Holiday Organizing Tips and Holiday Time Line

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holiday organizing time line

 

During the holidays, we add on to our already full plate with an oversized portion of mashed potatoes and holiday responsibilities! We are adding more tasks and time commitments with the holiday season. To ease the stress, let’s take the time for planning and preparation. A time line helps us add in holiday activities while not overwhelming us. Follow these holiday organizing tips in a week by week time line to help you get organized for your best holiday yet.

 

October

Week 1

  • Assess your family budget for the holidays. Include actual costs from the previous year for cards, entertainment and gifts. Establish a budget that will work for your family.

Week 2

  • Take pictures for holiday cards. Compile holiday card list and purchase cards. Write holiday letter and purchase stamps from usps.com

Week 3

  • Compile your gift list. Set up family gift swaps and share names with those who are swapping. Make a list of what you have already purchased throughout the year and match that with gift recipients for the holiday.

Week 4

  • Celebrate Halloween and enjoy some pumpkin treats!

November

Week 1

  • Host a family meeting to talk about each person’s priorities for the holiday season. Write a list including one favorite activity of each family member for the holiday season. Be sure to include a volunteer activity to help others during the season.  Ask how everyone can work together decorating, writing cards, wrapping gifts or cooking throughout the holiday season. Post your helpers names and jobs on a chart in the kitchen to remind everyone.
  • Post a holiday calendar with dates of family activities and commitments during the holidays. Add to the calendar as new dates come in.
  • Create your holiday music play list on Pandora with help from your family.
  • Now’s the time to purchase air travel and make hotel reservations for holidays away from home.

Week 2

  • Write holiday card addresses, stuff and stamp envelopes so they are ready to mail on December 1.
  • Holiday shopping trip #1. Be sure to shop for items that need to be mailed.  Purchase gift wrap, paper goods, batteries and other supplies for the season.
  • Enjoy holiday marketplaces. Purchase stocking stuffers and hostess gifts.
  • Finalize Thanksgiving menu and share cooking with family members and friends.

Week 3

  • Thanksgiving preparations and Thanksgiving dinner. Your family can help prepare dinner together and enjoy that time too!  (Our family decorates the tree that day too!)

Week 4

  • Pull out your holiday decorations and begin decorating your home and office. Set a time for your family to decorate together with holiday music and festive simple snacks.
  • Bake and freeze breads and bar cookies for later to share at parties.
  • Set up your gift wrap station to wrap as you go.

December

Week 1

  • Holiday shopping trip #2. Online shopping can save time and money too. Be sure to stay true to your list and your budget.
  • Complete decorating your home and office. Purchase your live tree or visit a Christmas tree farm to cut down your tree.
  • Host a family meeting to keep on track with family fun and responsibilities.

Week 2

  • Holiday shopping trip #3. Make this final trip just in case your list was not complete.
  • Mail gift items by December 10. This way your gifts arrive early.
  • Happy Chanukah! Celebrate with friends sharing all faiths with some easy store bought desserts.

Week 3

  • Holiday gatherings are in full swing! Enjoy the festivities with friends and colleagues.
  • Finish your holiday baking.
  • Charge batteries for recorders and more.
  • Decide where you will be attending services Christmas Eve.
  • Finalize holiday plans. Set your menu and share responsibilities for family gatherings.

 

Wishing everyone a delightful and festive holiday season!

Join me on Pinterest and view my Happy Holidays board!  www.pinterest.com/EllenDelap

5 Simple Filing Solutions

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Filing! Everyone hates filing! However, you can make filing less painful with a few simple solutions.

  • The easiest way to file is to have one box for a one year’s worth of paper. Have an easy to access, attractive box to drop in paper as it arrives. You can find what you need by going through the paper in chronological order. It saves time and energy to have just one box for all papers.
  • Have big categories for your files. Remember that filing is for retrieval! Having categories that include important areas can help you file quickly. Categories include home and auto, financial, personal and work. This filing is best accomplished with hanging files. But don’t just file everything. Be sure to keep just what you will want to retrieve. 
  • Make a list of your files. Often we are not sure where a paper goes, so we don’t file it. With a list, you have choices of where to file and what the options are.
  • File for fun! (Really!) Add music, your favorite tv show, with a friend, or with an adult beverage to add fun to your filing.
  • Use filing products you love. I recently found the filertek dry erase hanging file tabs. Having dry erase tabs means you can add names to your files easily. Also having lots of colored hanging files or beautiful file folders makes your work lovely to look at. Companies like www.officecandy, www.seejanework.com and www.containerstore.com make fabulous products for you to love and use.

I love to share my personal filing secret! I file 4 times a year and when I file I watch foodtv. What is your personal filing secret?

Less Stress Holiday Decor and Prep at Kingwood Library October 11

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Decorating and Organizing Seminar- New Holiday Themes with Less Stress
Speakers: Leslie Sarmiento, Decorating Den Interiors and Ellen Delap, Professional-Organizer.com
Date: Thursday, October 11, 2012
Time: 10 a.m. to 12 noon
Location: Kingwood Library, 4400 Bens View Lane, Kingwood, Texas 77339
Cost: Free
RSVP to  and bring a friend!

Decorating a room or party around a theme has been popular for ages. So, it’s only natural that you’d think of choosing a theme to decorate your home during the holidays.  Leslie Sarmiento will be sharing lots of exciting new ideas for making your décor the most talked about on the block. Certified Professional Organizer and Family Manager Coach, Ellen Delap will share how to prepare and plan for the holidays. If you’re easily overwhelmed by the busy holiday season, come join us to learn ways to create stress free family memories and traditions. Would love to see you there!

ADDA-SR Sunday Seminar: Successful Student Strategies for ADD Families

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Families struggle with getting homework started and completed, getting papers turned in and seeing academic success.  In this workshop, Certified Professional Organizer Ellen Delap will share strategies for time management, paper work flow, and study skills.  Parents and their middle and high school students are invited to attend this interactive and engaging presentation.  

 Join us to:

  • Discuss time management strategies that lead to academic success. Parents and students will learn why and how to use time management tools like paper and electronic planners and task lists. Participants will complete a time grid to establish work, homework and other routines in their week. 
  • Identify paper management strategies that will streamline school papers for both parents and students. Parents will be introduced to the command center for papers and students will discuss various tools for paper such as homework folders, notebooks and files.
  • Establish study skills and study spaces that work best for their learning style.  Parents and students will discuss where students study in their homes and what tools will empower their learning. 

Sunday, September 30 from 2 – 4:30 pm

St. Andrews’s Presbyterian Church Family Center

5308 Buffalo Speedway

Houston, TX

Register at www.ADDA-SR.org

Fees depend on membership and number attending

Back To School: When No One in Your Home is Going Back to School

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Back to school! Its that time of year that makes moms happy and sad; happy to start new routines and sad about the energy and organization it can take to get your family going. Throughout the month of August we are featuring organized moms who will help get you started back to school with the toughest tasks. Here is an post for the families where no one in your home is going back to school. 

For some of us, no one in our households are heading back to school. However, preparing for a new school year has been such a deeply engrained experience in our lives that it’s hard not to find yourself browsing for school supplies.

I use this time of year to regroup after the summer and gather my wits before the holiday season gets into high gear. Why let school kids have all the fun?

Here are a few things I do to prepare for the new school year even though I won’t be sitting in a classroom:

  • New Clothes. With sales on clothes, it’s a good time to pick up summer clothes on sale and preview the fall fashions. I use this time of year to assess what summer clothes are leaving and what items I need for the fall and winter. If I didn’t have my coats and jackets cleaned before the temperatures rose, it’s a good time to get those cleaned before you need them. For me, I will be shopping for new boots. Last year, I wore my kicky black boots until they were literally falling apart, and they’re beyond repair. I’ve already perused a few fall catalogs.
  • School Supplies. We never really outgrow school supplies. Because school supplies are readily available, it’s a good time to restock sticky notes, pens, notepads, and my personal favorite – Sharpie markers.
  • Giving Back. I remember the thrill of having new school supplies, and I also remember the times when we didn’t have new things because money was tight.  The parents of my nieces and nephews always take care of their school supplies, and I don’t need to buy any for them. Instead, I pick out a fun backpack and fill it with school supplies for a back-to-school drive.
  • The Holidays. Yes, I know it’s August, but I do start thinking about the holidays early, especially since my parents are saying they’re coming for Thanksgiving this year. I made a list of house projects I want completed before the parents pull into the driveway. I also make my holiday list and jot down the interests and ideas I have for my nieces and nephews.

 Janice Simon is owner of ClutterPrincess.com. She enjoys writing, organizing, dark chocolate, time with her nieces and nephews, and action movies.

ABC13 Back to School

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Thanks to ABC13 for the opportunity to make a difference this fall for Back To School.

Healthy Breakfasts on a Budget

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=8783092

Best Lunch Boxes for your Money

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/education&id=8775038

Back to School Family Organizing

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=8762205&pid=null

Back to School Tips: Tips on Organizing Kids’ School Papers

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The school year is about to start and that means a massive influx of papers! Here are some ideas that moms are using to keep up with the paper flow.

  • I keep a basket by the door and the kiddos drop all their work in there daily. I look through for 5 minutes to see what needs to be returned and get it back in their backpacks right away. The rest stays in the basket about a month and then we review it together.  My kids love to send papers off to their grandparents in other states and I write a small note on them that they dictate before I send them.
  • I love having a small box on my desk for each child’s work. This way I have them drop their papers into the box. Once a week I go through it with them, just to review their work. I have found that sometimes I need to refer back to it, so I keep a larger box in their closets to keep the papers for a while.  At the end of the year I go through and use boxes from IKEA to keep them in a manageable amount.  It saves time to see the papers all together to know what to keep.
  • Ellen encouraged me to have a command center with a hanging file for each child.  This way I can drop papers in when they come home from school and not lose them.  I have them ready to sign when I need to also.   My kids are high schoolers so they have their papers together in their notebooks and we just check grades weekly and print these out.
  • The way that I’m able to control the huge amounts of school papers that come home is to deal with it swiftly!  Often a week’s worth of school work comes home all at once and my daughter’s backpack is jammed full – some are treasures and some are just plain old worksheets that no one will miss.  We go through the stack with Daddy because she loves to show off her work to him and he enjoys keeping up with what she’s learning.  As we look through her work, I set aside anything that seems extra special.  Everything else gets tossed*.  The keepers go in a large portfolio case in her closet and are alligator clipped by grade.  * It’s best to get rid of the excess schoolwork when kiddos aren’t watching!  Out of sight, out of mind – but if they happen to see it get thrown away, sometimes they get sad, especially my toddler!
  • Still have last year’s papers?  Take time now to knock this out!

What’s your best paper strategy?

10 tidbits to total organization

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It’s the little things that count! Take one of these tidbits and make it your own,  getting it done in your own way, to get started on your way to total organization.

1. Go to bed at a regular time. Getting a good night’s rest means you can get up rested and ready to tackle the day.

2. Get up a smidge earlier than the rest of your clan. Your time is your own and you can get more done.  It’s the best time for ME time!

3. Get ready the night before. There is never enough time in the morning. Lots of things go wrong in the morning. Have your bag, your kids bag and any other stuff together at night. Get your clothes together too.

4. Get a plan for meals in and out of your home. There are so many ways to get dinner done, groceries purchased and a plan in place. Having a plan also helps you save money. Have fun with this on pinterest, allrecipes or just by having your family cook with you.

5. Get help with the hard stuff of laundry and dishes. Have a time set aside every day to have both of these completed well before bedtime. It may not be as fun as you like, but add incentives and partnerships so that it gets done. Set a timer to just get laundry put away and dishes in the dishwasher in the evening. In the morning, set that timer again to get the laundry started and the dishwasher unloaded. Have a chores chart to share the responsibilities.

6. Have a morning and evening routine for you and your kids. Use checklists so that everyone knows what to do next and what is expected. Have clocks in the kitchen, bathrooms, and landing strip so that you can keep on time for these routines too.

7. Have a designated spot for your and your family’s stuff. Every evening get the stuff back to where it belongs. If the stuff is already overflowing, set a time to just work on that one area to get it back to a manageable amount in that spot.

8. Keep your car organized by dumping the trash while getting gas. Our cars get just as disorganized as our homes. Take only the papers into your home that are required, not just in case.

9. Write out your 3 most important tasks (MITs) for the next day the night before. Having a clear focus on what to do first makes the day more productive.

10. Keep your calendar up to date. When asked about an activity, just share, “I have to check”. That way you are making a plan before you add new activities for you and your kids.

Woodlands Home and Garden Show Fall 2012: Simple Solutions for an Efficient Home Office

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Simple Solutions for an Efficient Home Office

Are you avoiding your home office because it is cluttered with paper, extra junk, set up poorly or overwhelming?  Busy lives demand efficient ways to work productively in your home office. Join Certified Professional Organizer and Family Manager Coach Ellen Delap to learn tools and techniques for organizing your files, establishing productive processes and arranging your space for maximum effectively.  Ellen will also share products that will make a difference.  Leave with a plan for your home!

Saturday August 25 at 1:15 pm

Woodlands Marriott Conference and Resort

www.woodlandsshows.com

Back to School Tips Featured on ABC13

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I am thrilled to share Back To School Success Strategies with our Houston community!

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=8762205