The Organized Life archives

A Fresh Start for Spring

Dear Subscriber,

This issue of the newsletter is all about taking the opportunity that Spring presents to give yourself a fresh start. Letting go of things that no longer serve you, and aiming to surround yourself only with the things that you need or use or just plain love can bring a great feeling of contentment. It can bring you into alignment with the abundance of the spring and summer seasons.

When you "let go" of things, you can be sure that one person's trash is, indeed, another person's treasure. Consider options like donating them to Goodwill or other charities, having a tag sale, or even hosting a "clothes swap" with your friends. The bottom line is, get them out of your house so they don’t keep weighing you down!

So, to the practicalities:

1. Pull your winter clothes out of the closet for their annual examination. Identify the things you didn't wear this past winter: do you really need to keep holding on to them?

Here's the exception that proves the rule, though. In the Northeast we had a very mild winter -- I have lots of things I didn't wear this year that I usually do (like snowboots, for example!). I'll use my annual spring purge to let go of things I know I don’t like, but I'll store things I like (or know to be useful) even if I didn’t wear them this year, just in case next winter's weather is more typical.

2. Of course, it's also time to take your spring and summer clothes out of their winter quarters. Don't be surprised to discover a few things that don't quite fit, or whose color no longer suits you, or whose style is past prime. It's amazing what can happen when I haven't seen an item in a long time: my emotional and/or financial attachment seems to be broken, and it's a lot easier for me to take a clear-eyed look at it ("Gee, I never did like the way I looked in this! Time to say good-bye!").

3. Pull your linens -- towels, sheets, etc. -- out of the linen closet. This is a good time to decide which ones might better belong in the rag bag. Clean the shelves while they're empty, and put in new shelf paper if you like. Place your favorite spring and summer linens on top when you put everything back into the closet.

4. Consign your winter blankets and quilts to storage. Make sure they're clean and put a fragrant sachet in with them so they'll smell great when you pull them out again next fall. Put cedar chips or blocks in a small sack and enclose it with your woolens to prevent moth damage.

5. Now that 2005 taxes are out of the way, it's time to make sure you're set up for this year. Take a moment to create 2006 files labeled "Personal Receipts", "Business Receipts", and "Charitable Donations" (you may have other categories that you know you'll need). Place these files in your desktop file system so you can easily toss papers into them as the year goes by.

If, at the end of June (or whenever), the file becomes too full to be practical, label it with the months it contains and start a new file. Your life will be much simpler for the entire year ahead, and you'll thank yourself next year at tax time.

6. And now for the fun part: sit down with your calendars (personal, kids, business, and so on) for the next 4-6 months -- all the way out to the end of September -- and make sure family vacations and other priorities are blocked out. Create one master calendar for the entire family to refer to and when other commitments come up, all it takes is a quick look to know exactly where things stand.

Until next month, Happy Organizing!

Sincerely,