Living Well Magazine

Some Assembly Required

If the box on this year’s Christmas present uses "some Assembly required", you might want to be fully armed and dressed for battle

When I was growing up and my mother would announce that she would have to call someone to fix or assemble something, my father would respond with the typical male growl,

“ That’s ridiculous; I can do it.” 

Organizing Emotionally: It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys II

Marilyn Paul, a  professional woman with a doctorate, confessed to being the poster child of disorder in her personal life.  Home and office were jumbled and confused; her lifestyle frenzied and disorganized. In her book, It’s Hard to Make a Difference When you Can’t Find Your Keys, she relates how she was able to finally get organized personally and professionally when she began to organize emotionally.
In my last article,  we covered ...
1. Purpose for becoming and staying organized.
2. Envisioning the life and environment one would like to have. The journey continues with some serious questioning.  
3.  Reality, Taking Stock  Most people eventually learn that there is a relationship between habits and comfort.
If they do the laundry, there will be clean clothes.  If they go to the grocery store, there will be food to eat.  However, many do not see the correlation between their own habits and their inability to meet deadlines, find things, or live a life that is not a perpetual drama.  There is no connecting the dots between not doing things well or on time and getting fired; between placing mail on countertops and having mountains of paper and unpaid bills six months later.  For the hopelessly disorganized and forever frantic, the awareness that they themselves are the originators of these disasters and are therefore the ones capable of eliminating them comes as new information and enlightenment.

Holiday Doom and Decor

 

From October to December, retail brings on the sights, sounds, and smells of the season. The fragrant candles will be up front, the lights will be blinking and the music will all be there to help you open your wallet.   Inspired by the seasonal influx of catalogues and the many people who have given up their basements, garages, spare rooms, and attics to store far too many holiday decorations, I bring you this bit of silly

Friends, Acquaintances, and Strangers - What’s in Your House?

For the last several months I’ve written about keeping Christmas and the rest of the year simple and light, finding alternatives to the holiday stress and frenzy, and giving yourself permission to say “enough” to keep debt at bay. It’s all a matter of making sensible but sometimes difficult choices.

Anyone who has ever planned a party knows that decisions and choices are basic beginning ingredients: what to serve, whom to invite. I’m revving up for a holiday gathering at my house; a brunch, followed by a trip to a small, local theatre.

Organizing Emotionally: It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys

Magazines touting the latest in organizing solutions with glossy images of clean and perfect spaces do not deal with individuals or their lives.   Staged with new furniture and quaint products, these articles are advice with the underlying hint that buying something pretty will put one’s life in order. There’s the panacea of visual fantasies: ten beige outfits in a closet; six bathroom towels rolled with ribbons.  Glib.  Unrealistic

Cluttered and dramatic spaces are often manifestations of cluttered and traumatic lives.  Many people are emotionally unable – for any number of reasons-  to deal with their clutter, clothing, papers and bills.  Some have suffered emotional setbacks; others live in a world where they are unable to focus, unable to organize their time, homes or offices.  Many who look polished and successful on the outside harbor destructively chaotic habits. When people who have suffered setbacks  look at these magazines and then try desperately to make sense out of their own clutter, it just does not work.

Divide and Conquer - Paper Management Part I

Every personal organizer who has ever answered the plea for help in paper management has seen the following organizing “systems”: the floor, the kitchen counter, the desk top, the entry table, the dining room table, the coffee table,  the family room, the laundry room, the laundry baskets, the wicker baskets, the tote bags, the paper bags, the plastic bags, the shoe boxes, the cardboard boxes, the plastic bins, and my personal favorite, the dog kennel. When we’ve been shown actual filing cabinets, they are either empty or filled with buldging, toppling files labeled “miscellaneous” and “stuff”, which is right up there with naming all your children, “Hey You”.  Anyone can answer that call including the neighbors next door whom you weren’t really seeking.