THE RIGHTSIZING CREDO

Have you ever felt owned by your possessions, or weighed down by your "stuff?" Does the idea of creating a clutter-free home or a simpler living environment sound appealing? Are you looking for a way to make your empty nest feel like a fresh space for a new chapter in life? Are you perhaps scaling back for a happier retirement? If so, Rightsizing Your Life® is for you.

Rightsizing is an approach to simplifying your surroundings while keeping what you need or cherish most. It's a process, not an event, and practically speaking, it leads to simplifying and decluttering, organizing and storing things properly so you can find what you need when you want it. It can even result in redesigning an entire home environment for the way you live now - or aspire to.

Rightsizing is "green" because it involves passing things on to the universe or your family or neighbor, not the landfill. It also involves dealing with emotions that can sabotage sensible decisions about managing what you own. The "Rightsized Life" is one that lives in the now, not the way things were 10 or 20 years ago. It's the ultimate safe harbor where the burdens of coping with the accumulated possessions of a lifetime are lifted, resulting in a feeling of liberation and the truest sense of "home" you may ever know. Welcome.

Creating Your New Nest
Everyday Rightsizing

Rightsizing Your Home– with a Tag Sale

Even the so-called “Rightsizing Queen” has dirty little secrets like millions of other Americans who put the stuff they can’t use currently in an off-site storage locker. I’ve had one since our “empty nest” family moved from 4000 sq. ft. in Southern California to our current 1200 sq. ft.-and-holding in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I’ve been so busy promoting Rightsizing Your Life for three solid years, that I couldn’t get it together to finally clear out things I haven’t set eyes upon in all that time.

So!  This month I finally bit the bullet and dragged out boxes and boxes of our earthly possessions that had been packed professionally by the moving company my husband’s firm had chosen, and which we had left in storage because we’d “rightsized” into our current charming cottage that didn’t have room for the seven couches I once owned…

Over the last decade, we’ve whittled things down to what remained in the off-site storage, and when I brought it all into the light of day, I decided to band together with some near neighbors and hold the “Mother of ALL tag sales.”

Well, here’s some wisdom gleaned from our Rightsizing Household Sale & Flea Market adventures this past weekend: (more…)

Rightsizing at a Writers’ Conference

Scribblers Retreat Hotel

Fall and Spring in lovely settings–that’s pretty much the routine when it comes to holding writers’ conferences, and the Scribblers’ Retreat is no exception!  Held quarterly, the next one is November 10-14  at the King and Prince Beach and Golf Resort –shown here–on gorgeous St. Simons Island, Georgia and features both fiction and nonfiction writers, such as yours….Read More

But Little Joey Made It!

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There are certain objects in life you pretty much keep forever.  My son’s little handprint mashed into clay held paper clips on my desk for years  Now that we’re living in a 1000 square foot cottage overlooking San Francisco Bay, it’s wrapped in tissue in a box with a knit suit he wore on his….Read More

Radio for Rightsizers

Ciji Ware, broadcasting

For many years, I made the majority of my living as a health and lifestyle commentator and reporter for KABC Radio & TV in Southern California.  In fact, for 17 years, I rose at 4:45a.m. each morning, read three newspapers, wrote two ninety-second stories and broadcast them “live” from 5:00 to 9:00a.m. from my home….Read More

Who’s Rightsizing?

Stillwater, OK CoHousing steering committee reading Rightsizing book

Look what flew into my Inbox the other day? This picture was sent by an architect named Charles Durrett of McCamant & Durrett, designers of owner-planned communities–known as cohousing communities– where each household has its own “space,” but where many other aspects of daily life and home-owning are shared.  I interviewed Chuck back in 2006….Read More