully, and creating a better work/life balance.

Any change that we desire starts with the acknowledgment and awareness that in fact, we want to make a change. After awareness come changes in thinking, habits, and behaviors. For example, I’d like to eat fewer sweets. One way to do this is not to bring them home.

At the market, I saw my favorite cookies. Oh, how I love Tate’s chocolate chip cookies! I wanted to take them home with me. However, once they were in the house, I knew it would be impossible not to eat them. To reach my “eat less sweets” goal, not bringing the cookies home or avoiding the cookie aisle all together are examples of small habit changes that will help me reach my desired goal.

At the end of a recent organizing session with one of my clients, she jokingly said to me, “I shouldn’t read the newspaper with scissors in my hand.”

“I shouldn’t read the newspaper with scissors in my hand.”

— Oh, So Organized! Client

The two of us burst out laughing. In one sentence she identified her challenge and thought of a clever tweak to her article clipping habit. Read without scissors.

For her, the piles of newspapers to read and articles to clip and manage had become a burden. As someone that loves learning and sharing what she learns with others, she often cuts out newspaper articles of interest. These articles become piles. The piles become to dos waiting for action. She recently recognized that many of the articles that she had clipped were outdated and could be recycled.

After spending many days sorting the backlog of newspapers, her attitude about article clipping shifted. She questioned her reasoning for keeping them, the time it took to manage them, and the reality that much of what had been important was no longer relevant. From this awareness, she had the insight, “I shouldn’t read the newspaper with scissors in my hand.”

It’s amazing how one small habit change can completely shift an outcome. So whether it’s leaving the cookies at the market or reading without scissors, it is possible to easily change a pattern to yield your desired outcome.

What about you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. What small change can you make to bring about the benefit you hope for?

There’s nothing quite like starting a new journal. There’s promise in those blank pages. There’s history and adventure yet to be written and experienced. It’s interesting too that in a new journal no previous pages exist. So, there is no past immediately accessible to revisit and reflect on.

The idea of a clean slates and fresh starts are truly apt with beginning a new journal. There is no clutter or distraction. The focus is on the present- the beautiful, treasured here and now.

I’ve been keeping a journal for 45 years. And as you can imagine over the decades, I’ve filled many books. Beginnings and endings are interesting. There’s sometimes a feeling of sadness or loss as I fill the last page of my journal. It’s provided me with comfort, strength and perspective for a long while. Then it’s time to end that chapter, let go, and begin a new one.

Recently, that time arrived. One journal was completed. My new one was ready to receive. As I opened it up to write my first entry, it wasn’t sadness that I felt. Instead, I felt anticipation and hope for the moment I was in and for all the moments yet to be added. For me, blank provided focus, hope, adventure, and understanding.

I was away in St. Louis for an ICD Board meeting. When I left New York, the landscape was bare. When I returned after storm Jonas, there was a fresh layer of beautiful, white snow covering everything. Winter had finally arrived!

There was a connection between these two blank canvases- my new journal and the white landscape. They provided exactly the type of quiet I needed and craved to reflect, reset, and embrace the fresh start that was there for me.

Blank can show up in many ways. What have you noticed? What can blank do for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Come join the conversation.

The type of “new” I’m talking about doesn’t come in a box or a bag. The power of this type of new comes in doing something you’ve never done. This new can push you past the procrastination, beyond the fear, and outside your comfort zone. This type of new can bring fun, joy, and clarity back to your days. Positive energy is generated when you commit to the goals you’ve been dreaming about, and then take the next action step.

Sometimes we need more time to germinate our ideas. This year, I was ready to go. I embraced the fresh start momentum the New Year brought. What about you? Even if you haven’t begun the process, you can start at any time. We each have different ways of capturing ideas and activating them. Decide what will be effective for you, then go and do.

To harness the new, there were four essentials to the approach I used, which you might find useful.

• Gather – Capture all potential goals and ideas in one place. Force them out of your head and onto something concrete like paper, computer, or recording. What becomes possible when they are released from your thoughts?

• Prioritize – Acknowledge that you can accomplish a lot, but be clear about what’s most important. Does your list seem too ambitious? By prioritizing, you can focus on the key goals first. What if you accomplished even half of the things you set out to do this year?

• Do – For the goals you decide to pursue, clarify what single next step brings you closer towards getting there. The smaller the step, the more doable it becomes. Anchor the step to your calendar and schedule the time to do it. Repeat this process until your goal is “done enough.”

• Marvel – Coming full circle back to the power of new, take time to appreciate what you’re doing and feeling. What’s possible now that you’ve captured your goals in one place? What happens now that you’ve determined what’s most important? What does knowing “next” mean? As you move ahead, what are you noticing? Has your energy changed? Has your perspective shifted?

There are many goals on my list. I’m in hot pursuit of some. Others are on the back burner. A few of the forward moving ones include taking a Comedy Improv class, meeting my Twitter buddy Yota Schneider face to face for the first time, designing and building a new office area, reorganizing a kitchen trouble spot, helping my Mom to transition, inviting the 2013 “Ask the Expert” guests for the blog, and planning more collaborative posts. As I’ve pursued these goals, the excitement and learning that’s accompanied them has been surprising. Perhaps it’s the adrenaline pumping and the new neural pathways forming. My energy flows intensely as the power of new is pursued.

What is possible for you? I’d love to hear from you. What’s on your list? What process do you use to get there? Come join the conversation.