Declutter your home, business and life
A couple of the most common places when great ideas will pop into our head are in bed, and in the car. Keep pads and pens on hand to capture those ideas, random thoughts and, of course, to-do lists and shopping lists. It’s a great way to recycle your paper―make scratch pads held together with bulldog clips and leave them everywhere…. [Read more…]
I mentioned in my last Newsletter earlier this month that I am conducting my second full day workshop at Selwyn Community Education in Kohimaramara Road on Sunday April 8th, here’s the link to the course:
http://www.selwyncomed.school.nz/courses/1106-declutter-and-or-downsize-your-home/
We will be discussing downsizing and decluttering, what to keep and what to let go, storage ideas, organising personal papers, and your wardrobe, and more… So if you think this is ‘just what you need’ I would love to have you join us.
I was advised yesterday that the course has a special offer for this April course: Enrol two students on one order and pay for only one.
Here’s some feedback from my course last November, and since this was my first workshop of this kind I was delighted to receive these positive comments.
“I really appreciated the tone of the class. Angela was very encouraging and welcoming. She facilitated the group very skilfully so that everyone participated and shared their knowledge and experience. I liked the flexibility of the group.” [Read more…]
I have had the privilege of working with many clients over the years and one thing they have almost all shared with me is the emotions that come crashing down on them when they look at their clutter. It brings them to a standstill, and I believe all of us at some point have reached that stage of total overwhelm.
We’re often not really present to the emotions that clutter causes because we’ve almost become inured to them, to the stage where we ignore the frustration, stress and embarrassment. I’m really not trying to be negative here, I just want people to get the emotional impact that clutter and disorganisation brings to their lives.
How do you feel when you search high and low for items such as car keys, that you absolutely know are somewhere in the house, but you’re having to waste precious time in the search and becoming frustrated and stressed? [Read more…]
I have been decluttering and organising alongside clients in their homes for almost 12 years and probably one of the main problem issues that comes up time and time again has been sorting and organising children’s toys, games and books.
Toys tend to multiply into every room in the house which can be challenging, quite aside from the child’s room itself which can become chaotic. Not fun for Mum to clean, and ultimately not great for the child either as they try to find a particular toy or game and end up turning the room upside down in the process.
There are obviously a couple of issues here: one being when to let go of toys, books and games because they are no longer used or the child has grown out of them, and the second is organising those that are going to be kept.
So when is it time to let things go? What I do want you to think about here is that children learn to hoard very early in life, and often want to hold onto every stuffed toy, tiny first books and games that they have had since birth because they hold ‘memories’ for them. What I explain to children is that if we hold onto everything, then there won’t be any room for new toys and books and games. You could also suggest that it can be a wonderful thing to give away those items that they no long play with to those children who don’t have toys at all.
Here are a few other suggestions which I hope will help: