Blog: Organizing Small Spaces
Decluttering your small space for Others

"If you have clutter you are richer than you think. Look at uncluttering as an opportunity to share your abundance – the stuff you don't need – with people who could really use it."

I was helping a woman sort  some 300 pair of shoes the other day. She lives in a small space and it is very cluttered. But the shoes are all "good" and she "loves them" and "paid good money for them" and so the reasons go why the shoes cannot go.  Meanwhile, I come home and read an email from my friend, Helen, in Cedar Rapids Iowa, about how many people in her small city have lost EVERYTHING in the record-breaking floodwaters.  Goodwill and the Salvation Army are offering certificates for the things most needed at the moment -- clothes and SHOES. 

posted on: 6/19/2008 7:04:59 AM by Joan Kosmachuk
category: Clutter

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Organizing Small Spaces

by Joan Kosmachuk

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About Joan:

Joan Kosmachuk is a professional organizer and personal life coach. Born in Toronto, Canada, Joan moved to Boston in 2005 and lives in a less than 800 square foot apartment in an old brownstone with her husband, Jerry, and their papillon dog, Duke. In addition to organizing, Joan loves to read, write, garden, travel and spend quality time with her family and friends. Check out her website for additional articles and tips on making room in your home, head and heart for the things you value most.

Joan's Website:

www.simpleeffects.com

TV Shows I enjoy

• Small Space, Big Style on HGTV
  This show makes me dream of living in an even smaller apartment just to see how creative I could be.
• Mission Organization, HGTV
  We all know it doesn't happen in a half-hour, but this show does do a great job of showing just what can happen when a professional organizer works with a willing client. Magic!!
• NEAT, HGTV
  Sadly you can only catch repeats of this one, but Helen was my first on-camera organizing coach and as I told her when I met her at the POC in Toronto last year, she was an inspiration!!

Books and Authors I recommend

• Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  timeless inspiration
• Freedom of Simplicity by Richard J. Foster
  one of the best books I've read on finding harmony in our complex world
• Getting Things Done by David Allen
  Finally a time/task management system for those of us without "regularly scheduled" lives
• Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
  a beautiful novel on every level
• Leaven of Malice by Robertson Davies
  because it makes me laugh everytime I read it (and he was a fellow Canadian)
• 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
  if you love books and you love reading other people's correspondence, you'll love this book
• Lewis, Tolkien and MacDonald
  three fantasy writers who make life magical for me
• John Piper, Oswald Chambers, Richard Foster
  for spiritual exhortation

BLOGS I LIKE

• Home Goods OpenHouse
  Such personable interior designers with affordable ideas!
• Small Space Style
  wonderful ideas for decorating small spaces
• organizing LA
  nothing like seeing the world of organization through the eyes of Hollywood -- John does a great job of keeping us East-coasters up-to-date on the West Coasters.

Poets who speak to me

• Jane Kenyon
• Anne Lindbergh
• Jeanne Murray Walker

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