I can hear your thoughts. They go like this, “How can I possibly clear clutter every day? I have too much to do. There’s just no way!”

I’m not talking about tackling an attic, a closet or even a drawer. I’m talking about clearing clutter in areas that you touch every day. Here are some examples:

· junk mail
· email messages
· voicemail messages
· clothes that are too tight when you put them on
· shoes that feel uncomfortable when you put them on
· useless papers that you confront when you are
opening a drawer looking for something else
· snack wrappers
· floating scraps of paper
· broken things that you don’t intend to repair

Be looking for clutter at all times! Take pleasure in eliminating it IMMEDIATELY! Don’t put it off!

Give yourself the chance to experience the light feeling and satisfaction that comes from having fewer things bugging you. And, enjoy being able to find things more easily because you have fewer hiding places!

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | Debbie Bowie

“Author, Organizing Expert and Feng Shui Practitioner Debbie Bowie, is a leading authority on clutter clearing to attract more of what you want in your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

Want to love the feel of every room of your house? Start by painting color on those white and beige walls. White and antique white once were the way to go, but times have changed. White is best used as an accent color, not the main course.

Why? Color doesn’t show up against a white wall. Color nurtures our psyche. If we aren’t able to benefit from the color of our wall hangings, we don’t feel as comfortable in our homes or offices. Check it out. Put a colorful print against a white wall. Then put it against a colored wall. Notice how much more vibrant the colors are against a colored wall.

What does this have to do with organizing? We work best when we are most comfortable.

Think of it this way. White walls resemble the grayish-white skies of winter. What happens to many of us during those cold months? We get SADD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. Simply stated, we get depressed! White walls have been associated with anxiety and depression. If you’re depressed you’ll be less productive. You just won’t care as much to put effort into anything, much less organizing!

Besides that, white walls look dirty faster than any other color.

Here are some guidelines for adding color:

* For walls in a home I recommend using mostly warm earthtones, tans, taupes, shades of brown and yellow.Those colors are the most relaxing and make a home feel cozy.
* For offices I recommend shades of sage green for men and buttery yellow for women. Those colors have positive, active energies, the kind you need in a work setting.
* Reds, like white, should mostly be used as an accent color. Red is associated with the fire element. If you don’t get the shade just right a red room can feel hot and people can feel hot tempered.
* Avoid pastels because they communicate as white.
* Be looking for rooms where you love the color and feel utterly comfortable. When you find one, ask the owner of the space for the name and brand of the paint color.

Brighten your life and increase your productivity with color on your walls!

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | Debbie Bowie

“Author, Organizing Expert and Feng Shui Practitioner, Debbie Bowie, is a leading authority on clutter clearing to attract more of what you want in life. If you’re ready to clear clutter and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

Make a commitment to yourself to get rid of one item from your home every Saturday.

Making it a habit to identify one item to part with each week is a great way to train yourself to be looking for things to clear all the time. It’s also a way to make sure that there this an outflow of things from your home to counter the constant inflow.

A word of caution! You may intend to get rid of just one item every week, but find yourself
filling bags full of things once you get started.

Yesterday I decided to get rid of a faded candle in my living room and today my van is filled with two boxes and two bags of things to donate to a charity. Moving that one item shifted energies in my home which in turn shifted energies in me and suddenly I was ready to rearrange furniture and clear closets. Amazing!

I rode that wave of energy as far as it would take me! I can’t wait to see what new, good opportunities come into my life now that I’ve made space for them!

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | Debbie Bowie

“Author, Organizing Expert and Feng Shui Practitioner Debbie Bowie, is a leading authority on clutter clearing to attract more of what you want in your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

Is there something you know you need to do but it never gets done? What’s the barrier? What is standing between you and getting that task done? Have you even taken time to identify the barrier? Once you identify the barrier, you can determine a way to eliminate it and move forward. Here’s my story of a barrier identified and eliminated.

I had known that I needed to keep in touch with people on my email list for years. I just never got it done. I had the list. I had the content. I even knew that Constant Contact is a the service I could use for this purpose. Still I kept dancing away from getting started. Yes, even compulsive professional organizers procrastinate!

When I finally got real with myself I realized that my discomfort with all things technological was the barrier between me and getting my news tips out to my list. To address that barrier I made a few feeble attempts to figure out this Constant Contact thing, but, as I expected, I was totally baffled.

So now the barrier had changed from discomfort with all things technological to truly not knowing how to take the steps necessary to get the job done. Once I got clear about that barrier, I sought help from my good friend and fellow professional organizer, Cara Kinning. She showed me the basics of Constant Contact, helped me set up my list and got me started on developing the template for the newsletter you see today.

Had I not taken the time to stop and identify the barriers to getting my newletter out, I would not be having the bi-monthly pleasure of communicating with you. Got an important task that you keep avoiding? Identify the barrier and eliminate it!

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | Debbie Bowie

“Author, Organizing Expert and Feng Shui Practitioner Debbie Bowie, is a leading authority on clutter clearing to attract more of what you want in your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

Today I’m going to share a response I got from Pat Moore, The Queen of Clutter, after she read some of my blog entries, particularly one about how objects can have negative associations. Pat was the first professional organizer in Richmond, Virginia. She cleared a path for me and was my mentor. Over the years she has sent me some wonderful referrals who have become long-term clients and friends. I am so grateful for her generous spirit, warm heart and wise counsel. She gave me permission to share her words with you. I offer them to you as move evidence that we professional organizers struggle to release our stuff too!

“You made me really rethink about something. Clients give me stuff too, and some of it I love. Some of it I keep because it is “expensive to buy.” But, do I really need it? I do give away a lot of stuff to Goodwill, and Anna could be their poster child, but I also tend to keep things based on their value. Come to think of it, I think it makes me THINK I’m a better, or more worthy person because I have this expensive stuff.

Not like any of it cost a fortune.

I have this one beautiful expensive platter that drags me down. I have nowhere to really put it and never think about using it. The story behind it is I did one of those speeches where they gave a small honorarium. I was dead broke and really needing the cash to put gas in my car! I did the speech and they handed me a gift certificate to one of those fancy smancy stores. The kind that I have to “dress up” to go into . Talk about a let down.

But I went to the store with this gift certificate determined that I’d find something wonderful and so expensive I’d never dare purchase it. Found nothing. ZILCH. The stuff was pretty, but nothing spoke to me. I could find no practical use for any of those things either. ME, who loves stuff. So I got that platter. EVERY time I look at it I remember that disappointment. It’s leaving this house!

I’d rather remember the time I was afraid I wouldn’t make it to the church speech because my gas guage was on E, and I only had a dollar or two. I did the free speech (never mentioning that I may be walking home), and at the end the planner said, “I’m sending the basket around as a love offering.” She apologized that it wasn’t much, but you know, it was exactly enough to fill up my car with gas. Now, that’s good memories!”

One of the high points of my week last week was greeted by an enormous Golden Retriever, Luke, when I walked into Southern States to buy birdseed and roses. What a huge gentle giant! His energy was so calm that I felt calmer. Now, that’s good feng shui! And, finding him there, in a public space where I just didn’t expect to find a dog, was such a treat!

Haven’t you occasionally seen a cat lounging around in a bookstore or a dog hanging out inside a business? If you’re an animal lover like me, I’ll bet you also remember the store and maybe even the breed of dog.

Well-behaved welcoming cats and dogs can have such a positive effect on a commercial establishment if they are clean, well cared for and especially if they’re friendly. They can serve as unofficial greeters. They can make us pause in our rush to get everything done and take a moment out to pet them and talk to their owners about them. They really facilitate us being more human and less driven.

When I met Luke I was so taken by him that I asked his owner about him. Was he pure Golden Retriever? How much did he weigh? 101 pounds! I wouldn’t normally chat with a cashier in that way. Luke helped me stop and connect. He also left me with such a good feeling about that store. I’ll look forward to going back in hopes of seeing Luke.

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | Debbie Bowie

“Author, Organizing Expert and Feng Shui Practitioner Debbie Bowie, is a leading authority on clutter clearing to attract more of what you want in your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

It’s never too soon to start making plans for Christmas gift giving. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Tackle your photo nightmare and create unique, heart-warming Christmas presents.

One of the best ways to tackle the overwhelming task of photo organizing is to decide to make photo scrapbooks as Christmas gifts. That way you have a specific goal, the calendar, to motivate you to start looking through your photos.

Getting started with the photos is the hardest part. Often the sheer volume is overwhelming. Don’t despair! Just put your head down and look for the best photos. Don’t worry about organizing them! Just search for the best photos for your project and you’ll soon find yourself energized by the excitement of the project and the memories ignited by the photos. And, some photo organizing may get done in the process.

If you think there’s no way YOU could do something like an electronic photo scrapbook because technology is your enemy, think again! If I can do it, so can you! A client showed me how she made a photo scrapbook using FREE software from www.picaboo.com. Because I knew I was technology challenged, I got my husband, who is computer savvy, to show me how to do the first scrapbook.

The process goes like this: choose great photos; get them scanned by a service or with your photo copier/scanner; choose free photo scrapbook software to download; download your photos into that program; compose your book (the really fun part!); place your order; the scrapbooks are delivered to your door.

In my first attempt I made a family scrapbook that brought my mother to tears and two scrapbooks of relatives who had recently died to give as gifts to their families. I had fun making the books. I began my scanned photo archives. And, I took photos that were accessible only to me and made them available to my loved ones in a form that they can enjoy over and over again. What a photo victory!

Change your photo nightmare into a photo victory! Make precious photos the subject of your Christmas planning this year. Start now!

Happy Photo Sorting!

P.S. There are many photo programs out there in addition to www.picaboo.com. Find one that works for you!

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | Debbie Bowie

“Author, Organizing Expert and Feng Shui Practitioner, Debbie Bowie, is a leading authority on clutter clearing to attract more of what you want in life. If you’re ready to clear clutter and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

I was taught that when you speak for an audience you want to leave them wanting more rather than wishing they had gotten a whole lot less! So, I work very hard to never go over the allotted timeframe for a speech. Today I was scheduled to give two speeches, each one hour in length. I was a little concerned that only five minutes had been scheduled between the two speeches, not much time for people to move from one session to the next, get food and get settled. I knew I’d have challenges managing the time. Then when the previous speaker went over almost fifteen minutes I knew I’d have to cut my speech a bit so participants could keep to the schedule.

I could have freaked out, been angry or resentful. But, instead I chose to remember other speakers describing challenges they’d faced when speaking, and I thought to myself, “This is just one of the realities of speaking. Not everyone keeps to the schedule. How can I make the best of this?” Fortunately I’d prepared well and knew where I could trim my speech. So, those speeches were shorter and more rushed than I would have liked. But, I still had fun delivering them. And, participants were engaged and seemed to appreciate the content. It’s amazing how I was able to shift a stressful challenge to a positive victory by changing my focus and my thoughts!

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | Debbie Bowie

“Author, Organizing Expert and Feng Shui Practitioner Debbie Bowie, is a leading authority on clutter clearing to attract more of what you want in your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.