In moments when I get disconnected from myself I too wonder if there really is anything to feng shui. Then I find myself blessed with an extraordinary feng shui success story. Here’s my most recent affirmation that feng shui really does work.

Last year I worked with a 50 year old single woman, Sandy (name has been changed) who is a single parent of a college-aged child, twice divorced and struggling as the primary caregiver for elderly parents who at that time were living in a retirement community. She is also an aspiring professional speaker. Our goal was to clear clutter from her entire house so she could attract new love and new work into her life. She also desperately longed for relief regarding care for her parents.

For months we cleared her house with the intention of making it reflect her current self and her current desires. Huge quantities of items were removed from every room and every closet, including the attic and garage, with the exception of her daughter’s room and the kitchen. Car loads of items were taken to a local charity, the dump, the homes of friends and recycling.

Between my visits, which occurred about once a month over a seven month period, Sandy had most of the rooms painted according to my color suggestions. She also enlisted help from several other women to speed up the clearing and cleaning process. While we were clearing I made feng shui suggestions for the placement of furniture, pictures and decorative items to enhance her space and attract love, clarity about her speaking career and freedom. I also urged Sandy to set her intention for what she wanted when making each change. The house was gradually transformed from a congested, chaotic place to a comfortable, lovely environment.

I had never before worked with a person so committed to clearing out the old to make room for a new life. Sandy was so committed to the process that she made almost all the changes I recommended. She was on a mission to let go of the old and have the opportunity for new love, new work and relief.

Our last visit occurred in September 2010. The next month her mother became incapable of remaining in an independent living situation and caring for her father. No longer could Sandy provide enough care to keep her parents safe. Her parents had opposed a move to assisted living for months, but her mother’s health crisis made an immediate move imperative. As difficult as the move was, and though there is still much to do to clear out and sell her parent’s previous apartment, Sandy has been relieved of total responsibility for overseeing her parent’s care.

Two months later she began dating a man she had previously met through a friend. Like her, he is an aspiring professional speaker. He too has been divorced and has a daughter. They fell in love and are making plans to live together and establish a professional speaking business.

Isn’t it interesting that as soon as Sandy made space for something new in her life, made significant changes to her space, and set her intention for what she really wanted, she was blessed with a crisis that made it possible for her to get her parents the help they really needed but were resisting, and she met and is now dating a man with similar hopes and aspirations.

Coincidence? Maybe. Woo woo? Perhaps. But, I can’t help but wonder if those significant events would have happened in such quick succession if Sandy was still living in a chaotic, uncomfortable space, blocked in every direction from getting what she wanted.

Clear, enhance and set your intentions for what you really want. How can it hurt? And, maybe, just maybe, things will shift in your life and you’ll find yourself loving your life instead of enduring it. Your choice! I hope you choose to start clearing and getting clear about what you really want!

I recently attended the annual conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers. I so enjoy being in the presence of like-minded people who want to make a big difference in our world. I always come away from that experience with a few new ideas that help me better help my clients.

This year the best experience I had was at a seminar by Casey Moore, a Certified Professional Organizer® and productivity coach from Virginia Beach, Virginia. She had just published her first book, Stop Organizing, Start Producing: Leverage the 12 Factors that Make or Break the Busy Professional and presented the main ideas from the book in her speech. I can’t even remember the last time I was blown away by a new approach to helping people be better organized and more productive. After all, how many organizing approaches can there be? Casey’s Productivity Chain® blew my socks off! It is a compelling new model for productivity that is easy to understand and use for self-evaluation and evaluation of others regarding barriers to productivity.

Casey has identified twelve factors that affect productivity. Getting organized is just one of them. They include boundary-setting, reinvention, planning, goal-setting/prioritization, decision-making, task/project management, communication/relationships, drive, delegation, health, resources, and organization of objects/data. She describes those factors as links in a chain, the Productivity Chain. Chains work well when all the links are strong and in place. It takes just one weak link to reduce the effectiveness of the chain. Essentially, you can only be as productive as your weakest link. Often you have several weak links. When you identify them and strengthen them, your overall productivity will improve. Casey’s book will show you how!

I highly recommend Casey’s book to anyone who wants to be more productive.  It’s an easy read with lots of case studies that make the content come alive. You can take her information and ideas and immediately begin improving your productivity. The best way to get it is by ordering it from Casey’s website at www.CaseyMooreinc.com.

When I give speeches I’m often asked, “What if I’m not the cause of the messiness in my house?”

I first commiserate with the person, because it can be very frustrating to be working hard to maintain order only to have it wrecked by loved ones. Then I make the following suggestions:

1. Control what you can. Clear your clutter. Keep all the areas over which you have control clutter free and organized. When you do that you are shifting energies in a positive direction. Sometimes just that positive shift in energy will affect the behavior of others.

2. Make a request that everyone work together to keep public areas neat and clutter free. Don’t nag. Don’t criticize them for their bad habits. Public areas are the kitchen, family room, living room, dining room. Keeping those areas clear of clutter, neat and organized will help keep interactions between family members peaceful and positive.

3. Give those who are messy a place to be messy. For children, it’s their bedroom. Lay ground rules to avoid health hazards like attracting rodents and other pests with dirty dishes and food. Perhaps come to an agreement about how often the room is to be cleaned–once a month or so? For the spouse, leave the room alone! But, ask for agreement that his/her stuff will not spill out into the public areas.

4. Choose your battles. When clutter does accumulate in public areas, first clean up your part of the mess. Then remind others of the agreement to work together to keep the public areas neat and ask them to remove their belongings. If over time you meet a lot of resistance, or if family members seem to truly be unconscious of the mess they create, let them know that when they do leave personal items in the public areas, you will be moving those items to their rooms. If they object to you moving their things, remind them of the agreement about keeping public areas clutter free. They won’t love you for moving their things, but you’ll be able to continue to love them! And, the public areas will be neater!

5. Refuse to fight and nag and criticize others about their messy ways. Those behaviors do nothing to get your desired results and they do much that is harmful to your relationships. People who are messy usually are less bothered by the negative energy of clutter and disorder. Many of them aren’t even conscious of the whirlwind of stuff that follows them around. Most of them are awesome people, but will never be great at being neat and organized.

Happy Negotiating and Accepting Things You Cannot Change!

Have you noticed that despite your best efforts to maintain your organizing systems, they sometimes melt down? It’s easy to beat up on yourself for having to reorganize a space one more time. But, I’ve come to the conclusion that meltdowns are just part of the organizing process. And, I have learned that meltdowns can actually be beneficial.

Recently I found myself more and more annoyed by the tangle of necklaces on a jewelry organizer. “There must be a better way to organize these things!” I whined. When I finally made the time to completely overhaul the organization of all of my jewelry I learned that it was an excellent opportunity to evaluate each piece to see if it still reflected my current self. I was able to “get real” about a bag full of jewelry that is now on its way to Good Will.

The meltdown was just the catalyst I needed to get current with my jewelry. Now all of my jewelry reflects who I am today. And, my house is lighter by one bag of jewelry. Sounds like a win, win to me!

Organizing your home or office may seem like a daunting task. Where to start? How to get started? What to do with all the stuff that you no longer need or use? It’s easy to get hung up on any one of those questions, easy to get overwhelmed.

Part of the problem is the ego’s need to “get it right.” The good news is that there is no “right” when it comes to clutter clearing. There are many paths to success. But, all of those paths start with a single step, an action. So, doing something, anything in the direction you want to go is a success. Each step shifts energies. Shifting energies encourages movement.

I recommend that you make “What can I do today to be more organized?” a question you ask yourself daily. Even if you make just a step as small as hanging up your clothes at the end of the day. That’s a positive step and movement in the right direction. Or, you might decide to identify one item to purge every day for a week and take those items to a charity. Or, you might decide to recycle five of the 55 boxes you have saved because they’re “good boxes” and you might need one someday. Every decision and action in the direction of order and reducing the volume of unnecessary items increases positive energies. When you feel the benefit that comes from those little steps, you will be motivated to keep going.

Here’s another suggestion: make decisions about big items first and you’ll feel bigger energy shifts! Do this every day and over time you can make your way through your self-created physical barriers to success.

“What can I do today to be more organized?” Make it you mantra!