A few months back I shared the story of my sister and I playing #MinsGame (created by The Minimalists and formally known as the Minimalism Game). The basic premise of the game is to compete against yourself or others in releasing unneeded items from your life. In playing the game in October, my sister and I each released 496 items from our respective homes, resulting in not only a win for each of us, but extra breathing room … 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 spent some time with my vision board this past weekend, with the intention of getting clearer on my goals for 2015. I last wrote about my vision board a couple of years ago. Here is a little of what I shared about a vision board then: A vision board is a collection of visual images pasted or pinned to a board that represents things that you want to bring into your life. A vision board uses the … Read More
Have you played the #MinsGame yet? It’s the creation of Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus, two guys originally from Ohio who are now known as The Minimalists. The rules of the #MinsGame are simple. A new #MinsGame starts on the first day of each month. On the first day you release one item by donating it, throwing it away, recycling it, giving it away, etc. The idea is to get it out of your house and … Read More
I was lucky enough to spend some time this past Sunday with my colleague Francis Wade, time-based productivity expert and author of Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure and the upcoming book Perfect Time-Based Productivity – A Professional Approach, due out this fall. Francis was visiting Cleveland from Jamaica and as I showed him the sights of my city, we discussed how to best help people make improvements to their time demand management systems. As we talked, I … Read More
This past Sunday began with my noticing the herbs I grow in my Aerogarden were looking like more of a miniature jungle than a garden I’d actually want to eat something out of. Out came the scissors and the pruning began. The photo to the left represents the results of those efforts – a pile of compost fodder and some now recognizable basil & parsley plants. This impromptu pruning set the tone for the rest of that cool … Read More
Over the years I’ve helped plenty of people unpack boxes from moves that had occurred many years in the past, sometimes as many as 7-10 years in the past. The boxes had sat unopened for so long because the stuff in them often should never have been moved in the first place. The costs incurred in these situations are significant – the financial costs of packing, hauling and storing these boxes and the emotional costs incurred every … Read More
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ~ Socrates Amazing to think the warning of an ancient Greek Philosopher, born in 470BC rings so true today. Earlier this year I contributed to a blog posting for my colleague, Linda Samuels. The topic was what I wanted more and less of in the new year. My response: “I’m at a point in my life where I’m actively embracing the idea of less and am pursuing a ‘smaller’, … Read More
“Your baskets were a hit! Thx so much.” That’s the message my sister texted me the day after her son’s elementary school PTO’s annual basket auction. The baskets she was referring to were about 25 various shapes and sizes of Longaberger Baskets that had been sitting packed away in my basement for the past six years. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Longaberger baskets, they are a collectible woven maple basket sold through home parties. They … Read More
I have always loved this picture, extracted from a Woman’s Day magazine long ago, and taped to a page in my recipe notebook for as long as I can recall. I made the bunny shaped cake for my kids once when they were small and it made us all smile. I thought of this photo today when I started this post and it made me smile, again. Smile about a simpler time when folks got creative about … Read More