By Susan Levitt

STRUCTURE IN DRAGON YEAR 2012

Events occur quickly in this Water DRAGON year. It’s easy to let things pile up. But don’t! Clutter = chaos in feng shui. You don’t want to create clutter, only to find yourself drowning in stuff at the end of this Dragon year. You want to ride high and succeed in a Dragon year, not fall because you were unprepared when opportunity knocked — unprepared due to self-created unnecessary chaos from a cluttered and chaotic environment.

CLEAN OUT CLOSETS

If you haven’t done your spring cleaning yet, there’s still time to do it. But if you’ve been cleaning up and keeping organized, then time to clean out your closets. You might be surprised to discover more summer clothing than you knew you owned. No need to buy more when you can use what you already have.

If your closet is too packed, then remove EVERYTHING, give the closet a new coat of paint, then edit as you decide what items to return to your closet, or what gets recycled or donated.

Separate seasonal items, the things you don’t use often like Christmas decorations or crafts projects. Keep them out of sight when not in use. Keep in sight the clothing and accessories that you use most often. Most of us wear only 20% of all the clothing we own, so keep your most used items in easy to reach places in your closets.

DECLUTTER GARAGE

In your garage, simplify any mess by arranging like items in the same area. It is so important in feng shui organization to put LIKE THINGS with LIKE THINGS, meaning that all laundry items are in the same place; all toilet paper, paper towels, and other paper products in the same place; all gardening tools, soil, and pots in the same place. Avoid randomly placed stuff in a big garage.

A feng shui client who I saw this weekend lived in a home with so much stuff in her 4-car garage that she couldn’t even park her car in her garage. The garage seemed overly cluttered, even though there wasn’t that much stuff. And you couldn’t easily find anything, even though all the stuff was laid out and clearly visible.

LIKE WITH LIKE

My client loved the LIKE WITH LIKE concept. She organized what was a messy garage into such a lovely space that now she plans on setting up her easel and start painting again in the garage. She now has the open space, and lovely California light when her garage door is open.

Like most garages, her garage walls were barren. In her home, the garage area correlated to the travel area in the Black Hat school of feng shui. So I recommended that she put up travel posters of the places she wanted to go. Hawaii is her favorite place, so adding a couple of travel posters will warm up the garage and offer inspiration every time she drives her car.

CREATE YOUR OWN GOOD FORTUNE

Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity. Make your own luck and create your own good fortune by opening the energy flow in your home and workplace. No need to live in chaos with clutter. Appreciate spring cleaning as something you can do for free that is worth the effort for transformation. Good luck!

From Susan's blog