The September 2015 meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup talked about how the lines between you and your stuff get blurred in the first place, and how to start seeing the boundaries clearly again.
It’s easy to look at our own collections through filters of memory and nostalgia and to rationalize our attachments until our spaces are overflowing with the physical reminders of our pasts. Our August meetup will examine the rationalizations we use to hold on to things that we should logically let go. We’ll suggest an approach to decision-making that balances sentimental value with our real-world conditions of time, space, and resources.
Do you cringe when you look at—or even think about—your list of things to do? Does your list shame you for what you haven’t accomplished instead of helping and motivating you to manage your time and tasks? It’s easy to forget that the to-do list is supposed to work for you, not vice versa.
At our July meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group, we’ll explore sources of task-management resistance. We’ll talk about how to rethink your list as a tool for success instead of a catalog of failures.
For many of us, summer means travel, and travel brings a special kind of stress. You shove everything you need into luggage that never seems quite large enough and leave behind familiar surroundings and routines. In pursuit of rest, relaxation, and time with family and friends, we have to accept a certain amount of chaos—or do we?
At our June 2015 meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group, we’ll talk about ways to lighten your load and your stress level by organizing and “right-sizing” travel preparations.
Sooner or later, most of us find ourselves dealing with the stuff left behind by loved ones. Our Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group leader, Gayle Goddard, is deep in the process of handling her mother’s estate right now. For our May 2015 meetup, she’ll offer some of the lessons she’s learned—or relearned—from the experience of being both the organizer and the client on this emotionally challenging project. She’ll share her first-hand experiences and suggest ways to make this process easier for yourself, your spouse, your parents, and your children or other loved ones.
For the April 2015 meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group, we return to the theme of psychological roots of clutter. We’ll explore the perception of value—how we assign value to our stuff or our information, and why our notions of perceived value create problems in our physical surroundings. We’ll examine value-based emotional responses and patterns of thinking that sabotage our ability to get or stay organized.
For the March 2015 meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group, we’ll focus the conversation on your answers to these questions: What’s your biggest problem area in the struggle against clutter? (Your answer can refer to a physical space, a category of stuff, or an aspect of your life—whatever answers the question best for you.) What would you have, be, or do differently if you didn’t have a clutter problem? When you’re overwhelmed by clutter, what’s one trick that helps you get started?
Rosa Glenn Reilly, founder and director of the Spectrum Center, will discuss how the things that we collect reflect our inner life. She'll explore the emotional roots of clutter and the mental blocks that prevent us from letting go.
At the January 2015 meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group, we’ll discuss how to apply a step-by-step strategy of short-term goals to make huge, long-term progress.
The end of the year is a fitting time to reflect on who you are and who you want to be. An important part of your year-end review is making sure your surroundings support the life you want to live. At our December meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group, we’ll talk about clearing out the stuff that no longer serves you to make room for new possibilities in the new year.
