In today’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah interviews Shira Gill, an organizing expert and author of the brand new book LifeStyled (she is also the author of Minimalista, and writes frequently on minimalism and home organization). She talks about how to start a big organizing project, how to figure out how much stuff you need, and how to get a family on board (it might help to take the log out of your own eye first, metaphorically speaking — and she also advocates letting people have their own rules for their own spaces).

Please give the episode a listen! As always, we welcome ratings and reviews. And please consider joining our Best of Both Worlds Patreon community. We’ll be gathering on December 19th for our annual goal setting workshop. Membership is $9/month.

In this episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah interviews Sam Kelly, a therapist who runs a course called Little Cycle Breakers. She shares strategies for getting kids to see what needs doing in a household and help in a way that lightens the parents’ mental load.

In the Q&A we talk about how to manage the situation when teens don’t want to participate in as many family activities because they are busy with school and other things.

Please give the episode a listen, and as always, we welcome feedback and reviews!

But, as it turns out, this has not been quite as lengthy a project as one might imagine. True, I had the kids put many toys, books, etc. in plastic storage bins that can either be shoved aside for photos, or put in the attic (or in the garage at the new place) for the sale process. We dumped obvious trash, but we certainly could have culled a lot more than we did. The aim here was a quick and serviceable job. I employed the same process in my office.

The result: see the photo above. Now, to be sure, this office scene is fiction. To record my podcasts, I have to reconstruct my sound wall and drape blankets everywhere — something that is going to make the desk look cluttered no matter how clean it is. Also, you’ll note: no waste basket. This is one of the funniest aspects of staged photos. There are never things like that (or, say, shampoo in the shower) that you’d obviously need to have there.

On the other hand, getting to this pristine state only took a few hours. I would estimate we have put in about 20 household hours, all told. It’s curious to think that all this time we were only a few focused hours away from a pretty cleaned up house. My daughter’s room in particular was a disaster of plastic Barbie pieces, American Girl flotsam, and tiny erasers shaped like food (don’t ask). I put in two solid hours and it now looks shockingly decent. We’ll see if the photographer agrees, but hey.

I suppose there is a lesson here for other big projects. Sometimes things seem daunting. But it may be fewer hours to “done” than you realize. People who do National Novel Writing Month (write a 50,000-word draft in November) often write for about 2 hours per day. Maybe 3. That’s 60-90 hours to a book draft. A lot, but not infinite. Doable, with a focused push.

In other news: I am currently looking out the window in this photo, watching my husband throw grass seed on the back lawn. There are a few bare patches, especially from where we removed the old swing set that was destroyed in the derecho of June 2020. Every time he throws seed, it rains — and the storm is more intense than the sprinkle the weather forecast called for. I think this is attempt number five. Seeding the lawn has become his own white whale.

Our daughter officially turned ten yesterday. So I now have three kids in double digits! We took a trip to Target to spend some birthday money (though given the small plastic pieces described above I was a bit worried about what would come home). She didn’t see much she liked though, so I guess we will try again.

While I know from The Happiness Project that this is supposed to improve my mood, I didn’t undertake this particular chore for that reason. Rather, our landlord (our next door neighbor) seems to have assumed that we planned to move in July when our lease was up. We somehow didn’t get around to that, which means that his plans to combine our apartment with his were put off for another year. As part of the trade off for extending the lease, given that we are basically living in what he thought would be his home right now, he plans to start the renovation while we are still here… by taking the closet from the master bedroom (and having it open into his apartment).

He bought us four large new wardrobes to house our stuff. Unfortunately, this doesn’t come out anywhere close on a square footage basis. It was a nice closet! We actually used it as the baby’s bedroom for the first 4 months of his life. So I have been getting rid of massive quantities of shoes, clothes, coats, etc.

Most of it I have been glad to see go. I am astounded at my ability to accumulate cheap clothes that are really nothing special. A shirt was on sale, so I bought it. Repeat that process two dozen, three dozen times and you have my wardrobe. I own a white blouse that I very clearly remember buying at a discount store four years ago, thinking it was a good deal. I have never worn it. I still can’t bring myself to get rid of it, I guess because I keep thinking a white blouse is useful. It probably is, but not taking up space in my closet. Socks and workout clothes are a particular beast because, well, you always need socks. Why would I get rid of a pair of perfectly good socks? Never mind that my husband stays so on top of the laundry that I really only need 8 pairs. I think I have three times that. Then there are the T-shirts I have kept for sentimental reasons — a souvenir of a sailing trip in Australia from college, or a tie-dyed one from high school. All of this takes up space, and I probably wouldn’t try to save it in a fire.

Well, so it goes. I’ve winnowed down a lot, and created an “A” wardrobe and a “B” wardrobe. The A one contains a nicely edited selection of clothes that I think best reflects how I’d like to appear. The B one contains everything else that I can’t quite part with yet. With any luck, I’ll just never open the B wardrobe door, and be able to donate most of the B stuff to charity when we move next July. Now that will be a good way to save time.