Here’s something to think about: sponges are among the most essential household supplies that are destined for the landfill. They often come wrapped in or are made of plastic. They get really gnarly and stinky. They cannot be recycled or composted. For many years as an adult, I used the brand of sponge that was omnipresent in the household I grew up in. It was a yellow rectangle of soft foam

One year ago when the pandemic uprooted our rhythms of daily life, procuring groceries quickly became the most stressful, time-consuming, and cumbersome activity. As shoppers and grocery store personnel learned the ropes of how to best navigate this necessity during a major health crisis, many of us found ourselves buying excess as a remedy for avoiding long queues and minimizing trips to the stor

As I’m sure you can relate, spending a lot of time indoors over the past year has led to unexpected home organizing and rearranging projects. My own home office was not immune to such an activity. I turned the desk 90º to face a different wall. Access to the window was an immediate result along with  better lighting for virtual organizing sessions. The simple change led to a cascade of mini-

Five years ago this very morning, I found myself in the studio at KQED with professional organizer, Victoria Roberts-Russell, and Dr. Michael Tompkins of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, to talk all things organizing with Forum host, Mina Kim. The full audio for Tips on Decluttering Your Life (and Desk) (total run time 51:28) is archived on their website. If the start of th

This year has been anything but what any of us thought it would be. Beginning March 4th, client, social, and medical appointments were x-ed out in my planner at an unusually accelerated rate. In the before times, I’d erase changes or cancellations, but this has been a year to hold on to those unused dates. Calendar hygiene and tidiness took a backseat. Unlike those who bemoaned the fact that they

I love books. I read books. I love flipping through their pages. I’ve made books. I’m credited in books. I’ve been encouraged to write a book. I have friends who work with books for a living as librarians, teachers, editors, conservators, and booksellers. I wish I knew how many books I’ve handled physically as an organizer, and how many pounds of books have been loaded to m