To put your house in order is to put your life in order and prepare for the next step.

Those who enjoy their tidying marathon win.

with regard to the sense of taste, wood is classified as sour, while money is classified as bitter.

RECIPE CLIPPINGS THAT you’ve hung on your fridge but never made, tourist maps of places you have no plans to visit, newspaper articles you intended to read that are now out of date . . . do any of these things spark joy for you now?

The first step is to get rid of any assumptions you may have and follow the basic rules of tidying. Once you have done that, then you will enjoy tidying far more if you adjust the finer points to suit your own sense of joy. This will also allow you to finish your tidying festival in a shorter time.

Store items from the same category in one spot. If you are living with a family, sort by person first, then by category and finally by type of material.

One of my clients loved mushroom motifs. She had vivid mushroom postcards, mushroom figurines, keychains with little mushrooms dangling from them, an ear pick with a mushroom on the handle, and mushroom-shaped rubbers. ‘It’s the form that’s so attractive, you see. Bulging on top and slender on the bottom. And their modesty; they flourish in the sha

Photos will only keep your memories alive when they have been arranged so that you can enjoy them whenever you like.

One of my clients who lived alone had twenty-two umbrellas.