Silence We were out recently with some friends we don’t see very often when it hit me just how out of the ordinary our family must seem, especially during the holidays. As we drove to dinner the conversation turned to how much holiday shopping they’d done yet how much they still had to do. My response that we haven’t really shopped for Christmas in a couple of years, opting instead to make donations or gift experiences or … Read More
It seems everyone I’m coming in contact with lately is adding one more task to their list or one more activity to their calendar. There’s even a commercial on tv that challenges us, “Who wouldn’t want more?” As someone who is actively minimizing I’m paying close attention to the idea of “more.” We’ve been conditioned to believe that more is better. My husband and I often joke about one of our college accounting professors instilling in us … Read More
We all experience unfortunate situations that throw a big old wrench in our plans. For me recently, the wrench was a power outage on a Friday morning in December. Whatever its nature, the wrench is almost guaranteed to create internal dialogue like mine when the power went out at 8AM: “Ugh! How am I going to shower and get dressed in the dark before the painters arrive?“ “Oh no, the painters! They can’t possibly finish … Read More
My husband and I aren’t big on exchanging gifts of tangible things, so Mother’s Day at our house has historically been about gifting time and attention. It’s a day where we typically do what I feel like doing. As such, I probably could have lounged in bed this morning reading, while my dear husband cleaned up and braced himself for a trip to the nursery to go flower shopping, which is something that he doesn’t enjoy, but … Read More
I recently attended a monthly meeting where a couple of people stopped to ask me how my holidays were. This wasn’t casual conversation though. They were genuinely curious because they had last seen me in mid December when I shared that my family was experimenting with skipping Christmas in 2014. When I shared the results, one of my colleagues suggested I blog about it, not next October as I had planned, but now while the holidays are … Read More
I wasn’t planning to write a post this morning on New Year’s resolutions. In fact, when a client emailed asking my opinion on New Year’s resolutions a few weeks ago I replied, “My feeling is that if you want to create change in your life there is no reason to wait for a traditional day, such as New Year’s Day, to do it.” However, I do understand there is a strong tradition of creating a New Year’s resolution. … Read More
There’s a saying that, ” you can’t buy peace of mind.” Probably true, but you can create it. In fact, creating / experiencing peace of mind has been a recurring theme for me over the past week or so. Yesterday was filled with work obligations, but the opportunity presented itself to invite my parents and Aunt Polly, who lives in Michigan and I don’t see very often, to dinner. The “old” Andrea of several years ago would … Read More
Since becoming a professional organizer I’ve really changed my outlook on gift giving. It’s astounding to me how many unused and often unopened gifts fill the closets, basements and even entire rooms of individuals I’ve worked with. The waste can be measured not only in terms of money spent, but also in terms of the effort expended by the gift giver, and mental effort expended by the gift recipient, worrying about not using the gift. You see, … Read More
I used to measure the success of my holidays by how full my calendar was. The above image is from a holiday journal from about 10 years when my kids were younger. Cookie exchanges, white elephant gift exchanges and neighborhood gatherings filled the blocks on my calendar, but did little to fill my heart with holiday cheer. Instead they brought on the stress of having one more thing to do, at a time of year that … Read More
Today we will focus on Editing your gift giving. One facet of my life that has changed significantly since becoming a professional organizer is how many gifts I give. I spend many hours each week working with people who have accumulated way too many things. Two categories if things that pop up at house after house are: unused gifts received and ungiven gifts. I’m guessing the number of ungiven gifts I’ve encountered in my six years of … Read More