I am continually helping clients grapple with the greeting cards they have received and collected. While I have alluded to the issue in my posts over the years, my last post dedicated specifically to greeting cards was in 2012. I have just reread it, and I still agree with my advice. Give it a read here: Our Love-Hate Relationship with Greeting Cards. In that post, I mentioned that my mother had passed away earlier that year and that I had…
Read more →For several months, I have been working with a client who had moved into a new apartment and wanted to ensure that it was set up in an organized and maintainable fashion. As we unpacked boxes and put things away, we set aside two categories of items that I knew would be time-consuming to tackle: photos and memorabilia. When we were done with every room and every storage area in the apartment, it was time to tackle the photos and…
Read more →One of my daily pleasures is doing the crossword puzzle in the New York Times. In yesterday’s puzzle, the clue for 9-down was “Things meant to be used and then thrown away.” I knew the answer right away: ephemera. I use this word frequently with my clients because I want to help them decide which paper items they should save and which they should let go. Dictionary.com further defines ephemera as “items designed to be useful or important for only a short time, especially…
Read more →Lots of times we hold on to something “just in case”. We may not have a use for it now, but we can imagine it coming in handy at some point in the future. While this is not a bad plan, it gets out of control when we use that excuse to hold on to too many things, or things that are big and take up a lot of space. I’ve started a new policy of using up my “just…
Read more →In this age of electronic greetings, it’s delightful to get an honest-to-goodness card in the mail. Someone went to the trouble to buy the card, sign it, address it, stamp it, and mail it. That person must really like you! Getting a birthday or anniversary or congratulations or thank you card, with a personal message in it – and in your friend or relative’s familiar handwriting – feels great. But then what?
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