Amanda Darlack's blog

Amanda Darlack, Living Peace Professional Organizer, offers you tips for your moving project.

"Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance."
- John Petit-Senn

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You know, organizing isn't just like eating.  Organizing is also a lot like running.

I started learning how to run this past spring.  I've never been athletic but I wanted to find an excercise that I enjoyed and thought that it would be worth giving running a try.  During the past few months, I've noticed some similarities between the process of organizing and the process of running:

Have you ever tried to get organized simply by throwing things away? 

Many people get fed up with the clutter in their homes and start chucking things, thinking that by having some space back they are more organized.  But in a few months, the clutter has returned.  It's not that their organization system failed; it's just that they were never organized in the first place.

Yes, getting organized includes weeding your belongings, but that is just one step in a whole process.  Each step is key to establishing a functional and lasting system.

"It's never too late to be who you might have been."

-George Eliot

I just got back from a week's vacation and my clothes are feeling a little tight.

The truth is my eating habits have been sliding for a while and the vacation just seemed to seal the deal.

When I think of my meal choices and how little excercise I've been doing, I know I shouldn't be surprised.  But, SURPRISE!  I am.  Isn't that funny?  It's like part of my brain that relates to food has still not come to grips with the fact that my actions have consequences.

My husband and I are moving this summer and we have been systematically sorting through all our things and weeding what we don't need anymore/don't want to carry up three flights of stairs into the new apartment.

My husband has many, many books.  (Books are heavy!)  He's also a librarian, so he sorted through his books and picked out the ones he could easily get where he works.  He weeded out over 100 books.

This post is for all the people out there (like me) who have trouble saying "no" even when they are already overcommitted.

One of my clients has been having her floors refinished.  All the furniture from her first floor is crammed into one room.  All the counters in her kitchen are full of the contents of the dining room.  Two rooms, including her home office, are entirely off limits while the floors are being treated and drying.  Her kitchen table is serving as her desk.  Everything is topsy-turvy.

My husband and I are really excited about the home we’re moving into this summer.   It’s a beautiful old house near the Gloucester Harbor.   There’s a big front porch, a deck off the back, a little yard, and – possibly best of all - lots of storage space!

But I don’t want to move in and automatically fill up all that storage space.  So I’ve been weeding all our belongings.  And it’s really, really hard.

“I've been getting rid of some clutter — anything that doesn't serve a positive purpose in my life — and making room for things that feel happy to me. Because I get to make my life whatever I want it to be. I get to make the room feel however I want it to feel. I get to make the closet as full or as spacious as I want it. And, if I have more clutter to get rid of after Christmas, I'm not going to wait a year, or two or three to do it.”

-Jan Denise