The practical matters : find meaning and power in your stuff

The papers on our desk are connected to the universe, and in fact are the universe in part.

When we work with them we are working with the cosmos.

On one level, The Practical Matters is about sorting papers and using file folders.

But, there's more to life than a neat office. After years in the field of professional organizing, Pamela Kristan realized that organizing was a doorway, an opportunity to find personal power and meaning. Organizing is an intimate encounter with life's everyday details that has the power to engage us profoundly - with our soul, with our world, and with the farthest reaching, grandest patterns of Nature.

Rather than pulling us away from spiritual work with mundane chores, organizing can draw us into the cosmos.

The heart of The Practical Matters offers twelve skills that will help you take care of the external clutter in your life including sorting, shredding, observing, and storing.

To build these seemingly simple skills, Kristan has developed exercises and reflective tools that reveal hidden feelings and attachments and allow us to get organized and get on with our real purpose in life.

Including pages for recording observations and exercise results, as well as a vast section of resources for developing order both internally and externally, The Practical Matters can transform a dreadful chore like cleaning out your closet into an opportunity for an intimate encounter with your true self.