If you’re serious about cleaning a room, make it messier before you clean it up. Pull things out of drawers. Empty closets and shelves. And clear off the tops of every horizontal surface.
Then sort out what you have by putting similar items together, looking at each item to decide if you want to keep it (because you really love it), pitch it, or give it away.
Then clean all the surfaces, reassemble putting everything in a thoughtful place, and throw out the trash.
Easy peasy – the room is decluttered and all is well.
Except if you still have an edgy feeling that you aren’t doing something, or that you’ve missed something big. Now the issue isn’t a room that needs to be decluttered – it’s your head and heart that need a cleanup. Continue reading
On the left is a part of a gorgeous “curtain” Matisse had in his studio to cover a large window. Imagine how the light in Nice, France would have beamed in through these cut-outs and how that might have inspired his cut-out art.
There were a couple of shops along Main Street so after I finished my tea, I took a stroll. I pushed open the heavy door of a small independent bookstore and a jingle above the door greeted me. Inside, I breathed the air of a real bookstore with wide-plank flooring and rows and rows of interesting books. 
Organizational Habits 