The newest installment (v35) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature has my latest finds informing, educating, and relating to organizing and life balance. These unique, inspiring, time-related discoveries reflect this month’s blog theme.

You are a generous, communicative, and engaged group. I am deeply 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? – 5 Best Time-Related Discoveries

1. Interesting Read – Slow Time

Does life feel hectic? Are your days overfilled with endless commitments and to-dos?  In Seeking Slow – Reclaim Moments of Calm in Your Day, writer and photographer Melanie Barnes shares her philosophy and practices of “slow living.”  It’s “a lifestyle that encourages a slower rhythm and values a mindful approach…It is about intentionally doing things and being present for each part of our day.”

This small, beautifully designed book encompasses living in a digital age, managing our time, creating a slow home, establishing slow-living rituals, and more. Barnes emphasizes, “Time is a resource that we simply cannot get back. Once it has gone, it is gone.”

Thoughtful questions include:

• How can we use our time in a way that makes our lives meaningful?

• What are we here for?

• What is our purpose?

• What is important to us?

• What are our priorities?

2. Interesting Product – List Time

If you are easily overwhelmed by your daily tasks, Today’s Plan of Attack 4”x6” sticky notes by Knock Knock will help focus your thoughts and time. The categories and allotted space on the pad encourage a realistic approach to your day.

Organize them by what’s “most critical,” “would be nice,” or “not a chance.” Planning and prioritizing your tasks will give your day better flow and more satisfaction.

“Time is a resource that we simply cannot get back.”

— Melanie Barnes

3. Interesting Article  – Productivity Time

In the “Your Productive Brain” article in BBC Science Focus, neuroscientist, author, and comedian Dr. Dean Burnett shares his best and worst productivity tips. He identifies which productivity strategies are myths versus ones that work and are backed by science. For example, it is a myth that waking at 4am will make you more productive. However, waking up when you’ve had a sufficient sleep is more advantageous (and productivity-inducing) than waking at 4am.

Other science-based productivity tips include listening to “some sort of background noise,” incorporating greenery in your workplace, exercising regularly, and eating healthfully. These have a positive influence on how our brain functions and result in boosting productivity. What enhances your productivity?

4. Interesting Resource – Reflection Time

FutureMe is a simple, surprising, and powerful resource. Go to their website to write a custom letter to yourself. It will be delivered by email at a future designated time you choose. Reflect and engage with time to send a positive message, capture a significant moment, create accountability around a goal, or share a challenge. You decide your message’s content, purpose, and delivery schedule. What a fascinating way to live in the present while touching the future. What message will you send to your future self?

5. Interesting Thought – Happy Time

As we transition from one season to the next, focus on being productive, and organizing your life, don’t neglect to make time for those things that bring you joy and happiness.

Over the last few weekends, I had some “make your soul happy” times. Exploring new places, meandering in nature, spending time with my husband and kids, eating special and delicious meals, walking along the High Line, and seeing “The Music Man” on Broadway helped restore and replenish my being. Making time to do things that make you happy isn’t frivolous. It’s essential to your wellbeing. What’s on your list?

What are your interesting time discoveries? Which of these resonate with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

The newest installment (v34) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature has my latest finds informing, educating, and relating to organizing and life balance. These are unique, inspiring, next-step-related discoveries that reflect this month’s blog theme. 

You are a generous, communicative, and engaged group. I am deeply 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? – 5 Best Next Step-Related Discoveries

1. Interesting Read – Positive Self-Talk Next

Is the voice in your head your biggest cheerleader or harshest critic? Does it guide you forward or prevent you from figuring out next? In Chatter – The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, psychologist Ethan Kross shares strategies based on behavioral and brain research. He helps us understand how to quiet the negative self-talk and create a positive internal conversation. Kross says, “…when the inner voice runs amok and chatter takes the mental microphone, our mind not only torments but paralyzes us.”

Kross provides a few dozen tools for “helping people resolve the tension between getting caught in negative thought spirals and thinking clearly and constructively.” They include engaging in mental time travel, changing the view, writing expressively, creating a board of advisors, seeking awe-inspiring experiences, and increasing exposure to green spaces.

One strategy that especially resonated with me is creating order in your environment. Helping clients get organized for almost 30 years, I’ve seen the positive benefits of calming the internal chatter when the external environment is organized. Kross says, “Find your own way of organizing your space to help provide you with a sense of mental order.”

2. Interesting Assessment – Get Unstuck Next

Let’s face it. Universally, we all get stuck at some point. It can be challenging to figure out the next step when that happens. Be stuck no more. I created this handy, custom-designed Get Unstuck Wheel, and you can spin your way forward. Discover the strategy that works best for you. There are 36 ideas to try, including taking deep breaths, sleeping on it, reaching out for support, and switching gears. What helps you get unstuck? Did you spin the wheel? If so, where did it land?

“Take the smallest, tiniest next step.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVPO

3. Interesting Article  – Perfectionism Insights Next

Do you or someone you know have perfectionist tendencies? If you want to struggle less, read Ashley Broadwater’s HuffPost article, “There Are 3 Types of Perfectionism. Which Category Are You?” Broadwater describes each type and some helpful coping strategies. Therapist Emily Simonian encourages her clients to focus on small, next steps. She said, “A perfectionist of any type will likely want a ‘big win’ quickly if trying to recover from perfectionism, but baby steps are key. … [Recovery] is very much attainable with practice.”

• Self-oriented perfection – You expect the best from and are extremely hard on yourself. Practicing self-care and self-compassion can help.

• Other-oriented perfectionism – You expect others to be a certain way and become upset when they don’t meet your expectations. Practicing gratitude and mindfulness is beneficial.

• Socially prescribed perfectionism – You rely heavily on others’ thoughts about how you act or look and fear rejection. Strengthening your positive inner voice will help. This could be an excellent time to read Chatter (see #1 above.) 

4. Interesting Season – Get Organized Next

As color returns to the landscape, daylight lasts longer, and temperature becomes warmer; this is an inspirational time of year. Spring is a wonderful season to set your organizing goals, declutter the extraneous, and create the calm you deserve. Change is possible, especially with support. Struggle no more. Enlist help from a compassionate and non-judgmental friend, family member, or professional organizer like me. I’m here to help. Discover the benefits of virtual organizing and why my clients love it so much. Call 914-271-5673, email me at linda@ohsoorganized.com, or click the “Let’s talk!” button to schedule a discovery call. 

5. Interesting Thought – One Small Step Next

You want to declutter and organize your entire house, redo your filing and paper management systems, organize all of your photos and visual media, or change your organizing habits. However, these projects feel so large and overwhelming that you keep them as thoughts in your mind. No action gets taken because you feel stuck. It’s good to have the entire picture in your mind for what you want to achieve. However, you don’t have to know the whole plan. Take the smallest, tiniest next step. That is enough. Once that step is taken, acknowledge your progress and repeat the process. Continue taking action one little step at a time. 

What are your interesting, next step discoveries? Which of these resonate with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

The newest installment (v33) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature is here with my latest finds informing, educating, and relating to organizing and life balance. Included are unique, inspiring, wonderfully human-related discoveries, which reflect this month’s blog theme. 

You are a generous, compassionate, and engaged group. I am deeply appreciative and 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? – 5 Best Wonderfully Human-Related Discoveries

1. Interesting Read – Human Being

“Awareness is a capacity of the human mind…the state of being conscious of something.”  This quote is from Diana Winston’s The Little Book of Being – Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness. Diana is an author, mindfulness teacher, and director of mindfulness education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center.

Mindfulness practices have different areas of focus and awareness. In Diana’s book, she features natural awareness, which she says, “…is a way of knowing and a state of being wherein our focus is on the awareness itself rather than on the things we are aware of. It is generally relaxed, effortless, and spacious.” The book’s three sections help us understand what natural awareness is, share natural awareness meditation techniques, and give ways to informally practice natural awareness. What is the benefit of an awareness practice? Diana says, “…both natural awareness and classical mindfulness practices…give us a capacity to handle life.”

2. Interesting Product – Human Doing

This hot off the press game, Declutter Go!™, which officially goes on sale on November 15th, was invented by my amazing friend and colleague, Lynne Poulton, founder of Wholly Organized®. Declutter Go!™ is as fun and colorful as Lynne. The game entices you to get started, especially if you feel overwhelmed by clutter, with the roll of a dice or two or six.

This is a motivational tool that uses brain science and gamification to help you conquer clutter. The game will help prepare you to declutter, choose an action, set a time boundary for your decluttering session, select the room to work and enjoy a reward after completing three decluttering sprints. Designed by humans for humans, use this yourself, or play it with the whole family. Learn more at decluttergo.com.

3. Interesting Resource  – Human Experiencing

With intolerance and hatred on the rise, we need more kindness and compassion in this world. One way to do this is to seek to understand rather than to “other.” The Human Library®, a non-profit developed in Denmark over 20 years ago, is a learning platform that hosts personal conversations that aim to “challenge stigmas and stereotypes” and talk with people you would not usually meet. They create a safe space to openly discuss topics between their “human books” and readers. The “human books” are volunteers who share their personal experiences. The Human Library® says, “difficult questions are expected, appreciated, and answered.” They host events virtually, in libraries, and other venues in over 80 countries.

“Awareness is a capacity of the human mind . . . a state of being conscious of something.”

— Diana Winston

4. Interesting Podcast – Human Listening

Last month I loved talking with Dr. Christine Li, Make Time for Success podcast host, psychologist, procrastination coach, and all-around extraordinary human being. Christine invited me to be a guest on her podcast for a two-part series. I shared ideas for managing clutter and discussed, at her request, the virtual organizing work we did together. If you missed our organizing conversations, listen here.

If you haven’t signed up for Christine’s podcast, add it to your listening cue now. She has a calm, warm way of normalizing the challenges we all face and sharing ways to overcome them. Christine is authentic, brave, and asks excellent, insightful questions. Her voice is so soothing. You come away feeling inspired along with learning simple, doable strategies for change.

5. Interesting Thought – Human Appreciating
The holidays can be full of stress, rushing, overdoing, and indulging. There are parties to host or attend, presents to purchase and wrap, and special meals to shop for and prepare. But here’s the thing. Many moments can be missed if we’re so focused on doing. We forget to stop, breathe, and notice the beauty and joy available to us. So while you are rushing and stressing, take a minute. Choose the lovely route to the store, take a forest walk in the rain, and slow down enough to be present. It will help you enjoy the holidays with more gratitude and less stress.

What are your interesting, wonderfully human discoveries? Which of these resonate with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

The newest installment (v32) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature is here with my latest finds informing, educating, and relating to organizing and life balance. Included are unique, inspiring mindfulness-related discoveries, which reflect this month’s blog theme.

You are a generous, warm, and engaged group. I am deeply appreciative and 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? – 5 Best Mindfulness-Related Discoveries

1. Interesting Read – Mindful Living

Do you want to introduce more mindfulness into your life? In The Mindful Day – Practical Ways to Find Focus, Calm, and Joy From Morning to Evening, Laurie Cameron, mindfulness teacher and founder of PurposeBlue, shares fifty simple strategies backed by science and experience. Laurie says, 

“… practicing mindfulness is about learning, bit by bit, how to train your attention to stay in the present instead of ruminating over the past or racing into the future.”

The book’s five sections highlight ways to start, seize, enjoy, enrich, and end the day. Laurie suggests infusing mindful awareness into breathing, showering, writing, listening, walking, touching, and other regular activities. She says, “Awareness amplifies the senses. When you live through your senses, you get a rich direct experience instead of a removed experience. You are feeling in the body instead of being lost in your head.”

2. Interesting Trend – Mindful Break

Has FOLO (Fear of Logging Off) taken over your life? While disconnecting from our digital devices is an ongoing challenge, the pandemic added a new layer. In the past year and a half, our work/life boundaries blurred dramatically as the expectation for constant availability increased. For many people working remotely, their anxiety escalated when they stepped away from their computers for even 20 minutes. If they didn’t instantly respond to an email, they felt their colleagues might think they were too lax.

To help with FOLO, Julie Morgenstern, a time management and productivity expert, suggests creating boundaries by taking short breaks throughout the day and informing your colleagues when you do. Pandemic or not, developing a mindful habit of engaging in technology breaks during the day will help you restore your energy, gain perspective, and be more productive. Disconnect and introduce mindfully eating lunch, having a snack, stretching your body, or getting some fresh air. Change your habits and say goodbye to FOLO.

3. Interesting Article  – Mindful Organizing

Are you struggling with getting organized? If so, you’re not alone. In a recent Huffington Post article, “The Biggest Home Organizing Mistakes People Make,” Caroline Bologna interviews Professional Organizers, including my colleagues Seana Turner, Lisa Zaslow, Regina Lark, and me. The piece sheds light on everyday things that can go wrong during the organizing process. Typical challenges include purchasing containers before decluttering, being overly ambitious, not paring down, failing to maintain systems, and delaying requests for help. By mindfully considering what not to do, you will get organized with greater ease and success.

“Instead of creating mini-projects and taking small steps, people get overly ambitious and try to do too much at once.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVPO™

4. Interesting Season – Mindful Time

As the kids go back to school, temperatures cool, and the trees change colors, let the changes all around inspire you to let go, de-stress, and get organized. Fall is a fantastic season to set your organizing goals, declutter the extraneous, and create the calm you deserve at home. Change is possible, especially with support. If you are struggling, enlist help from a compassionate and non-judgmental friend, family member, or professional organizer like me. I’m ready to help. Discover how virtual organizing can work for you and why my clients love it so much. Let’s talk. Call 914-271-5673 or email me at linda@ohsoorganized.com.

5. Interesting Thought – Mindful Pause
Have you experienced the “Oh” moment? During this mindful pause, you may think to yourself or say aloud, “Oh.”  You are aware of feelings, sightings, sensations, sounds, or scents. You stop to acknowledge what you are experiencing. When you slow down, you can focus on where you are, what you’re doing, and what you’re noticing. The next time you see a fall leaf that changed color, feel lighter as you let go of clutter, or experience joy at the sound of your loved one’s voice, pause to be present for your “Oh” mindfulness moment.

What are your interesting mindfulness discoveries? Which of these resonate with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.