To The Next Level

Shopaholics have a new perspective....A must see for all in my Clutter Support Group!

NYTB: Cheryl Stern's SHOES AND BAGGAGE—New Works Series @ the cell 5/302016 Cheryl Stern performs a Pre-Premiere of SHOES AND BAGGAGE (Book/Lyrics: Cheryl Stern; Music by Tom Kochin); New York Theatre Barn—New Works Series @ the cell...

It’s up to us to decide how we use the stuff we own. What is the life you want? Our stuff defines our life. We can either advance the kind of life we want or we become self-absorbed with our stuff.

Clutter Support Group June 2017
Welcome to Summer

The CSG begins addressing what organizing projects worked and what didn’t during the past month.

Praises and Challenges
Nicole:
1- Nicole tried using the gloves while working on her organizing papers and to her surprise… it works.
2- The gloves helped her decision making to be quicker.
3- She also asked her mother in-law to keep her company as she was working. Having another person in the same room is called body doubling which helped her to stay focused on the task.
4- She used the timer on her phone at 30 minutes interval.
5- The main reason for working on the papers was that her company taxes has to be done and to be put the paperwork together. ( deadlines work!)
6- Nicole feels a sense of relief that the papers are organized for her company taxes.
7- Nicole used areas in the room instead of organizing bins when organizing.

Note: Eileen emphasized that Nicole’s accomplishements and felt fulfilled by completing this task.

Pam:
1- She has been able to continue with assistance of her two friends on her project for 2 1/2 hours per week. Pam has discovered her kitchen counter and dining room table. She was able to have a meal at the table.
2- Pam’s next project is to go through the canned goods, which she started acquiring due to Hurricane Sandy.

Note: Eileen suggested creating a survival shelf for emergencies. We need have to look at how the excess canned goods are impeding our quality of life.

By clearing these areas in her home has given Pam a sense of hope to be able to eat at the dining room table. This has inspired Pam to continue doing some work by herself.

Ramona:
1- acknowledges that she is easily distracted especially when working with paper.

Note: Eileen- Our society is not a discipline society. We are fed to do what's fun and not what is important. Everything in us wants to rebel against doing what we need to do. Retraining the brain is a big deal. Organizing allows us to see things at peace and orderly.

Suzanne:
1- Works better with deadlines.
2- She has a tendency to become like Super Woman to get stuff done and becomes exhausted afterwards.

Note: Eileen – organizing affects our physical, emotional and mental areas of our body. If we do too much at one time, we are left exhausted and all the work we have done gets undone due to the exhaustion.

Sheila:
Did not want to discuss the experience she had at her sale.

Break----Celebrating Carol’s birthday!!!!! With cake!!!!!

Eileen decided that we are going dive in deeper into the issues that people continue to have with "Paper"
Eileen did a brief survey of group about issues with paper. For example-- How many have problems deciding on where to put the paper - 4 people said yes

Are you a Piler, a Stacker, or a Filer?
Vicki said that she is a slacker? LOL


For pilers, Eileen suggested taking a bookshelf and label the shelf according to the pile. She also suggested buying clear zip top envelopes for receipts. You can use a label maker to name each envelope.

Eileen said that you have to find a system that works for you. She also demonstrated different types of Pendaflex folder. For example: a privacy folder

There is also a stack system using a sticky note to describe what will go in each envelope. The point of this task to get all of the papers off a certain area.

Review of handout: The 5 W's of Organizing Questions.

Have a great summer and see you in September!

May 2017 Clutter Support Group

Attendees, Vicki, Gloria, Pam, Nicole, Suzanne, Laurie, Theresa and Ramona

Praises and Challenges
Ramona
1- Project 1- Working on creating envelopes for her receipts and coupons.
2- Ramona realizes that she now needs to schedule time to do her projects.

Eileen's asked Ramona “What can you let go of so that you can plan the time to do your organizing projects?

3- Ramona also has been removing accumulating magazines from her mom's room at the nursing home.

Gloria
1- Still struggling with situational depression because her husband is living in a nursing home.
2- Cleaned out kitchen cabinets and got rid of expired food items.
3- Will send Eileen a picture of her kitchen cabinet for assistance with labeling.

Nicole suggested that she makes a schedule for the week of meals to be prepared to eliminate the waste.

Pam
1- Last month Pam decided to call in some friends to help with the clutter. She was intentional about following through about getting assistance.
2- Two of her friends are assisting her to clear the kitchen.
3- Her dining room will be next which seats 22 people.
4- Her biggest challenge is letting go of things that she enjoyed.
5- She had to do a lot self-talk to get through the process. Pam now feels she might be able to tackle something else in the house
6- With some of the clutter removed , Pam does not have as much anxiety.

Eileen's suggestion - create a maintenance system (how are you going to maintain the space?)

Nicole
1- Took many items to Goodwill- juicer, clothes and old magazines.

Vicki
1- Went through cookbooks and donated to Salvation Army and Sachem Public Library
2- Vicki is also organizing the seasonal change of clothes.
4- Continuing to shred papers and donated toys
5- Taking the time to get rid of junk mail.

Suzanne
1- Donated many items to her sister in-law's church. She doesn't miss a thing because it was for a good and profitable cause.
2- Organizing pantry in her kitchen and realized that she had so many serving trays, and has decided she will keep her favorite serving trays and put the rest aside for the next church sale.

Eileen used the term "the bomb" which is all the stuff that comes out of the closet during the de-clutter process. She suggested begin with a plan. Plan the beginning, middle and end.

Theresa
1- Because Theresa has missed several meetings she finds her bedroom is accumulating stuff again and she is falling back into the same rut again.
2- Items from other siblings has been accumulating in her son's room and she now plans on having a family meeting about tackling the clutter.

Eileen reminded that our items are to be honored and respected. How can you translate this to the rest of the family?

Laurie
1- Her challenge is the mail pile-up. Her mail challenge is to find the time to do the mail.

Eileen suggestion - make a decision on how to handle the mail and using a desktop filing system.

Break

Your Purse , Your Home

Question #1 - Who has the heaviest purse?
The finalists were Theresa, Pam and Laurie.
And the winner is Laurie

Question #2-What is the most unusual item in your purse? The winner is - jeweler's loupe –Suzanne

Eileen discussed how our purse is a reflection of our home. How we take care of our purse is much the same as our home. Do we pill so many items into our purse that we do not know what is in there? Does the clutter weigh us down?
Suzanne then volunteered to empty her pocketbook to re-organize.
Eileen taught about grouping like items together and showed several products that help to better organize our purses

April 2017 Clutter Support Meeting

The following is a recap of the Clutter Support Meeting held in April 2017

Attendees - Carol, Kitty, Nicole, Pam, Sheila, and Suzanne

Praises and challenges:

Suzanne:
Her goal was to go through her coats but she was unable to complete the project because she had to begin going through her mothers items Suzanne and her sister donated her items including costume jewelry to a church in Ardsley, New York. She will continue to pack her van with other items to go to Ardsley and also pick up watches from her friend Judy to donate to the church. Suzanne said it felt like a breath of fresh air to donate. Suzanne bought a plaque that says "Cherish people and not things" which her inspiration to keep going.

Pam:
Pam's challenge is to get rid of paperwork and get her papers organized. Her best friend has terminal cancer, which has emotionally taken a toll on Pam and slowed down her work progress.
Eileen suggested that she ask her choir friends Joan and Jean to help her with paperwork.

Eileen said that writing something down becomes real when you see it visually.

Sheila and Carol:
Carol's friend suggested that they take a table in a flea market on May 7th to sell their stuff. She does not want to bring anything back home with her. They plan to do the flea market sale on a regular basis at Antiques in Northport

It has been challenging for Sheila to part with the stuff. But the motivation to sell the stuff is a vacation in Greenport.
Sheila said stuff represents time spent with other people. On a brighter note, she has decided to discard a lot of her past projects that she now realizes she will never complete.

Kitty:
Kitty has two high-energy German shepherds, which is distracting from completing a project. She has been successful packing up stuff to be donated to Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

Nicole:
Nicole is trying to organize papers for taxes and condense papers in one crate. She has been going through cooking magazines.
Her biggest challenge is her husband who is very frustrated with stuff being around. Nicole made an observation that when things are messy, she can find what she needs.

Eileen asked what does messy mean? Is your mess detrimental to your quality of life.
How can you make peace with mess so that the quality of life issue is not affected?

Spring Cleaning was April’s topic.

Spring-cleaning can help your mental health and stress.

Eileen said rearranging the mind map is you put stuff in a different place after reorganizing.
Suggestions: Take a picture and put inside the cabinet door.
Be mindful of what it is that you are doing and why you are doing it.

Spring-cleaning can be affected by relationships. There may be conflicts by others in the home that contribute to the clutter and are unwilling to help clear the clutter.

Spring cleaning can be affected by social media, cell phone and outside technology.

Our Clutter Support Group met this past Tuesday evening...even the rain didn't stop these precious ladies from coming to share their struggles and praises. Here is a recap of our meeting.

Clutter support group meeting January 24th 2017
Happy New Year…Happy New You

Attendees - Theresa , Carol, Nicole, Gloria, Laurie, & Sheila
New attendee - Gloria who has had a lifelong problem with clutter. She wanted to find a faith-based approach to dealing with clutter.

Praises & Challenges:
1- Carol is cleaning out her mom's house since the beginning of the year. She is also doing repairs on the house to put it up for sale.

Eileen suggested that she set an end date for the repairs and have the house tested for lead. Prior to putting the house on the market, the seller has to sign a lead disclosure statement.

2- Theresa is in the process of redecorating her daughter's room. As old furniture is being removed to make way for the new furniture, the contents are trickling into other parts of the house. Theresa plans to finish the project by February school break, and mentioned that the Desktop filing system has worked for her when sorting daily mail.

Eileen suggested doing a plan and accepting help from her friend to paint the room.

3- Nicole's biggest challenge is her husband. She has a lack of motivation to move forward. They moved into a new apartment the day after of Thanksgiving and she is still unpacking boxes. In December she had 4 - 5 bags of shredded papers.

Eileen suggested to Theresa and Nicole prioritize what they have left. Decide what is truly important?

4- Sheila has several lifelong projects.
Is very depressed because she has not completed any of the projects.
and has been giving away stuff and feels guilty about giving. She has been saving receipts to track her spending but she is not consistent.
Her praise for Christmas… she used cherished items such as platters with cookies to give away as gifts.

Note: Eileen talked about emotional attachment to our stuff and inanimate objects
- Transferring emotions to objects
- Suggested that we have to emotionally divorce ourselves from objects.
- Gloria suggested to Sheila to give the items to a thrift store for a tax write-off
- Eileen suggested an auction house but Sheila did not like that idea. The auction house does not pay much for valuable items.

4- Gloria - God got her to the point to ask for help with clutter problem.
- Found a cleaning person to dust and clean her home
- Since she has started working on the decreasing the clutter, she did not realize the progress she has made.
- Her challenge is that she does put things away.
- Nicole made a suggestion to take one thing out of the room with you.
(Breaking down each project into small steps helps to create habits.)

5- Laurie purged her Christmas decorations and blessed someone with the excess.
- Her challenge is helping her kids to declutter their rooms.

After the break Eileen handed out “3 Goals and Steps to Achieve Your New Year Goals. “
(Each goal should be broken down into smaller steps.)