Have you experienced stress and anxiety when working out what to do next? Those negative emotions and thought loops can contribute to doubt and inaction.

What if instead, you chose a more supportive way forward? What if next wasn’t so stressful?

There are lessons to learn about figuring out what’s next from various sources. These can help you progress in a quieter, more curious, and gentler manner. How would it feel if the next step was less contentious?

I will share three sources that have inspired and helped me: a crocus, a quote, and a message. I hope they will be helpful for you, too.

Three Lessons About Next

1. The Purple Crocus

I’m taking one cue about next from nature’s playbook. Spring is my favorite time of year. While I love the entire season, I especially enjoy pre-spring. Seeing tiny signs of color and growth slowly transform the gray winterscape is uplifting.

One of my most joyful sightings is when the purple crocuses with their bright green stems emerge from the dirt to bask in the sunshine. I’ve often written about my delight in spotting the crocuses and the hopeful feelings they evoke.

Lesson for Finding Next: Channel the confidence and energy of the crocus. Envision yourself emerging from indecision and gently take your next step. Allow the hopeful feeling that new growth brings to guide you forward. The crocuses bloom, and so will you.

2. The Quiet Quote

In Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks, he shared a Carl Jung quote about next that resonated with me. I thought you would appreciate it, too. Jung said,

“. . . quietly do the next most necessary thing.”

I love the emphasis on “quietly.” Do you often go forth loudly, brimming with self-doubt, putting up obstacles, or fighting every step of the way? Instead, what if you approached that next thing in a calmer, lower volume manner?

Lesson for Finding Next: Change the volume of your approach to next. Turn down the sound and minimize the obstacles to help you find next with greater clarity, curiosity, and focus.

“. . . quietly do the next most necessary thing.”

— Carl Jung

3. The Internal Message

The messages you tell yourself can help or hinder progress. I recently wrote about deviating from my routine for wrapping up last year and planning the current year. My departure from previous patterns, wasn’t just a change. It was more like I didn’t do any of those rituals, at least, not in the formal way I had been for many years.

Wrapping up the year and planning for the future involves several steps and requires considerable time. Given all that was going on, it didn’t happen. Here we are and it’s almost spring. I officially decided to stop berating myself for not accomplishing my self-imposed expectation, and instead focus on what makes sense at this juncture.

One of the tasks was figuring out my motto for the new year. It didn’t happen. Instead, I decided that the theme from last year, which served me well, gets to have another year to work its magic. With quiet ease and a gentle prompt, I remind myself, “You got this.”

Lesson for Finding Next: Repeating something that works isn’t cheating. Using the familiar to build from is a kinder, gentler path forward. Next doesn’t have to be complicated or completely different. Let next make sense for this present moment.

Reimagining How Next Happens

There are various ways to reduce stress and anxiety about determining your next steps. Nature's prompts, inspired quotes, and reframed internal messages can help you change how you navigate next.

How would reimagining next make a difference in your life? Which of these ideas resonate with you? What helps you figure out next? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support organizing, editing, planning, or figuring out your next step? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – local feel with a global reach.

Please schedule a Discovery Call, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, or call 914-271-5673. Figuring out next is possible, especially with support.

Yes. It’s still officially winter, and our recent run of several warm days has reverted to colder temperatures. Despite the fluctuating thermometer, I notice hopeful signs of spring as nature begins its blooming ritual. Frequent sightings of green plants push through the ground to greet the blue sun-filled sky. They don’t hesitate. After being dormant for months, rejoining life with gusto is their next step.

Nature’s confident growth got me thinking about things that prevent us from moving forward.

• How about the mile-long to-do list?

• Is yours dormant and paralyzing?

• Or are you actively working on it?

• Is your list meaningful and necessary?

• Or is it filled with tasks that aren’t essential and you don’t care about?

• Is your list so daunting that it brings up negative feelings, regret, and disappointment?

• Or instead does it inspire you to act?

If you are struggling to determine your next step, here is a novel idea: Lose your ‘negative list.’ Crumple it up, let it go, and say buh-bye! That might sound radical, and perhaps it is. But can you imagine doing it anyway? And if you did, what might happen?

What’s On Your Negative List

Things holding you back can be concrete or emotional. They might include things like:

• Thought loops with messages such as “I can’t” or “I’m not good enough”

• Projects that would be nice to do, but realistically you’ll never get to

• Thank you notes that are years overdue

• Plans you wanted to make with friends or family, but never did

• Piles of magazines with articles to clip and file

• Stuff inherited from other people’s lives to sort and edit

• Papers and objects representing previous careers or life stages to curate and edit

Without realizing it, I had a negative list. It included feeling bad about not yet:

• Finishing my 2024 review or 2025 plan (and it’s already March!)

• Selecting my 2025 word or motto

• Choosing the topic and scheduling my next workshop

• Creating a video about virtual organizing

Make Your Next Step Easier

It may sound too simplistic to lose or release your negative list. However, recognizing how it might be holding you back makes it worth trying.

Maybe you’ll decide you still want to attend to some things on that list. And if so, perhaps a reframe of how you think about that ‘thing’ will make the difference. For example, instead of the projects you’ll never get to demotivating you, celebrate the ones you have accomplished. Review the remaining ones to decide if one is worth pursuing. If so, think about it as a project you get to, not have to do. Release the rest.

As Oliver Burkeman says in Four Thousand Weeks, our time is limited. “The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.” We will never get everything done or be able to pursue every possibility that exists. Burkeman says, “we’ve been granted the mental capacities to make almost infinitely ambitious plans, yet practically no time at all to put them into action.”

Recognizing these limitations can be freeing. Don’t try to do everything. Instead, let go of what is holding you back and pursue what’s most meaningful and necessary.

Selecting next will become easier. Guilt will be gone. Action and intention will rule the day. What comes next will be joyfully embraced once you are unencumbered by the lingering tasks you’ve chosen to release from your list.

“The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.”

— Oliver Burkeman

What’s Next?

I might forgo choosing a new word and motto this year and even skip a deeper review of 2024. Just considering that option makes me feel lighter and more energetic. After all, I imposed these things on myself, and I can just as quickly release them from my list.

My next steps will prioritize energizing and nourishing actions, projects, and ideas. What will be next for you? What can you release that is holding you back? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support organizing, planning, or figuring out your next step? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – local feel with a global reach.

Please schedule a Discovery Call, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, or call 914-271-5673. Change is possible, especially with support.

This is the newest release (v46) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature, with my latest finds that inform, educate, and relate to organizing and life balance. These unique, inspiring enlisting help discoveries reflect this month’s blog theme.

You are a vibrant, generous, and engaged group. I am deeply grateful for your ongoing 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?

“It is 100% okay to ask for help.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

What’s Interesting? – 5 Best Enlisting Help Discoveries

1. Interesting Read – Effortless Help

When you’re struggling to take action and make progress, doing so effortlessly may seem impossible. However, with this refreshing approach, help is here.

Greg McKeown, author of Effortless – Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most, said, “Not everything has to be so hard.” McKeown’s concept is “a whole new way to work and live. A way to achieve more with ease- to achieve more because you are at ease.”

There are three parts:

• Effortless State – How can we make it easier to focus?

• Effortless Action – How can we make essential work easier to do?

• Effortless Results – How can we get the highest return on the least effort?

In describing the Effortless State, McKeown said, “When our brains are at full capacity, everything feels harder.” The first step he suggests to “making things more effortless is to clear the clutter in our heads and our hearts.”

Everything can’t be effortless. However, “you can make more of the right things less impossible- then easier, then easy, and ultimately effortless.”

2. Interesting Perspective – Life Help

Have you ever experienced a difficult time triggered by a specific event? It was so dramatic that it changed your perspective and the course of your life. The death of a loved one, loss of a job, a move, health crisis, or divorce can cause significant pain and also be catalysts for growth and reimagining.

The word lifequake beautifully describes this phenomenon- “A significant, sudden and unexpected shift in the trajectory of your life that initially feels devastating but has the beneficial outcome of catalyzing personal growth, transformation, and rebirth.”

During times of change and transition, it is especially beneficial to ask for help. What lifequake have you experienced? What type of support was most valuable?

3. Interesting Resource – Win-Win-Win Help

Do you own new or gently used furniture, appliances, housewares, and building materials you no longer want? However, it’s not easy to find a taker. You’re confident someone else can use them. You don’t want your discards to go into the landfill.

Habitat for Humanity is the resource you need. Habitat ReStores across the United States accept small and large donations of these items. The sales help Habitat’s work locally and globally. They offer free pickup of large items and tax donation receipts.

This is a win-win-win for the donors, the buyers, and the planet. You gain space, reduce clutter, let go of things you don’t want, keep items out of the landfill, support others, and receive a tax donation. People who need goods can purchase them at a reasonable price. The proceeds from Habitat Restores help families build decent, affordable homes to “achieve the strength, stability, and independence they need to build a better future.”

Click here to arrange a pickup from a Habitat ReStore near you.

4. Interesting Product – Organizing Help

There are tons of great products to help organize like-with-like. Bins, boxes, and dividers are organizing staples. The classic zipper pouch is another example.

EOOUT’s translucent waterproof mesh zipper pouches are an excellent solution for organizing:

• Cosmetics

• Toiletries

• Cords and chargers

• Game pieces

• Documents

• Projects

• Gadgets

• Toys

• Snacks

• Writing tools

• Office supplies

• Travel accessories

• Receipts

• Bills

While EOOUT offers several options, the 42-piece set is an excellent value at $19.99. It includes eight different-sized bags and 17 zipper colors. What items will these pouches help you organize?

5. Interesting Thought – Normalizing Help

Are you hesitant to ask for help? Do you feel guilty or feel like you “should” be able to do everything yourself? Are you afraid of getting support for fear of being judged? These are normal responses.

Here’s the thing. Without asking for help, you will potentially struggle longer than is needed. Without help, you might be more frustrated, stressed, and paralyzed.

Struggle no more. You deserve to get unstuck and move forward. It is 100% okay to ask for help. Who will you ask to be on your support team?

Can you share one enlisting help-related discovery? Which of these resonates with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts and invite you to join the conversation.

Do you want help getting unstuck, reducing overwhelm, or getting organized? If so, I’m here for you. Contact me, Linda, at linda@ohsorganized.com, call 914-271-5673, or schedule a Discovery Call. Making progress is possible, especially with support.

When you read “leisure time,” what thoughts come to mind? Are you thinking, “What leisure time? I don’t have any free time!” Does downtime feel absent from your life because you’re constantly working, stressing, and feeling overwhelmed? If so, you’re not alone.

In 2014, Brigid Schulte, an award-winning journalist and bestselling author, introduced “time confetti” in her book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time. Time confetti refers to fragmented pieces of free time that happen during the day. These moments are too brief to be productive or meaningful, and they spoil the downtime we do have.

Time confetti are “short, unenjoyable moments that end up stressing us out rather than relaxing us.” Frequent interruptions are typically due to technology or multitasking. Even if a disturbance seems minor, it reduces the quality of time off, which can lead to a feeling of constant busyness without a sense of accomplishment.

What is the Antidote to Time Confetti?

Strategies to balance the effects of time confetti revolve around reducing distractions and valuing and creating larger blocks of leisure and downtime. Some of Schulte’s suggestions include:

• Identify where time gets spent

• Prioritize what matters, including more leisure activities

• Lessen digital distractions

• Stop multitasking

• Delegate and share household responsibilities

• Schedule and protect leisure time

• Shift perception of busyness and success

What Does Leisure Time Look Like?

Several years ago, I jotted down a list that I rediscovered recently called “Help for those who do too much.” What’s interesting is it doesn’t specify what not to do. Instead, it focuses on creating more time to enjoy life. The list is relevant to this discussion, so I included it.

Siblings - Tod Machover and Linda Samuels

Help For Those Who Do Too Much:

• Taking time off

• Biking

• Connecting with family

• Kayaking

• Going to the beach

• Sleeping

• Waking up naturally (no alarms)

• Losing track of time (no watches)

“Schedule and protect leisure time.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

In the spirit of leaning into more downtime, I reserved two full days of fun this past weekend, which was so welcome.

Intentional Leisure Time Activities

• Spending time with family

• Exploring Manitoga, the house, studio, and 75-acre woodland garden of the mid-century designer Russell Wright

• Having a picnic

• Celebrating Father’s Day with my husband (Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads!)

• Going on a day trip

• Taking a scenic train ride in the Catskills (ice cream included)

Happy Father’s Day!

If your days and downtime are disjointed and overwhelming, gift yourself a present of being more intentional and protective of your leisure time. Eliminate distractions that disrupt your focus. Time is precious. Yes, we need to work and handle life’s necessities. We also need balance to the busyness and overwhelm that many of us feel. What helps you carve out downtime? What do you enjoy doing? What gets in your way? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

If you want help organizing your time so you can enjoy life more, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, call 914-271-5673, or schedule a Discovery Call.  A life including downtime and fun is possible, especially with support.