‘Tis the Season to be Thankful!
We hope you take the day to enjoy time with family and friends, give thanks for what you have, and RELAX!
We look forward to getting back to work with you once we’ve all had some time to recharge.
How to Keep Holiday Decorations Under Control
I have seen many, many storage spaces stuffed full of holiday decorations that are only used once a year. That’s not to say you shouldn’t have decorations—decorating is one of the best parts of the holidays! But there are ways to decorate that don’t take up your whole garage when you’re done.
Use organizers
The boxes that ornaments come in are usually flimsy and difficult to repack neatly. Recycle them and use a tote to keep all your ornaments in one safe place. Ornament keeper storage totes are a good way to keep fragile ornaments safe when they’re in storage, and consolidate space. This one offers three removable tiers of ornament storage
Tree storage bags are great for artificial trees. Specifically designed to hold each part of your tree tightly, they reduce storage space and keep your tree free of dust and damage, so you can use it year after year.
Repack carefully
One of the best ways to reduce holiday purchases is to take care of the items you already have. Storing things properly ensures you don’t have to re-purchase broken decorations, and can use them for years.
When it’s time to take down the decorations, pack your items with care. By “with care” I mean in such a way that they won’t break, and also with an eye on ways to save space. Packing all the wrapping paper in one place ensures you don’t have to go hunt for it next year.
Practical Tips for Holiday Organizing: Traditions
The holidays are a time for friends and family to get together and celebrate with annual traditions. How do you get the most out of your family traditions? I have a few tips here to help make holiday traditions more fun and more meaningful.
Family traditions are FUN
The more somber traditions we take part in this time of year are certainly important. But it’s also important to have some fun with your family!
Family traditions are a great way to enjoy the holidays and bring your family closer together, and they’re as unique as you are. Some families celebrate The Christmas Pickle, hiding a pickle-shaped ornament in the Christmas tree. The child who finds the Christmas Pickle first gets an extra present. Some families break the turkey’s wishbone after dinner for good luck. You can use traditions that already exist like these, or come up with your own.
Sometimes traditions evolve over time by themselves. Different families celebrating the same holiday will always do something a little different. If your family celebrates Hannukah, do you include gifts or not? Even the time you eat a holiday meal can be a tradition that develops over time.
Practical Tips for Holiday Organizing: Gifts
Giving gifts during the holidays is a wonderful way to express love to family and friends. But how do you make sure everyone gets what they want, without stressing at the last minute?
Write gift ideas down
Why try to keep a mental list of gift ideas when you can write them down? Save yourself the brainpower and jot presents down as you think of them throughout the year.
Keep the list in one place, and when it comes time to shop, you’ll know exactly what to get.
Check things off the list as you purchase them, so you don’t double-buy something because you forgot you got it months ago!
Practical Tips for Holiday Organizing: Plan, Plan, Plan!
The holidays can be a wonderful(ly stressful) time of year! There’s family to connect with, decorations to put up, and gifts to arrange. Holiday plans have so many moving parts–how are you supposed to keep track of everything? Plan, plan, plan!
Start early
No one enjoys panic-shopping the night before gift exchanges. Everything’s out of stock, you’re in a rush to find the perfect item, and holiday prices are hiked high. Or think back to a time when you and your family made last-minute holiday plans. Is your blood pressure going up? The solution is simple (if not always easy): start early.
If you want to see your family in December, look at tickets a few months beforehand. If it’s refundable, there’s no harm in grabbing that flight early. It’s a lot less expensive, too!
Keep an eye out year-round for gift ideas. Jot them down in a dedicated list, even if it’s June! You don’t need to go out and buy the gift right away, especially if you live in a smaller space that doesn’t have room to store presents for months. But it’s nice to have ideas down on paper, in an app, or in a spreadsheet, so when it comes time to shop, you know what to get. When you do shop, be sure to allow for shipping delays.
No Time to Procrastinate
Life is too short to procrastinate! Use these tips to help get you out of a slump.
Know your why
Even the most basic task needs a reason behind it, or it’s unlikely to be accomplished. If you’re having a hard time motivating yourself to take out the garbage, take a moment and think about reasons why the garbage needs to go out, like
- It’s more hygienic to remove trash promptly
- No trash means no trash-related odors
- If you take it out routinely, the garbage won’t get all the way to the top of the bin and start overflowing, meaning it’s easier to take out in the first place.
Know how YOU are motivated
What keeps you motivated? The answer is different for everyone. Maybe you like checking something off a list. Maybe a gold star in your calendar makes chores fun! Talking about what you’re trying to accomplish with someone else can be great motivation, too.
Whatever motivates you, use it!
(more…)Managing Energy
We all have fluctuating levels of energy throughout the day. Maybe you’re more of a morning person, or maybe you’re more of a night owl. Armed with the proper information, you can maximize your most effective times to work, and rest when you need to. Read on to learn about managing energy.
What affects your energy?
Circadian rhythm: the natural process that regulates your sleep-wake cycle. It repeats every 24 hours in most animals, as well as plants, and even some fungi.
Circadian rhythms aren’t set in stone! If you commit to having a regular bedtime and a regular wake time, your body will become accustomed, and you’ll get better sleep and start the day off right. If you can’t seem to get on track, talk with your doctor about possible sleep disorders.
Ultradian rhythm: subsets of circadian rhythms that occur multiple times a day, lasting usually between 90-120 minutes. Just like circadian rhythms tell your body when it’s time to sleep and time to wake up, ultradian rhythms tell your body when it’s in work mode and when it’s in rest mode.
(more…)Batch Jobs & Big Rocks
I wrote last week about deciding what your priorities are. Once you know your priorities—things you really want to make the time for—schedule them based on order of importance. Here are some tips about how to schedule tasks.
Fill the jar
I use the “fill the jar” metaphor when discussing how to schedule tasks. Imagine you have a jar, and your job is to fill it as full as possible. You have rocks, pebbles, and sand, to pack into it. What’s the best way to maximize space in the jar?
If you start by adding sand and pebbles first, the rocks will sit on top. The jar will look full, but there will be a lot of unused space between the large rocks. That’s wasted space. But if you start by adding rocks first, then pebbles, you can shake the jar and the pebbles will fill in spaces between the rocks. Sand does the same, sifting into the even smaller areas between pebbles. You can even add water on top of everything, and you’ll have a genuinely full jar.
The most crucial tasks in your life are the rocks. Things like making sure you’re healthy, and that you spend time with loved ones, can be rocks. Exercise, your daughter’s birthday party, and keeping in touch with your grandmother can all be rocks. Schedule these things first, because they are what makes a life whole.
Pebbles are still very important, but not as crucial. Although it might not fulfill you as a person, household chores need to get done, and you should probably get to work on time. Schedule these things next.
(more…)Practical Tips to Organize Your Time : Priorities
Not Time, Priorities
What do I mean when I say “time management?” Time is impossible to manage! It just keeps on ticking no matter what we do. When I talk about organizing your time, I’m really talking about priorities. You can’t manage time, but you can certainly manage what you DO with your time.
YOU get to choose what you do each day (within reason), and that means you have some decisions to make! But what do you spend your time on?
Finding your Priorities
If you don’t take a moment and take stock of how you spend your time, it’s easy to fall into a routine that includes lots of wasted time. Keep a quick diary of what you do for a normal week (what you REALLY do, not what you think you should do), and at the end of the week look at how you’ve spent your time. Was there anything you wanted to do but couldn’t get to? What could you cut out of next week to give you the space for important activities?
(more…)How to Recover Lost Habits
You may have had a good habit, maybe even for a long time, and though it was good for you, you stopped doing it. Something happened that led to you dropping the habit. How do you recover lost habits?
Re-commit
Don’t just say “Oh, I’ll get back to it,” or, “I wish I was doing that again.” Draw a line in the sand!
If you want to run a mile but can’t find the motivation, have a friend drive you a mile from your house and kick you out of the car. Burn the bridge back to that unproductive behavior, and re-commit to your own personal Rubicon.