I still scratch my head at how it took this long for me to discover estate sales. My husband Nic introduced me to them a few years back and weekends have never been the same. Washington, DC is an estate sale wonderland. With people who have lived such big, fascinating, international lives, our sales feel like shopping in a museum where everything must go.

Absolutely everyone who has tasted these has asked for the recipe. They’re my pot-luck go-to. We have a dwindling batch of them in the fridge right now. The fun is in letting people guess the secret ingredient (no one does)!

This is the 5th year I’ve paused at the end of the year to reflect on what I’ve learned as an organizer over the last 12 months.  This time around, each observation could stand alone as its own post!  Each year I grow as an organizer, and this post helps me to solidify new ways of hearing what clients want, and delivering what they need.

Thank you for all of your positive feedback on my eBook, The Inspired Office: Organize Your Life One Paper at a Time!  I’ve heard from many of you who are already implementing what you’ve learned.  It contains the true rudiments of my work with clients, just like you, who feel like they should be able to do it on their own, but can’t.

In reference to the video tour of my work bag, someone asked "Why do you carry a pocket knife?"  Good question!  Recently I had the perfect opportunity to use it: I needed to create a makeshift file box for a pretty big paper sorting project. 

I recently discovered the hard-to-hear message of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Edward Humes, author of Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash (2012) and Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation (2016).  It was his 2016 NPR interview on Door to Door that led me to his equally fascinating and disturbing 2012 NPR interview on Garbology.