I have loved books all my life and have always been an avid reader. If there is any one thing in my home which may have taken over a few areas, it would be my collection of books and magazines. I know I’m not alone in this, and even in an age where so many choose to use a tablet such as Kindle for their reading pleasure, I still see many homes with overstuffed bookshelves and piles of magazines taking up space on shelves and even on the floor.

As I pondered this morning what to talk about in this month’s newsletter, I found myself looking at my own overstuffed bookshelves; they are nice deep shelves so there’s room for two layers of books, and I use all of that space. Decision made – this is what I’m going to work on next weekend. The great majority of my books are non-fiction and therefore re-readable and able to be delved into for inspiration, which is why I hold onto them. I love fiction but I choose to get those books from the library rather than buying them. I’ve never read a novel a second time.

Here’s my plan: [Read more…]

This subject was a special request from a frustrated friend who asked for some simple ways to organise her fridge so she can stop wasting food. Yes, we do need to declutter and organise our fridge and pantry on a regular basis. Here are a few reasons why:

– Most foods have an expiry date and can become unpleasant past this date.

– It can be frustrating when you plan a meal, convinced you have a certain ingredient in the pantry or fridge, only to find you either don’t have it, or it’s expired and turned green!

– Conversely, we can also overbuy if we think we don’t have an item and then find we actually have plenty at the back of the pantry [I helped one client organise her pantry and we found six packets of pasta! She kept thinking she didn’t have any so went out and bought more].

Obviously there are many scenarios around food and our storage mishaps. Better though that we look at some simple ways we can store food in our pantry and fridge to make our lives easier:

[Read more…]

Now this may sound a bit strange, but think about it for a moment:

Is the clutter making you procrastinate, or do you have clutter because you have a habit of procrastination?

This is how I see it – if our home or office is in disorder, or a bit chaotic, then it can lead to overwhelm at which point you’re going to find it hard to move forward – hence procrastination sets in.

Conversely, if you have a habit of procrastinating about all sorts of things, then this will show up in various ways, such as not putting items away after using them, or getting them out because you think you’re going to do a job and then ‘put it off for another day’ but don’t put those items away until you’re ready to use them. Another example is going shopping and not bothering to put your new purchases away.

And of course, we can’t forget how we procrastinate about the job of actually decluttering a room, cupboards and drawers, or indeed the house… Easy to procrastinate about this one as it can be daunting if you look at it as a whole, rather than breaking your decluttering down into bite-size pieces.

So what does this not moving forward with your decluttering look like:

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I’m going to talk about decluttering our mind this month because I want to reassure people that just because we may be a ‘certain age’, and we forget things, it does not mean we are heading towards dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. I’ve had clients and friends alike who have mentioned that they are becoming forgetful; and if there is a family history of dementia then this forgetfulness can take on a more frightening aspect. My darling mother had Alzheimer’s disease for about 13 years before she peacefully passed, so I have been up close and personal with this disease and it’s terrifying. However, I choose not to worry about it, I’d rather concentrate on today and keep my mind healthy and ‘clutter-free’.

I read an excellent article recently in the NZ Herald online on the topic of Alzheimer’s and dementia, and concern around forgetfulness: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/news/print.cfm?objectid=11429562

I love what the article says in one part: “It’s not necessarily forgetting where your keys are – in fact, I don’t know where my keys are right now – it’s forgetting what keys are for. Or not knowing what a key is for until you put it in your freezer.” It puts our concerns around forgetfulness into perspective.

What I’ve found is that our mind will select what we need to remember and discard unnecessary stuff… that works for me. In other words, don’t worry if you don’t remember every single thing that happens or that you read or hear, it’s probably not important enough to be bothered with. Now having said that, I actually don’t ‘try to remember’ anything – we all know those people who say ‘I keep everything in my head…’ Yikes, why would you? The more I don’t try to remember anything the more my memory works beautifully.

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