A New You

For years, organizing expert and New York Times best-selling author Julie Morgenstern has defined organizing as the process of identifying what’s important to you and giving yourself access to it. In her new book, When Organizing Isn’t Enough: SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life (Fireside, 2008), she takes things one step further. When you’re eager to make a change in your life, but you’re unsure of your new destination, she advises “shedding.” When you get rid of what’s weighing you down, you gain “the energy and clarity to move forward.”

Facing a move? On a job hunt? Ready to retire? Morgenstern urges clients to ask themselves the following questions to help them move on:

Separate the treasures: What is truly worth hanging on to?
Heave the trash: What’s weighing you down?
Embrace your identity: Who are you without all your stuff?
Drive yourself forward: Which direction connects to your genuine self?

Morgenstern points to an example from her own life: One day she decided to get rid of all her theater production books, which she’d been holding on to for years after she’d stopped working in theater. She admits letting go of the books was “heartbreaking,” but within months her business started booming. “Each time I SHED, personally and professionally, things open up and I move forward.”

When Organizing Isn’t Enough: SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life is available at www.amazon.com. For more information, visit www.juliemorgenstern.com.