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Posts Tagged ‘staying stuck’

Monday’s Meditation: On Mistakes & Punishment

By Annie | June 8, 2015 | 3

Welcome

Annie Traurig was born with the ability to see order through clutter. As a child, she spent playdates organizing friends’ closets and packing their duffle bags for summer camp.

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What I’ve learned is that gratitude is a daily practice. Each and every day we’re alive is one to give thanks for. Let this thanksgiving serve as the first of a sustained practice of thinking grateful thoughts.

Consider the things you may take for granted:

-your ability to walk (if you can)
-your internal organs
-your brain and its neuoplasticity
-your dexterity
…

You could make an endless list of things you probably never even think about that are the biggest blessings in your life before you move onto more obvious:

-your relationships and what each one gives to you
-your home and the specific ways it shelters and nurtures you
-your work opportunities, both those you’ve encountered already and those that are on their way to you
-your money and how it allows you to bless and empower others
-your time (however much you may be fortunate enough to possess)

Everyday, the choice is ours to focus on grievance or gratitude.

With love,
-Annie ❤️

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#professionalorganizing #thanksgiving

20 minutes now > 20 hours later.

Honestly, 20 hours is probably a vast UNDER exaggeration if anything.

The speed with which incoming papers pile up is best described as “defeating,” “humbling,” or “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUH-.”

It’s imperative that you do whatever you can to limit the amount coming into your actual mailbox on a daily basis.

Can you access the account information electronically? Do yourself a massive favor: do so. And tell them that’s the only way you wish to.

And before you tell me that you won’t remember the account exists or how to access it unless you have the piece of paper…my guess is that you have a hefty load of them with that mindset…too hefty to locate any particular paper. We all know by now around here that excess cancels itself out.

Other ways to slim down your mailbox contents:

-use Catalog Choice to cut down on promo mailers
-let the subscriptions to the magazines you never actually get around to reading end

JUST DO IT. IT WILL BE WORTH IT, I PROMISE.

10 kitchen/ pantry Live Simply rules to live by:

1. Eliminate wrestling pots and pans and lids stacking whenever possible. It is not always possible. Keep trying. Edit more ruthlessly. Try another layout. Repeat.

2. Decant items that are staples and/ or take a while to consume.

3. Distinguish between what’s open and fair game food-wise, and what’s backstock.

4. Always consult your backstock before shopping.

5. Knives do so many things. Gadgets do one thing generally. Knives > gadgets.

6. If it’s chipped, just ditch it.

7. If you don’t built it, maybe they won’t come. (Our rationale as of late when deciding NOT to give clients utility drawers in their primary kitchen spaces).

8. Store parts together, which means lids on when possible.

9. Unless you have a family tradition built around that highly specialized cooking instrument/appliance, it’s probably just going to collect dust.

10. Make a leftover shelf in your fridge. It doesn’t get to be all of them. Label it. Monitor its contents. Move that inventory!

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#homeorganization #kitchenorganization #professionalorganizing

The state of your environment has a direct correlation with how you feel and function within it, whether you’re aware of it or not.

Home offices make the relationship between well-being and clutter and disorder especially obvious, since they are spaces intended to foster productivity. When your workspace becomes cluttered, you may notice you start to avoid working in it. It’s difficult to focus amid piles of chaos. You feel stressed out, overwhelmed, and as though you can’t get anything done effectively.

In my decade plus of client work, I have seen countless people essentially design themselves out of having a dedicated workspace by way of giving the rooms over to clutter. Their offices becomes little more than paper and cord graveyards, as they opt instead to hunch over kitchen counters in efforts to avoid the offices altogether.

Take the office back—kick out the clutter and implement beautiful organization—and people are amazed at how apt they are to work in their workspaces again. We can’t leave their houses fast enough, so eager are they to sit at their reclaimed desks and send emails.

Take the hint and follow this Simply lead. If you want yourself to produce exemplary work, give yourself the sort of environment that naturally fosters that result.

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#homeorganization #officeorganization #professionalorganizer

Great chefs say that one of the keys to making perfect roasted vegetables is to not overcrowd the baking sheet, but to leave plenty of space for air to circulate and the steam to escape.

Organization is like that. Ease and accessibility are always achieved when quantity and space are in an appropriate proportional relationship.

You’ll feel the difference as clearly as you can taste whether a floret has been given its due place on the baking sheet or been piled under a mound.

[interior design by @michelledirkse]

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#homeorganization #kitchenorganization #professionalorganizer

Whether or not you realize it or would like to admit it, if you’re an independent adult, your daily life is your design.

The privilege of getting to divvy up a chunk of 24 hours into segments as you see fit is not one to be overlooked. If you’re like most of us, you feel compelled to do a few basic activities like eat, sleep, bathe, work, and move. But the way that you show up for these, and the smaller behaviors that surround them, dictates how empowered you feel.

The version of daily life wherein you’re merely going through the motions, telling yourself you “have” to do various tasks, and resenting the need to repeat the prior day’s behaviors may satisfy the requirement of “getting it done.” But getting it done and enjoying your days are fundamentally different.

The way to avoid burnout is to bring a sense of artistry to your daily rhythm. Consider the elements that you incorporate into it carefully. Habituate behaviors that feel good. Claim time in your schedule to attend to essential activities.

Then–and this is key–stop rushing around and staring at your screen long enough to actually be present to, and feel gratitude for, the routines and rituals in your life.

Seemingly Simple acts like preparing a meal, making a cup of coffee, washing your face, greeting your family members, moving your body, or driving to work can be elevated into meditations that provide fulfillment and joy when you select the details intentionally.

Your morning beverage (in your ideal mug) can remind you how fortunate you are to drink it. Practicing your preferred form of exercise can help you cultivate gratitude for your ability to move your body at your whim. Even your evening commute, when combined with your favorite podcast or playlist or phone call can become a moment of zen, connection, or inspiration.

The more intentional you are about designing your rituals, the more they become catalysts for being present as your days unfold.

These days–banal as they may appear at first blush–comprise your whole, miraculous life.

Getting to spend another one here on earth is reason enough to celebrate. Relish every tiny ceremony.

[calendar designed exclusively by @ariel_marko]

As our outer world gets busier and noisier, our need for an environment that calms and nurtures us increases.

It is up to each of us to design quiet and clarity into our lives. What that looks like may be different for each of us, but regardless, the commitment to doing so consistently is vital for our health.

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#homeorganization #professionalorganizer #professionalorganiser

Things you buy them may have fleeting appeal, but the feeling of your time and attention will endure.

Too many try to substitute the former for the latter. Ridden by guilt at not being able to provide enough of their time, they mistakenly believe a new toy will equate. It never does. Not in any meaningful, lasting way. And doing this repeatedly can mean you end up burdening those you love most with excess. It’s a practice that’s in service to you, not them.

Spoil them with your focused time, if anything. Put down your farkakte phone. Sit with them. Talk to them. It matters, and they’ll remember.

I did, and me and my mom were grateful she gave as much as she did while she was able to, and before MS totally impinged her ability to “mom.” (Pssst: nothing is promised. Start today.)

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#professionalorganizer #professionaldeclutterer #raisingconsciousness

When we experience emotionally traumatic events, it’s tempting to dwell on our pain. Allowing ourselves the opportunity to process what we’ve lived through can be essential. “Did that really all happen?” We may want to ask ourselves. “Did it really happen the way I remember it did? Was it really as bad as I remember it being? What did it teach me?”

The rehashing is necessary for clarity…until it isn’t. There comes a time when we have to decide whether to continue lingering on what was (and keep experiencing the pain we once felt), or embrace what uplifts us now.

The path to healing begins with emotional resolution of the past–life unfolded in precisely the manner in which it did. It cannot be altered, and we release the need or desire to change it. This is what it means to forgive, and forgiveness–this feeling of resolution–is what allows us to release our hold on the trauma we carry. Unburdened, we allow ourselves to heal.

Healing is our body and mind’s natural process. Our internal organs are constantly able to regenerate. Our brains are not fixed, static entities, but designed to continually form new neural pathways as we rewire them intentionally.

These innate processes are supported or hindered by our daily choices. What we focus on, the behaviors we nurture, the space we create, and the energy we give and receive all directly impact our ability to arrive at emotional resolution and stimulate healing.

This month, prioritize unburdening yourself of old traumas.

Integrate daily practices that enable emotional, spiritual and physical regeneration. Move your body. Take deep breaths. Practice gratitude. Bliss out while daydreaming some glorious vision you have for yourself.

Begin to see yourself as a perfect being, free to choose your thoughts and feelings from an infinite number of thoughts and feelings in the universe. Resolve to release your pain and, in its place, embrace the regenerative process. Healing is your birthright.

[calendar designed exclusively for us by @ariel_marko]

What you don’t see:

-me going back and forth over the course of several hours about how best to situate everything in this closet, taking into account frequency of use, level of storage accessibility, and cohesiveness across categories

-finally settle on a layout

-go home and sleep on it (by which I mean wake up at 2am to think it over some more)

-come back in the morning and tell them I’d had a pre-dawn epiphany and we had to change it yet again

-deal with whatever extra effort it required to make it perfect (or as perfect-adjacent as is realistically possible)

-feel deep satisfaction at having set them up for success in their space in the best way only I know how to

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#homeorganization #professionalorganizer #closetorganization

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Happiest birthday wishes to my right hand woman @dreamarie.c !!!!! 🎊🎊

Drea is the rarest blend. She is fully grounded in herself, and yet has a chameleon-like ability to find common ground with most any person. Drea is perpetually nodding along knowingly while clients talk about anything from Harleys to manga to old episodes of Scooby doo (meanwhile I’m like Scooby who??). Plunk her in any chaotic situation, and she will sort her (and everyone else’s) way out by skillfully bossing other people around and/or brute force. She has a mechanical know-how that makes me feel dumb on a daily basis, in the best way one can feel highly unskilled. Appliance broken? Ask Drea to look at it. How do we get this bulky thing into this ridiculously constrained space? Drea has already figured it out. What is Correct? Drea knows.

Andrea has saintly patience, and nonchalantly twiddled her thumbs while I (a person who grew up learning self sufficiency was necessary for survival) learned to receive help. Every time in the five? Six? (Who can remember? What is time?) years she’s been working with me that I have passed her the baton she has run to the finish line with an obviousness to her stride that begs the question, “Didn’t you know I could and would?”

She knows when to be gentle and when to say what needs to be said firmly, and she occasionally drops some truly delicious witty and sarcastic quip that makes me and everyone around her lose all composure as we absolutely crack up.

From our first meeting years ago, I felt that the universe had sent me the biggest blessing in the form of Drea. I have considered myself insanely fortunate to know her and have her in my corner every day since then.

Happy birthday you uber cool chick! Thank you for being here! 💗💗💗🎊🎊

If you consistently follow through on your promises (show up when you say you will, deliver a work product by a deadline you’ve committed to, support someone through a challenging time, exercise and eat well consistently, manage your household thoughtfully) you’re already doing more than most.

To be excellent, you need to give credence to the quality of your efforts (which is a way of acting in service to your future self) and your impact on others (the way you make people feel, anticipate their needs, and prioritize their experiences). Excellence is caring enough to give the full force of your vital energy to whatever it is you’re focusing on.

In order to care enough to be excellent, though, you must be selective in what you take on.

Too many people are operating under the false belief that they can accomplish far more than they reasonably can. They task themselves with errands they don’t actually have time to run and commit to obligations they can’t adequately show up for. Thinking you can do it all is is a fallacy that’s harmful in numerous ways, notable among them being achieving excellence.

You can’t be excellent while trying to do everything yourself. Overloading or unintentionally committing yourself means resigning yourself to a level of mediocrity.

Ironically, your ability to do things in a manner that surpasses expectations depends upon your whittling down what you’re expecting of yourself.

Ask yourself to do three dozen things perfectly and you’re bound to fail at most all of them. Ask yourself to do three things consistently and your chances of excellence in those areas increases exponentially.

Your energy is most potent when it’s concentrated, not diluted.

Once you’ve done the work of editing down your priorities in life, you can finally begin to gain a sense of momentum. The consistency and care that you’re thereafter able to hone will pave the way for excellence that inherently self-motivates. As you see the fruits of your fullest-effort-labor you’ll become even more incentivized to strive for an overarching feeling of deep, life-wide satisfaction.

[graphic designed exclusively for us by @ariel_marko]

“It’s really about honoring each thing, isn’t it?” She remarked as she surveyed the closet, noting the care with which we had hung every garment, folded every pair of pants, and arranged every shoe.

It’s a common reaction clients have—feeling as though their things have never been so highlighted, so regarded.

It’s not really about the things at all, of course. It’s about honoring a person by way of their belongings. It’s giving yourself the messaging that you are worthy of indulgent care, of being freed of what would otherwise weigh you down, and of moving through your daily life with ease. The state of your space and your belongings is your barometer for your personal standards and overall self worth.

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#homeorganization #closetorganization #professionalorganizer

By the time most renovation projects conclude it’s been months—if not years—that belongings (already deemed non-essential enough to be packed up and stored!) have been patina-ing in boxes.

Absence makes the mind grow clearer, and prior to moving back in, a thorough edit is practically a prerequisite. What items are you overjoyed to be reunited with? What items make you seriously question your judgment for having carefully stored away? And, importantly, how can you maximize the “fresh start” effect by bringing intentionality to how things are arranged (and how you function as a result) within your new space?

Those questions were top of mind in the project seen here. The fact that our client’s house burned down to the ground mid-renovation (and then had to be re-re done) only served to heighten the discrepancy between essential and extraneous. Out with the unnecessary, the outgrown and the haggard, we helped her to decide. In with the items that score top spirit- delight points. No shoving things in drawers. Yes to having the concealed spaces look and feel as elevated and nurturing as the visible areas. Exclamation marks. (!!!)

Interior design: @michelledirkse

I recently learned of the existence of “darkness retreats” wherein participants willingly deprive themselves of all light in order to experience a new appreciation for the beauty of sight.

Not to undermine the sacrifice and profundity of such an experience, but summoning awe and reverence for something once you’re without it seems fairly easy.

Counter-intuitive though it may seem, it requires much more insight and awareness to appreciate what you have while you have it. To do so requires you to push beyond the autopilot mode you spend so much of your time in and truly see the beauty and abundance that surrounds you—the sights and sounds and smells and comforts that you’ve gotten so familiar with that you’ve forgotten what gifts they are.

Living in a state of awe is a choice you make. It’s deciding to remain connected to the youthful, naive part of you that’s curious enough to pay attention, and open enough to be impressed by what you find.

The older we get and the more we’ve seen and experienced, the more we need to consciously invite ourselves to stay in a state of wonder. Our brains naturally register what’s foreign, and glaze over what’s familiar. But just because you’ve seen thousands of impossibly intricate flowers doesn’t mean you can’t pause to absorb the one in front of you.

The trees, gnarled and reaching, are as majestic as they’ve ever been. The tide rushing up over thousands of pebbles and receding back again sounds as lush and silvery as it ever has. The summertime air, perfumed by jasmine and lilies, wafts as sweetly as it ever did.

Beauty surrounds you. The awe of the natural world and the blessings of your material one are there for you to enjoy.

You do not need to wait for something to be taken from you in order to realize what a blessing it had been, all along. Be grateful now. Be curious. Look with the intention to find beauty and wonder and you surely will find them.

[calendar designed exclusively for us by @ariel_marko]

The worst part of moves is missing our client-families afterwards, once they’re fully in (or out), edited, organized, all grown up and walking the Simply walk just like we taught them to.🥺

I see clients every day who have been stymied as to how to tackle their clutter and disorder.

These are people who have been incapacitated for years (sometimes even decades), waiting for motivation to arrive that never seems to.

In a single session, these same clients transform from being anxious, overwhelmed and avoidant to voracious editors who must be pried away from the task by way of unbearable hunger and/or melting-down children.

All they needed all along was to get into action.

Action inspires motivation. Taking the first step is what motivates the next three. Flossing one tooth is what inspires flossing the whole set of chompers.

Only once in action do you begin to be motivated to remain in action, and can you create a chain of momentum. And once you have momentum, you become an arrow that cannot help but to hurtle forwards towards growth and expansion. You spend more of your time in your flow, and the universe responds by sending you more circumstances that invite you to experience the feelings you desire.

Your energy to begin is what topples the final dominoes. Your intention at the outset determines the path.

Do one thing first. Do the second thing next. Notice how you feel afterwards. Repeat.

Instead of waiting for momentum, create it.

[calendar designed exclusively by @ariel_marko]

Break the cycle. Be selective. Aim to participate in the unfolding of life, much more so than the preservation of the past. The present is where the magic is.

And before anyone chimes in to say, “I loved all the things my parents saved for me!” Or: “all my things were thrown away and I’m still sad about it!” Save your keystrokes. Your feelings about your own life are valid and so are my thirteen years of professional experience that tells me THIS is what most people need to hear.

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#professionalorganizer #declutteryourlife #declutterlikeamother #clutterfree

Solving the puzzle of available space and relevant items is my preferred life activity.

Some people were born to dance. Others, to sing, parent, report. I was called here to bring about peace and freedom through people’s environments. Getting to fulfill my life’s mission and delight our clients in the process is the ultimate privilege.

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#homeorganization #professionalorganizer #seattlemovers #seattlehomes

My work is designed to help clients hone their ability to access purpose. At the core, what I ask them about their possessions is, “Why is this present in your life?”

Plenty of them own a plethora of pretty things. Most of them can easily invent utility for objects. My goal is for them to understand that ideally, an object worth owning both has visual appeal and/or is emotionally evocative, and has practical application. It both delights their senses and enables their routine. Exciting and applicable. Pretty and practical.

When significance and utility combine, there is purpose. And with purpose comes value, contribution, contentment and gratitude.

The same rules of purpose apply to our lives.

If we’re merely going through the motions of life without feeling as though we’re being useful, we become adrift. We need to combine our talents, skills, beauty, and interest with contribution. We need to ask and answer the question, “Why am I here?”

Purpose is not reserved for the fortunate few who are brave enough to blaze an uncharted trail. A sense of purpose can be achieved regardless of who you are and what you’re doing, so long as you regard your life as the way you’re of service to the whole world.

Whether you’re cleaning toilets, changing diapers, or trading stocks, when you work from a sense of purpose, you stay connected to why it matters that you show up wholeheartedly, carry yourself with excellence, and act in the interest of love. You keep at the forefront of your mind that you are not here merely to collect a paycheck, check off a life milestone, scroll your phone endlessly in the dark, or to stress and suffer. You are here for an important reason. Your unique contribution supports the larger goals of the universe–to increase awareness and equality, elevate consciousness, and spread love.

This month, focus on purpose. Examine the “why” behind the material objects in your environment. Look for ways to bring a greater sense of purpose to your life by viewing how you spend your days not as a job or a hobby, but as a calling. Do not discount how your authenticity may be your unique form of service.

[calendar designed exclusively by @ariel_marko ]

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