7 Tips for Clearing the Clutter from Your Closet

Clear your Closet: Change your Life

Discover 7 tips for clearing the clutter from your closet so you can make space for more of what you want in your life. In Feng Shui your closet represents secrets. Once you unlock the energy in your closet you could possibly find something beautiful coming your way.

Imagine you've written your life long autobiography and it didn’t flow well?  How do you fix it?

At my www.howtospeakinaweek.com seminar recently one of my clients was surprised to hear my recommendation:

"First you declutter your stories. You eliminate any phrases which doesn't sound right..... words, anecdotes, whole ideas. And even if you are left with only one short story, you've created space for something totally new to surface."

Does this sound familiar?

While working with a busy executive client the other day, we decluttered her closet - we took out two thirds of her clothes and gave them to charity. Within 2 days she found herself writing, day and night. She couldn't stop.

Four years earlier, she had started writing her autobiography and she'd got stuck. It had been on her mind ever since.

Now it was flowing out of her. She told me her family had a lot of secrets and she'd got stuck trying to write about them.

What she didn't know until then, was that closets represent secrets. Things hidden away. Once she freed up the energy in her closet, her writing energy freed up and she found herself writing about the secrets that had stopped her in her tracks years before.

So, how is your closet, and what do you think decluttering might free up in your life?

If your closet has clothes you don't wear, it's messy and disorganized and/or you have clothes that don't make you feel great when you wear them, this will create an energy block which will keep your life from flowing as easily as it might. As you're decluttering ask yourself these questions about each piece of clothing:

1. When was the last time I wore this? Sometimes you need to give things a rest for a while - but if your reason for not wearing it is that something else always feels better then perhaps it's time to let it go.

2. Does it fit? Keeping clothes you no longer fit into can really bring your energy down. Let go of them and focus on living in the present. It doesn't mean your weight might not change in the future.

Having clothes that don't fit is a constant reminder of the past. Consider promising yourself some new clothes if you clear out those clothes that represent who you used to be?

3. Do I look good in it? There's no point keeping things that don't make you look your best - even if you paid lots for them. You're not going to wear them. Take them to a consignment shop and get some money for them. Take a look at what inspired you to purchase them in the first place - how can you make a wiser decision next time? Now, go out and buy yourself something that makes you feel on top of the world.

4. Do I feel good in it? Given that your clothes are a reflection of who you are, why keep anything that doesn't make you feel good?

5. Does it fit my current or desired lifestyle? Do you have clothes from a past lifestyle still in your closet? Any corporate suits that are no longer appropriate? Anything you bought because it looked wonderful but it doesn't fit who you are? In Feng Shui it's important to surround yourself with things that represent who you truly are now.

6. Is it in good condition? You'll not wear old clothes, except to paint in and you only need one set of those. Throw anything out that's past its best.

7. Is it ready to wear or does it need repair or cleaning? Set it aside to do now so you can wear these things.

The clothes that will be most difficult to let go of will likely be those you paid a lot of money for. Giving clothes to charity can help move past those guilty feelings. It will make you feel good if you focus on the value you're creating in someone else's life.

Action Step: This week set aside some time to declutter your closet.

Just as in reworking a poem, the easiest way I know to declutter a closet is to take everything out, clean the closet, and only put back what you'd like to keep.

And once you've done that, do the same in a month's time - you'll find you can let go of even more.

When you unlock the energy in your closet, you might just find something wonderful coming your way. Perhaps you'll start writing again and get that book published.

Where to Recycle in Scottsdale?

Wanting to know what to do with your broken-down BBQ grill? Wondering, if you can recycle candy bar wrappers? Practically anything and everything may be recycled, having said that the key is to find out where. The good news is, there is a cool iphone app, iRecycle. Almost everything from hazardous household items (such as antifreeze and CFLs) to things you don't usually consider to recycle (such as crayons, drink pouches, trophies, fabric, and even flip-flops) is all included in this sweet collection of recycling solutions.

You'll love that iRecycle can easily let you know how, where and when to recycle just about anything. Using your current location, ZIP code, address or city, get access to essential details for collection areas, such as website, phone number, directions, hours of operation and other materials collected.

iRecycle provides you the ways to access in excess of 1,600,000 ways to recycle over 350 materials.

This 100 % free app is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Check it out by browsing for "iRecycle" on the App Store.  I'm sure it will be your new go-to for recycling resources!l

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Strategize & Organize

May is National Move Month

Is moving day fast approaching? Based on the Employee Relocation Council, moving to a new residence is the third most stressful life event (after dying and divorce or separation). To ease the disruption, try these tips to help make your move easier.

1. Think about “staging” your home. This approach to neutralizing, decluttering, organizing, and beautifying helps prospective buyers to imagine themselves residing inside your home by touching on their emotions and thoughts. Staging also begins the “letting go” process for the sellers, as they adjust their much loved home to a more neutral-looking house. Staging will help you sell your home fairly quickly, at the best possible selling price.
2. Schedule your move date at a minimum of four to six weeks in advance. Typically the most popular months for moves include May through September and the very beginning and end of each month. So if you’re contracting a moving company, get in touch with them soon.   Connect with family and friends for reliable moving company recommendations. 
3. Begin packing up seldom-used belongings now. Check with your grocery market to get cardboard boxes for you. Pack heavier items in smaller sized boxes and less heavy items in bigger boxes. 
4.  Organize your boxes. Number each box and label which room it belongs in. Keep a separate list indicating the box number and its contents. You can create this list in MS Word, Excel, or The Paper Tiger. When you get to your new place, unpack everything as soon as possible. (Paper Tiger users, create a new database!) 
5. Complete change-of-address forms at the post office or online. And be sure to update vital records and documents including your address and phone number (e.g. driver’s license, checks). If you still have physical phone books with notes all over them, bring your existing phone books to your new home in case you will need get in touch with folks in your old town. 
6. Transport valuable items personally. Irreplaceable family pictures, heirlooms, and financial and legal documents should be packed and moved by you preferably instead of the moving company. 
7. Mail out postcards to family and friends with your updated address and phone number, along with a photo of your new home! My recommendation is to automate it using Send Out Cards.

If you are in the metro Phoenix area and need some help organizing your move, call me now at 480-442-2014.

Turn a Bonus Room into a Home Office

Post by Strategize and Organize.

Guaranteed to Find Your Files

Post by Strategize and Organize.

How to File and be Guaranteed to Find It!

Did you know that the average executive spends six weeks per year retrieving or replacing lost documents?  Naturally, it makes sense to create a system that is quick and easy so you can save that lost time.  Here are some ideas to get it done now once you have The Paper Tiger.  If you don’t have The Paper Tiger now, download this link to get started.  Here are the top ten tips I recommend:

           1    Look at the “hot spot of files”.  You know the pile that seems the most urgent and makes your stomach churn every time you look at it.  Take the paperwork and make a decision on each piece and separate into four piles:

            a         Reference, those items you need, just not right now

            b         Action, current projects, ongoing projects

            c         Toss, you know where those are going

            d         Timed, you need these on a specific date.

            2    When deciding on whether to file something or throw it away, ask yourself if how difficult would it be to find this information again?  Does it have any legal or financial ramifications if you were to throw it away?  If you can live with the answer of throwing it away after those thoughts, let it go.

3    Set up the Paper Tiger Filing System Software and Document Management, an indexing system that works like a search engine for paper files to help you get organized and stay organized.  It’s essentially creating an inventory for all of your files.

4    Use names that you will be able to recall easily.  The obvious file names that you’ve used in the past.  Then the interesting thing is with The Paper Tiger is that will also be able to add keywords into the database so that any name you think of when you need to find a file, the software will be able to tell you where it is in seconds. So in the case of “Auto” the Item Name would be “Ford Explorer”, and in the keywords section, you would input the name of the company, i.e., “Vehicle, Car”, possible the name of the dealer, the service person’s name, etc., and you might use “Personal” in the Category section.

5    Oftentimes, people receive notices of an event and they never know what to do with the postcard. Set up a monthly filing system (a Tickler File) to keep track of when to throw them away.  Create 12 hanging file folders, one for each month.  As you rsvp or pull the information for “dress code” or directions. When the day rolls around, you can retrieve it for a reminder. This will ensure that you never miss an event or an expiration date on an rsvp or offer.

6    When sorting through paperwork make a decision. If you’re not in a decision-making mood, have a place set up for “unprocessed paperwork”.  Then when you’re ready, if you need to take action, do it now or place it in the appropriate action file.  If someone else needs to attend to it, give it to them.  If it is something to reference later on, add it to a reference file and place it there. Putting it back in the pile to address later is no longer an option for you as an organized person.

7    When you have a lot of tasks to do for the day, quickly sort the tasks in order of importance.  Do what is most profitable or important to you first, then move on from there.  Therefore, if you only have a little bit of time you will be addressing the most critical issues first.  All other tasks need to be scheduled for the when it makes sense.  This final step is critical otherwise you’ll be starting a new pile.

8    Print out reports of what you have inventoried in your filing system, place a folder in the front of each door labeled “File Index”.  Having a quick and easy reference when you don’t want to open your computer makes it easier to find quickly.

9     Get into a maintenance habit of printing out a report of all of your files, quarterly or no less often than annually, and identify what you no longer need and purge or create steps to archive via off site store or scanning. 

10 .Finally, create a time management habit.  Take 10-15 minutes every morning looking at your priorities, including your Actions within your Paper Tiger system and pulling files from your Tickler File.  Do the same thing each evening by placing all documents collected through the day back into your systems. 

Congratulations on your progress, if you haven’t done it yet.  Set up your Paper Tiger system now and get started.  As you go throughout your day, keep in mind the task at hand and focus on completing that one task.  Remember that “things don’t clutter, people clutter”.  When we make simple decisions and take action, we can improve the quality of our life at work and at home.