{ Do you need to read from the beginning? } Why do you need to purge? Can’t you just hang on to all those lovely tea-cosies and library books you never returned? Sure they’re not doing any harm, are they? And your great aunt Mary gave you that hat. And you never know when you might need those six extra screwdrivers… Look, you’re fooling nobody but yourself. But I get it. I fool myself on a regular basis. I currently have about eleventy billion pens right beside me in my desk drawer. ‘Cause you never know when you’ll need a… More ->

{ Do you need to read from the beginning? } This is probably the hardest step of all but, if you took my advice and started small enough, it really shouldn’t be all that demanding. Nonetheless, reasonably difficult decisions will have to be made. Whatever area you’ve chosen, now’s the time to get serious with it. You’ve already removed any junk, but now you have to go through each thing and decide how necessary it is. I’m using the word “necessary” here pretty loosely because, let’s face it, there are very few things in life that are absolutely NECESSARY. What… More ->

{Do you need to read from the beginning? } You’ve come a long way, baby. Halfway through your GYST stroll and you have’t even broken a sweat. You’re past the point of no return, and it’s all downhill from here (in a rollerskating kind of way, not an “after you turn 25” kinda way). Sometimes this job will take mere seconds. If you’ve been working on a bookshelf and have already gone through the first few steps, all you have to do is put the books back. Easy peasy. Maybe you want to organise them by category, or size, or… More ->

{ Do you need to read from the beginning? } So you’ve got your shit together; now, how do you KEEP it together? With a system! That probably sounds much more complicated than it actually is. By “system”, I simply mean a way to make it as easy as possible to maintain order. Here are some examples: Books: Do you prefer to categorise them by genre (fiction, non-fiction, etc.), or by size? Do you want all the hardbacks together and all the paperbacks together? Or do you want to move books you’ve already read to a lower shelf and keep… More ->

{Do you need to read from the beginning? } You’re pretty much home and dry now. All that’s really left is to monitor your system over time and tweak it, if necessary. I had a system whereby, in my wardrobe, I kept all my trousers together. It made sense to me at the time I put the system in place. But I noticed that I was constantly frustrated by wanting to wear something casual with a pair of Converse and only finding trousers that really required heels. So I separated the trousers out into regular and long lengths. Problem solved.… More ->