What pleased me as much as the recent announcement of Netflix’s Tidying Up With Marie Kondo was seeing how well-received the show has been with professional organizers. They day after its premier, my NAPO listserv was abuzz with positive reviews.

Years ago I helped a woman who could barely see the floor in her living room, bedrooms, and hallway. While sorting clothes, she shared something as she noticed it was happening.

“Kacy, everything I touch, I want to keep. Everything you touch, I want to let go of. How about you hold everything up as talk it through.”

Given that when printing my set of 2019 workout calendars I realized I was a solid year into a new tracking habit, I thought it was a good time to share again how I use these simple pages. Last January Nic and I started posting the current month’s blank calendar on the fridge to track how often we were working out.

It’s increasingly strange for me to answer the question “How long have you been an organizer?” 17 years in, I’m still learning so much about organizing, human nature, motivation, happiness, and more with each passing year. Sometimes in the moment I know that a certain realization or exchange with a client will be something I'll share here, and other times, it’s not until months later that I jot down the revelation as its significance hits me.

Last week my mom asked me to recycle her old Christmas light strings while I was running errands at Lowe’s. I had never heard of this! I knew that Best Buy takes most electronics, but apparently Lowe’s specifically takes Christmas lights. I just dropped them off at customer service. We need to recycle these for the same reasons we recycle any LED lightbulb.

You may wish you had the carte blanc services of a family member who is a professional organizer, but my poor mom can’t enjoy a glass of wine with me without me starting to dig around and organize something. “Kacy, get your hands outta there!” is commonly heard at my parents’ home (and has been since I was a kid!).