Rightsizing Your Life!

Rightsizing Your Life!

I am giving a presentation today on Downsizing for Seniors. The dreaded D-word!

But what does that mean, Downsizing? Instead of thinking of eliminating things from your life and closing doors on your past, Don’t make it negative. Make it a positive experience. Call it Rightsizing! Make your life, your space, and your schedule, work for your life now and in the future.

Your home is not the same as it was years ago, before children. Neither is your time or the demands on your schedule. It probably isn’t even the same as when you had the kids at home. At least it’s quieter now, I bet. Look at this time of your life as your chance to make your life all about you. Focus on quality, not quantity. Treat yourself like you are the most important person in the picture. Bet that’s hard, but try.

Start looking at your home and your life focusing on the future. How do you want to live the next 5 to 10 years? Are you tired of cooking and want to dine out more? Are you tired of climbing the stairs? Maybe rearranging rooms in your home would make sense. One day of chaos in your home and paying some movers is worth years of no stair climbing. I think so! Maybe it’s time to focus on a hobby you never had time for. Get started. Eliminate what you don’t need so you have space for what you want. Get started Rightsizing your life!

Rightsizing means focusing on how you want to live the next phase of your life. Click To Tweet

Share this post:

Subscribe by email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Hidden

Next Steps: Sync an Email Add-On

To get the most out of your form, we suggest that you sync this form with an email add-on. To learn more about your email add-on options, visit the following page (https://www.gravityforms.com/the-8-best-email-plugins-for-wordpress-in-2020/). Important: Delete this tip before you publish the form.

Janet Schiesl

Janet Schiesl

Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.

She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.

Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.

Janet Schiesl

Janet Schiesl

Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.

She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.

Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.

14 Comments

  1. Kathy on April 30, 2015 at 11:13 am

    Hi Janet! How did your seminar go? I love the idea of rightsizing and my husband and I have embracing that form of lifestyle for the last five years. It is SO-O-O rewarding and not at all about sacrificing (like people seem to think). There are so many advantages and I’m hopeful more and more people realize that. Thanks for helping to spread the word! ~Kathy

    • Janet Schiesl on April 30, 2015 at 12:20 pm

      Kathy –
      Great to hear from you. The seminar went well. People are learning that living with less means having more time, more money, more space and less stress.

  2. Linda Samuels on March 18, 2024 at 7:59 am

    I love the positive reframe you share about downsizing! The term “rightsizing” feels so much better. As you said, it focuses on putting you and your needs in the center of the picture. Our life is in stages. What worked at one point may not work so well now. Having the time and opportunity to make your space fit and support who you are now is a beautiful path forward.

    Are you giving this presentation again today? If so, I wish you all the best and know you’ll do great and inspire many.

    • basic_rouba on March 20, 2024 at 10:26 pm

      Absolutely, as we grow older and life keeps moving, things change and we have to follow and make it easier in every step of the way.

  3. Kim Tremblay on March 18, 2024 at 8:59 am

    This is really great.. I bet the attendees loved your presentation. You have such positive thoughts and tips here.. So many of our clients need to have permission to really focus on themselves. Well done.

    • basic_rouba on March 20, 2024 at 10:26 pm

      Thanks Kim

  4. Janet Barclay on March 18, 2024 at 9:11 am

    Part of me cringes to think about growing older, but there are definitely a lot of perks, one of which is the freedom to let go of objects and activities that no longer fit into our lives. Rightsizing indeed!

    • basic_rouba on March 20, 2024 at 10:29 pm

      Every stage is different and brings the good and bad. Rightsizing is the way to make it simple and to bring us joy in what we have.

  5. Seana Turner on March 18, 2024 at 1:49 pm

    What a great way to rethink this process. Downsizing does seem like a bummer idea… like you are making your life smaller, and therefore less valuable. With your idea of Rightsizing, the whole experience seems more positive, a way to actually improve your quality of life. I’m definitely going to try and use this words with clients. You are so right that our lives change, and our houses may just not fit us very well anymore. And when something doesn’t fit, we usually try to find something that fits better!

    • basic_rouba on March 20, 2024 at 10:31 pm

      Thanks for agreeing with me. Let’s bring the positive into this new world of less is better.

  6. Diane Quintana on March 19, 2024 at 9:11 am

    I love the way you ask the person to focus on themselves and quality over quantity. It’s so important to look at the positive side of making your home just the way you want it to be.

    • basic_rouba on March 20, 2024 at 10:34 pm

      When having family, it’s all about them, school, sports, college… then comes the time where you start thinking about things that you actually like and the things that have to go. Make it smaller and simple, clutter free, and focus on the things that bring you joy.

  7. Julie Bestry on March 19, 2024 at 3:17 pm

    I bet your presentation was great! I find that of all the presentations I’ve given over the years, the ones for seniors on the topic of downsizing is the most fulfilling because we get to create the exact pivot or refresh that you’re talking about. I love how you’re positioning this as a period of time to focus on yourself, and looking to the future.

    Yesterday, I had a conference call with a woman and her senior parents. I asked how they were feeling about the downsizing (in advance of a move to a senior living community) and the husband was extremely distressed about letting go of all of the things that represented his past life, saying, “It’s really hard to say that everything about me is worthless now!” I immediately (but politely) cut him off and asked him to think of it differently. Instead of looking at letting go of his large electric tools and first responder equipment (the former of which won’t fit in their new, smaller home and the latter of which he hasn’t used in years) or the years of his life represented by them as “worthless,” I pointed out there was a better way to see it. I asked, “[Wife] no longer has the crib in which [daughter] slept or the toys she helped her use, but that doesn’t make her years raising the children and teaching them life skills any less valuable.” The daughter even added on to something I’d said earlier about how to donate the possessions he was upset about downsizing, pointing out that instead of going unused in his home or storage, they’d be his legacy! Then we talked about exactly what you’re saying, about focusing on the opportunities of the future rather than how the emptiness of not having representations of the past.

    I love your words, especially, “Eliminate what you don’t need so you have space for what you want. Get started Rightsizing your life!”

    • basic_rouba on March 20, 2024 at 10:36 pm

      Thanks a lot Julie, I appreciate it

Leave a Comment