Letting Go of “Apartment Diet” – with thanks

just start martin luther king quote

“Apartment Diet, it’s been grand but hasta la vista, baby! Mwah. Tipxo”
“Apartment Diet – so long and thanks for the fish! x Nat”

It is with great joy and thanks and “release” that we say goodbye to the name “apartment diet”. It’s been a wonderful journey and we’ve learned great lessons but we’ve outgrown it and it’s time to move on.

It’s likely that we will be back in the coming weeks (months?) with a new, clearer brand. And of course, we’ll let you know of the new name and address we find. or that finds us.

Nat’s longer love letter to Apartment Diet is below. (You know we love love letters – and generally living with grace and gratitude.)

xo Tip & Natalie

Continue reading…

Weekend Reading: Our most loved posts of 2014

Everyone seems to be doing it so we’re jumping on that bandwagon, bringing you the blog posts that are the most loved by our readers (that’s you!) from the last year. A little retrospective, as it were! Enjoy.

  1. Lara Hotz’s Kitchen DIY – we are ALL about small changes => big impact here at apartment diet.  Lara’s kitchen revamp does just that.
  2. Our 7 Top Unkillable Plants – For the black thumbs around here, like me, that still want to have plants.
  3. Natalie’s house tour on interiors addict – Natalie has turned her warren like apartment in Tel Aviv into a light, bright family space.
  4. Sleep Habits: unplugging the bedroom – Natalie tells you a bit about how she unplugged her bedroom to sleep better.
  5. Let it Go: Why We Keep Stuff – A really good list with the help of Karen Kingston to help you self diagnose why you’re hanging on to stuff.
  6. Psychology of Clutter & Letting Go – A link to a great article about the psychology of stuff.
  7. Mel Bombadiere’s Living Room Rethink – The results of our work with Mel, helping her rethink her living room & get her started again.
  8. Moving On When Someone Close to you loses someone close to them – A personal post from Natalie about the loss of a loved one.
  9. Let Go Of Things That Make You Feel Bad – All about “life’s too short for bad vibes”.
  10. Can You Help Me Wife / Husband /Partner – A question we get asked.  A LOT.

Beyond Minimalism: Pre-coffee ramblings from my bed

Random train of thought ramblings from this morning on the topic of Beyond Minimalism. No script, no editing but it does include the lovely sounds of my yawns, bedsheet ruffling and the occasional scream from a child. That’s life. And me testing out the iPhone 6 voice recorder. Listen if you dare! ;-) Happy weekend, Tipxo

PS You won’t believe the thoughts that ran through my head before posting this (it’s not good enough, do people really want to hear you yawning or rambling on, it’s too long, it should be more polished etc) … BUT, in the interest of walking the talk and letting go of the shoulds that I’ve talked about, here it is, in its entirety, warts and all. Now, time to go buy some coffee!

PPS For all the true minimalists out there – this is most certainly not about dissing minimalism. It’s just my thoughts on how the idea of minimalism gets misconstrued and the focus sits squarely on just getting rid of things/decluttering rather than focusing on the heart of what the movement is about. But actually, ít’s also about going a step further … past even caring about stuff in the first place.

Just BE: Breathe Extravagantly

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listen, are your breathing just a little & calling it life? #quote #wisdom

 

So I was at yoga last week, as usual, when my yoga teacher said something that I thought was pretty awesome. She was talking about the breath (as you do a lot in yoga) and she said, “most people don’t breathe very well … shallow, unsatisfying breaths, or they often hold their breath … what I’d like you to do is breathe extravagantly”. I had never heard this expression before but I loved it so much and just had to share.

Breathe Extravagantly

So if you’re feeling stuck or overwhelmed or stressed about anything, I invite you to take 5 minutes right now and breathe – extravagantly!

PS Sounds so simple, but it works. And we’re all about what works. Taking a few minutes out to stop and breathe is just one of 20 ways we have up our sleeves to help you get started, unstuck and moving in the direction you’d prefer.

Sign up below if you haven’t already and receive a sneak peek of our forthcoming eBook, 20 ways to start, as your free gift:


 

Oh and if you haven’t heard yet – we will be speaking and workshopping at The Hive Conference in Berlin in April this year!  Come and join us?! Check it out here.

 

Kickstart 2015 with Words, 20 Ways To Start & A Love Letter

Hello lovely people,

A note to welcome in 2015. And two gifts.

Tip and I are starting excitedly, energised and also, not in a rush. We’re also thinking of our words for the year…we choose a word, or in my case this year, 3, to hold across the year. My words are FUN, NOURISH, and RELEASE. And I’m looking forward to see how they play out.

We’d love you to join in on that too. Simply ask yourself the question “what word do I want for the year?” and listen to what comes up. Sometimes they pop in immediately other times they take time.

We have been getting a lot clearer around the fact that a lot of our work is about getting you started on YOUR path, helping YOU cut through the noise in your life to focus on what matters to YOU, as well as teaching you how to start DOING IT…whatever IT is. Whether it’s at home, work or your life in general.

how to start 20waystostart apartmentdiet.com

 

How can we help you do that? Many ways in fact, but here’s one you can start with right now.

Unlock our ebook: 20 Ways To Start

Tip and I have decided to offer our ebook, #20waystostart as a free gift for anyone who subscribes. It’s a way, well 20 ways actually, to kickstart any project at home work or life, and guaranteed get you unstuck, move you from being overwhelmed, help you say bye bye to procrastiation and ENERGISE you in 2015…

To get your copy as a gift, just pop your details in here:



 

And it’ll arrive straight into your inbox.

 

thanks to year

 

A Love Letter to 2014: Give Thanks to 2014, bring in your successes and what you love, let go of the rest.

If you haven’t had a chance to take stock as 2014 rushed by, the next best time is now. Take 10 minutes now and write a list of 20 things you are proud and thankful for from last year. Give thanks to the year that was…and take a deep breath and on the exhale let go what needs to be released. Repeat breathing in the good stuff and out the other stuff for a bit if it feels right.

Blessings for a fabulous year! We can’t wait to journey with you!

Natalie & Tip

 

Happy holidays, a break & a thank you gift from us

As the year winds down for most of us, we want to take the time to THANK YOU for being so amazing and following and supporting us on our journey and wish you and yours a happy peaceful healthy and light holiday season.merry everything and happy always

It’s been a big year! And 2015 is looking to be a HUGE one. So we’ve decided to take the holiday season as a rest break. We’ll be back with a bang on January 5th. As part of giving thanks & celebrating success Natalie is also writing a love letter to 2014. You may enjoy joining her.  Tip is still in her social media hibernation for the month of December. You might consider joining her for a part of your holidays. Or joining us both.

And now, as a gift from both of us:start with a mark 3

 

20 Ways To Start: Our Best Tips To Get You Kick Started in 2015!

We’re known as the starting experts. One of the reasons humans don’t make changes is really simple. They don’t know where or how to start. Tip & I are often called in to kick start people and projects… and along the way, we’ve learned and developed MANY ways to start. At least 20. Yup. #20waystostart! It’s not comprehensive, there are more, but these are the ones that work best for us – as always, let us know if you have more for us to add to our toolkit. Hashtag it #20waystostart!

Starting something hard is no mean feat. Don’t worry, we are sharing our secrets. Our favourite 20 little secrets in fact. Because we love you all for supporting us and wanted to give back.  Aaaaah … feels so good.

So next time you get stuck doing {insert time-sucking time-wasting activity here}, might we suggest that you open our gift instead?

Ulimately we imagine this is an app / work book / deck of pick at random type cards (or all 3!), but for now, it’s a little .pdf for you to use. (Because we’re also starting before we’re ready.)

Don’t underestimate the power of starting. Because all things really get done the same way. Start. Repeat. Start. Repeat and ………….. done!

If you find this list useful, please feel free to pass on the gift. And let us know how you’re using it too. We love to celebrate successes with you!

To unlock our gift  & learn our best tips for getting started, just enter your details in the sidebar form (if you are already on our email list don’t worry – we will send you the link directly! Keep an eye on your inboxes.)

Happy Holidays!!

Tip & Natalie

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Gifts: Give Experiences, Not Things

Co-authored by the lovely Aussie based Korean expat Lucy

Linda Lomelino Lucy The Korean Edible Gifts

By Lucy:

“This is the time of the year when we often think about other people rather than ourselves.

Gifting is one of my favourite things, this makes me feel so happy. I have had 5 summer Australian Christmases so far, and I must admit that I love this gift exchanging culture!

For the last 5 years, my boyfriend and I have celebrated Christmas and birthdays every year, which, even with only 2 people in this household, has meant we were able to fill the place pretty quick, because of getting lots of material presents. While they are all meaningful, it gets harder to maintain your home when there is too much stuff.”

This year I was inspired to give experiences and make gifts rather than going the traditional route.

“Why? A couple of years ago I received the gift a horse riding lesson, and it totally changed my perspective of gifting. Getting experience rather than materiel present? What a brilliant idea! It was like a light bulb moment for me. I must say that it was an unforgettable experience, and I fell in love with horse riding since then. The gift of horse riding for me, it will last forever…The gift of learning and experience can be a gift that will last a lifetime. “

~~~~~~~~

give experiences not things quote

From Natalie & Tip:

There’s real science and psychology behind this too:

“Experiences tend to make people happier.”

“Over the past decade, an abundance of psychology research has shown that experiences bring people more happiness than do possessions… Experiential purchases are more satisfying than material purchases…”

Buy Experiences, Not Things, The Atlantic

Some examples of gifts of experience:

  • Classes / courses / workshops
  • Something you make / bake – Lucy baked Focacia. Linda Lomelino is making diy edible gifts in jars. (above)
  • Invite people round for a meal / gift a meal to those without
  • Music / tickets to somewhere
  • Pampering: Facial / massage / barber shop (Lucy reminds us not to forget that men like being pampered too!)
  • Give back – make donations to favourite causes
  • Give yourself time and space – like this to do list:

Altenative Gift list

PS If you have already bought gifts, don’t despair! We know your family and friends will love them! We would love this to inspire you to having less stressful ‘giving’ seasons and focusing on what really matters to you and your families these holidays. And give yourselves that time and space to enjoy what matters to you. If the to do list is making you stressed, release yourself from your commitments to yourself and gift yourself permission to cross it out and do things that make you and others happy, that are fun. That give you a break.

Happy holiday season! x Natalie & Tip

Related articles: Apartment Diet: How to let go of gifts you don’t want to keep in 2 minutes / Readers Digest: Make Your Own Darn Gift / The Atlantic: The science behind Giving Experiences

 

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Tuesday Musing: Power of one, Power of many…

Sydney #illridewithyou

I had a whole other blogpost planned, on gifts and what gifts we want to give this season. But then life happened, as it usually does.

Sydney my hometown, was held in fear. Under siege. An awful thing happened. And some people, people like you and me, died.

But some beautiful things happened, and are happening too.

The hashtag #illridewithyou happened. An outpouring, moving, silent memorialising happened. Fear was replaced with well, unity. With hope.

All these things are fleeting. The fear is there. But the collective also breathed together. Stood together. Held together. Rode together.

One lone gunman, one person, did this. One person has power. And the whole has power.

It reminded me of this Cherokee story.

A Cherokee elder sitting with his grandchildren told them,

“A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight between two wolves.

One is: fear, anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and deceit.

The other is: joy, serenity, humility, confidence, generosity, truth, gentleness, compassion and deep vision.”

A child asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?”

The elder looked him in the eye. “Whichever one you feed.”

We do NOT get to choose what happens to us. We do get to choose what we do with it.

We have the power to choose, every day, what we want to grow & nurture. What we want to feed.

Wishing you all a peaceful and light holiday season, the world-over. xNat

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