Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “decluttering”
Paper-Organizing Resources I recently had the pleasure of teaching a one-session class with The Learning Collaborative. Thank you to the participants and the TLC organizers for welcoming me to the Zoom podium as an instructor over the last four years. It’s a great group! My topic was, as always, paper organizing. Fellow professional organizer, Andrea Bowser of Space Matters Home …
A chill in the air makes us want to bundle up. And not just with blankets and quilts (though I do love quilts!). Bundling is a simple technique to start adopting a new habit. At Personal Money Manager™ I’m often asked how to develop new routines and good organizing habits to avoid clutter build-up and the confusion it …
It’s not an easy lesson. And I learned it the hard way…. One spring evening in London, I went to hear Robert Bly recite his poetry. He had won the National Book Award for Poetry in the US a few years earlier in 1967, yet the audience was small. Afterwards, we all went to the local pub for a pint. …
I remember Dad’s Clutter Game that he invented for my siblings and me when we were young. It was a good rainy-day activity that kept us busy and out of each other’s hair. And it seemed to satisfy his life-long crusade against clutter. How would we get rid of stuff? Dad would set each of us up with paper grocery …
Whether or not you make New Year’s Resolutions, here is a list of fresh ideas (not resolutions!) to inspire you as we enter a new year and new decade. Feel free to pick and choose the ones that appeal to you and edit them to better fit where you are right now. Please let Personal Money ManagerSM know if you …
I launched Personal Money Manager in 2008 with a presentation about organizing. If you live in New York’s Hudson Valley, you might have heard it! I used the proverbial junk drawer as my model for sharing organizing tips. But read on. Why a junk drawer? Everyone knows what it is and probably has one (or more). Organizing it is a …
A few years ago, I was asked to speak about decluttering and organizing. As my audience took their seats, I offered a basket of letter openers bearing my company name, and invited them to help themselves. Then I began my talk. I mentioned the trap of freebies, suggesting that “a freebie isn’t really free.” Once we take them home, they …
I grew up in a home full of books. My parents — avid collectors — took us to book fairs the way other kids are taken to the zoo. But my real education in the book world occurred when my mother moved into assisted living and eventually passed away, leaving thousands of books behind. I was left to figure out …
Clients expect me, as a financial organizer / daily money manager, to be all business, forging ahead with one goal in mind: to work with them and conquer their paperwork clutter. But my work as a financial organizer is more nuanced. After all, I am working with people, not just paper! The key to success in my close-to-10-years in business …
What to do with All That “Stuff” In my last blog, “Trash or Treasure?”, I told the story of a coin bank we found in my parents’ storage unit. Its true identity remains frustratingly elusive. But it didn’t have to be that way — if we had only known it had existed and had asked my dad about it before …