Organizing for the Holidays

I posted this back in 2009 and it's still good advice today in 2014. Take a look!

A few tips for a less stressful holiday season!

1. Do less! If cooking a large meal stresses you out, have each guest bring a dish. Or order your meal from a local grocer and do away with cooking altogether.
2. Limit gift giving. In the current economy, who wouldn't understand your need to cut back on gift giving. Consider gift cards for out-of-town friends and family members (no shipping except the cost to mail a letter). For local friends and family, set a per person spending limit.
3. Plan ahead. Start now to plan holiday meals and other preparations. Break them down into small, manageable bites. For example, several days in advance:
   Step 1 - Select the recipes you'll prepare
   Step 2 - Create a shopping list (check cupboards for items you may already have)
   Step 3 - Shop; stick to the list!
   Step 4 - Pre-cook and freeze some dishes
   Step 5 - Find table linens; launder and iron
   Step 6 - Find pots, pans, utensils and dishes needed for the meal
   Step 7 - Day before - set table; vacuum and other last minute cleaning
   Step 8 - Day of - cook, enjoy your friends and family, and relax if you forget to put the rolls in the oven!
4. Outsource. If cleaning for the holidays stresses you out, hire a cleaning service (reserve early). Or ask about our Guest Room Transformation! Just in time for the holidays, we’ll de-clutter and turn your spare bedroom into the ideal place for weary travelers to lay their heads. You’ve got enough to worry about; we’ve got this!
5. Take care of you! You'll be more effective and more fun to be with if you feel good, are well rested and aren't stressed. Make time each day for exercise (walk, play with the dogs, dance - whatever!). Get enough sleep. Take a yoga class or meditate every day.

Get in touch with the true nature of the holiday season and bring the focus back to a more simple celebration with family and friends. Enjoy!

Leftover Night - Part 2

Leftover Night – Part 2

Last week I wrote about leftover night, the idea that once a week you should serve a meal consisting of nothing but leftovers. In doing so, you’ll not only save money by not wasting food, but you’ll also free up space in the refrigerator so that all food is visible and accessible. I closed by mentioning how the same concept could apply to your personal care products and medicine cabinet.

Three or four times each year I engage in Leftover Week (or longer). During this time I vow to only replenish perishable food items, like eggs, fruits and vegetables. Other than that, I subsist on only what’s in the pantry and freezer. My objective is to clear the shelves of nearly all of the food I have on hand. It makes for some interesting meals – pancakes and green beans, homemade soup with whatever frozen veggies I can find and 4 packs of saltines leftover from carry-out night, cereal and a scrambled egg, etc. You get the idea.

Once I’ve emptied about 90% of the pantry and freezer, I allow myself to go shopping (with a specific list, of course!) and replenish with fresh products. By doing this a few times each year, I seldom have to throw away old food and never worry about having a can of soup fall on my toe when opening the pantry door.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. In the meantime, join me on November 3 at 7 pm (EST) for a FREE webinar, Traction-to-Action: Stop SpinningYour Wheels and Get Organized. I’ll reveal the 3 biggest mistakes people make when trying to get organized and will share 4 proven strategies to jumpstart any organizing project.

Simply,

Mary

Leftover Night

When I was a kid, I remember having Leftover Night. All week, my mom would save the extra food from dinner. A spoonful or two of corn, half of a pork chop, an extra baked potato…everything. Then, one night we’d ask, “What’s for dinner?” and the answer was “Leftovers”. It was like a poor man’s buffet. No one’s plate looked quite the same and there was plenty to choose from, although not too much of any one item.

I know that my mom did this to economize. We got a complete meal out of 6 days’ worth of leftovers. There was no need to throw that food away; it was perfectly good. There just wasn’t much of it. It also gave my mom an idea of our preferences. If she served lima beans one night and there were a lot left over, it was a good indicator that lima beans were not a popular item.

But probably most importantly, the refrigerator got cleaned out every week. By serving all the bits and pieces from past meals, Mom freed up space in the refrigerator for the next week’s groceries (at that time moms shopped once a week because stores weren’t open at night or on Sundays…but that’s another story for another day!). It also cut down on the amount of food that spoiled and had to be thrown away.

As part of your organizing efforts, try using the Leftover Night strategy on your medicine cabinet or personal care products. Pull everything out and notice how many partially used bottles of shampoo, mouthwash, body wash or medicines you have. Now ask yourself – why did I stop using this product? If it was because you didn’t like it or it didn’t do the job right, why did you keep it? If your answer is because it’s perfectly good and you might use it someday, I refer you back to your answer to my first question – Why did you stop using it? The solution is really quite simple – you have 3 options:

1. Put the item back where you found it and worry about it another day (hint – this isn’t the right answer)
2. Use it, even if it’s not your favorite, and commit not to buy another one (shampoo, body wash, cold medicine…) until all of the partially used ones are gone.
3. Throw it away! If you didn’t like it when you bought it and you still don’t like it now, what makes you think you’ll suddenly like it 2-3 months from now?

If you chose Option 2 or 3, congratulations! You’re on your way! If you're interested in more ideas like this, register for my FREE webinar, "Traction to Action: Stop Spinning Your Wheels and Get Organized".

One final thought. As you become aware of how many products you purchase and don’t use, become more discerning in what you do buy. You’ll save space (fewer products makes it easier to find the ones you do use) and the frustration of pouring money down the drain!

Share your best Leftover Night purge here!

What do church and Jewish delis have in common?

They used to be the only things open on Sundays!

I can remember a time when nothing was open on Sundays. No grocery shopping, no hanging out at the mall, no running to the hardware store. If you needed it on Sunday and you didn't have it, that was your tough luck. Many stores weren't open past five or six o'clock on weekdays and banks closed even earlier (remember banker's hours?). There were no ATMs, no on-line shopping and no home shopping networks on TV. How did we survive?

We planned ahead, that's how. Working mothers got up early on Saturday and did the grocery shopping and other errands rather than running to the store every day on the way home from work. People cashed their paychecks on Friday afternoons (the banks stayed open "late" on Fridays) so they'd have cash for the weekend and following week. When the money was gone, the money was gone. Meals were planned and shopping lists reflected that planning. Cookies in the cart and fast-food meals were an occasional treat, not a regular part of our day.

The pendulum began to swing when department stores started to open for limited hours on Sundays and other businesses soon followed suit. Not long after, the first 24-hour convenience stores opened. From there we got 24-hour banking, shopping, eating...even 24-hour fitness centers (does anyone really workout at 2:00 am?).

So why the history lesson? Because it seems to me that our society has become TOO convenient. We can easily act on our impulses to shop, eat, and workout (yeah, I'm sure that happens a lot!). The result? A population of overweight people with more stuff than they need who are drowning in debt. Hmmm? As the Church Lady used to say, "How convenient!"

So how can we combat a 24/7 society?

• Use a good old-fashioned shopping list. Keep it on the fridge and write down things you NEED as they occur to you.


• Avoid running out to the store everytime you run out of something. Run out of milk or 7-Up? Add it to the list and drink water instead. See a cool new workout DVD on TV? Add it to the list rather than ordering it right away. Run out of diapers...well, OK, maybe it's OK to run to the store for this one!


• Plan your shopping trips. When will you shop? Saturday morning? Thursday nights? Doesn't matter when but limit yourself to one trip per week. And buy only what's on your list.


• Have a wating period for big ticket items and impulse buys. Do you really NEED it or are you letting the emotion-filled marketing techniques suck you in? How many gadgets do you have at home that seemed like a good idea at the time you bought them? Wait a week (or more) and see if you still feel the same about the item.

What 24/7 convenience tempts you and how do you control it? Share your challenges and success stories here.

When 1 + 1 = 8!

Each year in January, professional organizers from across the country celebrate Get Organized (or GO) Month. This year, six members of the Ohio Chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers (http://www.napo-ohio.com/) spent one day at the home of the McGhee family who, in June 2010, became the parents of sextuplets!

Due to a generous outpouring of community support, the family received donations of diapers, wipes, clothing, and other necessary baby supplies. Needless to say, the McGhees have been a bit busy and the donations had begun to pile up in the loft above the garage.

Enter six professional organizers with over 25 years of combined organizing experience and a bag full of sandwiches from Panera Bread! Below is what we accomplished in 5 hours on a cold day in January.

By the time we left, shelving was in place and the McGhees can now easily access their large inventory of diapers (sorted by size), baby products (sorted by type), and clothing (also sorted by size).

Many thanks to the McGhee family for allowing us access to their home and for letting us koochi-koo all six of their beautiful babies!

The "Duh-ha" Moment

I've come up with a new phrase - the "Duh-ha" moment. A duh-ha moment is a hybrid of an Ah-ha moment and a Duh! It's when you suddenly come up with the solution (Ah-ha!) only to realize that, duh, it was so obvious that you can't believe you didn't see it before.

Here was my most recent organizing duh-ha moment. Several months ago I threw into a basket some items that needed to be mended. I also put my sewing basket in there to remind me why I'd put those other items in the basket. I left the basket on the floor in my bedroom near a small dresser where I keep my yoga clothes. I'm a yoga teacher as well as a practioner, so I access the clothing in that dresser on a daily basis.

The result of having the basket on the floor is that I've been unable to open the bottom drawer without first moving the basket. So every day, without thinking, I'd open the drawer part way, only to have it ram into the basket. I'd sigh and think to myself, "I really need to finish the mending so this basket won't be in the way!" (are you beginning to smell the duh-ha moment?)

Last night I had an Ah-ha moment - why not move the basket to another location in the room or perhaps to another room? Now, I know what you're thinking..."Well, duh, how obvious is that?" But that's the reality of the Duh-ha moment. It's both brilliant ("Ah-ha! I figured it out") and humiliating ("Duh! That was so obvious!) at the same time.

Needless to say, rather than finish the mending, which I still need to do, I did move the basket. It's a small thing but how nice it was this morning to have full access to the drawer without having to move that basket.

As you move through your day at home or at the office, look for potential duh-ha opportunities. I'm willing to bet that you'll find some along the way. If you do, please share them here.

Perfectionism Sucks!

Are you like me? Do you have lots of great business or home improvement ideas that go unfulfilled? Do many of your sentences start with "As soon as I ... then I'll..."? If so, read on!

Perfectionism sucks! It sounds like a good thing (as in "Perfectionists do everything perfectly!") but it's not. In fact, perfectionism is like a huge glass wall covered with sticky notes that say "I'll do this as soon as I...". Between the sticky notes one can still see the original goal, but it gets harder and harder to focus on with every darned sticky note. For instance, I revised the previous three sentences several times and I'm still not satisfied. But you know what, I'm going to leave it that way! And that's really hard for me to do! (and I lied - I actually went back and revised it again!)

Perfectionism can paralyze your best efforts, making it impossible to reach your goals. Case in point. Since the time I began this blog (back in 2009) I've had hundreds of ideas for postings. For those of you keeping track, only 7 (this one makes 8) have actually been published. Why? Because every time I thought about a great blog post, I said to myself, "Wow! As soon as I...I'm going to write that in my blog". To paraphrase Pink Floyd, all in all it's just another note on the wall!

Well, 2011 will be different! I'm going to make regular posts (one per month at least, hopefully more) even if I don't think that the verbiage is perfect or that I've perfectly captured the original idea.

Are you a perfectionist? How do you deal with the paralysis? Leave a comment below or drop me an e-mail.