Get Ahead for the Holidays
The holiday season is just around the corner! That means there’s a lot to be done in a short time. The holidays are about giving and sharing, as well as helping those in our community.
- Plan your holiday season with a big paper month at a glance calendar or the google calendar online. Knowing your upcoming commitments and plans keeps you from double booking. Review it weekly to keep on track with purchasing gifts and making goodies. Set deadlines on your calendar to get it all complete.
- It all starts with lists. Go into your gift closet and make a list of what you have purchased all year. Make a list of who you are giving gifts to this year. Make a list for Thanksgiving dinner, what will you serve and who will be attending. Lists make our life run like clockwork. Use a cute holiday spiral notebook or your smart phone notes section.
- Get your holiday cards in the mail efficiently with Send Out Cards. Gift cards are also available on this site too! www.sendoutcards.com/EllenDelap
- Use the smart phone app Red Laser to comparison shop. http://redlaser.com/
- Shop online at www.amazon.com to get discounted items and often free shipping.
- Gather your family together to decorate your home. Set a time, put on holiday music, and have a blast together.
- Go online to stores where you shop and get additional coupons for your purchases. Join their Facebook Business Pages to learn about sales and discounts.
- For families, give the gift of time together with memberships to the YMCA, Houston Children’s Museum, Houston Zoo or Houston Museum of Natural Science. Family gifts of an ice cream maker or a movie set are great way to connect. Think small this year!
- Make a holiday playlist to get you in the mood and keep your attitude jolly. Many of our favorite artists, from Sinatra to Michael Buble, have their own holiday albums to listen to. Or make your own with Pandora.
- Use www.usps.com to mail your boxes. Create your shipping label at home and skip the lines at the post office. Set early deadlines for you to get items off.
- Plan one family activity for your family to connect with our community. Talk to your family about what means the most to them and how they can contribute. Bring your items to the philanthropy with your kids to share the real meaning of the season. There are lots of needs around us this year.
ADHD and Paper
It’s a love/hate relationship with paper! What do we keep? How long do we keep it? Or are you just overwhelmed by it and can’t even get started! What’s a person to do?
Working with paper if you are ADD/ADHD, hone in on your strengths and personalize your systems and routines. Start by facing the fear, overwhelm and hatred (yes, a powerful emotion) about paper. It is an evil monster, an anchor, and the enemy. But now that we have vented, we are ready. Paper may never be easy, but something we can work through.
Be brutal about what to keep and what to toss. Often we are keeping way to much! Using these resources, as well as asking your accountant, you will keep less and work with less paper.
http://www.oprah.com/home/The-ABCs-of-Important-Papers
Keep paper from even coming in your home. Drop paper at the gas station when you are filling up. Shred paper by having a baby shredder in the kitchen. Say no to receipts for gas.
It is very important to create “slots” to drop your paper.
- Everyone needs a command center with easy access. Here is where papers that need action start. If you need to have a basket just to hold paper until “processed,” it can sit where you normally drop the paper. In the command center are the actions you need to do. Label the slots with what you call these items. Action, Pay, File are all required here. But in addition you might have Pending, one for each of your kids and your partner, Receipts, and Contacts.
- Next step is to create your files, which are the papers you will reference in the next year. First decide what to keep and how long. Don’t get overwhelmed, thinking about how much you have back logged on paper here. Just work in 15 minute segments with a timer. Everyone can do this for 15 minutes! Start with general categories, like Auto/Home, Finance and Personal. Keeping categories general makes it simple to file and simpler filing means more filing!
- Add an archive section for required papers. This includes your taxes, legal documents, and other long term papers. You may need to add a section for investments that are getting to be a very large volume.
- Keep your important documents like birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees, wills and related papers in a safe or safe deposit box. You will always know where these are.
Sounds like a big project? Get help each step of the way with a professional organizer, trusted friend or reliable assistant in turning your paper into a workable system. It is worth the work to create what works for you!
Image courtesy of the Container Store.
Practical Solutions for ADD Families
Thanks to my amazing colleague, D. Allison Lee and her Organize to Revitalize blog. Here are some practical ways to make a difference for your ADD family.
http://dallisonlee.com/blog/2011/10/13/add-families-and-organizing/
Kingwood/Humble/Atascocita ADDA-SR Group ~ ADD and Productivity
Please join me at the October meeting of the Kingwood/Humble/Atascocita ADDA-SR Group for this presentation
ADD and Productivity
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church
October 20 at 7pm
Room 211
At this session you will learn
- tools for time management including paper and digital calendars
- ways to manage your paper flow
- techniques for tasks and lists
- contact management methods
For more information contact Susan McHugh at MrsQ123@aol.com
Organizing and Creativity
Many times we think organizing and creativity do not work well together! Organizing is thought of as logical and sequential, lacking emotion, but big on function. This is not always the case! Organizing and creativity work together in bringing out the best for promoting creativity. Use your space best to promote your creativity in these ways.
- Create easy access to the items you use most. If you are an artist, you want to have a space to accommodate the medium you love most, with secondary storage for less used mediums. If you are a writer, you want access to your computer, laptop or ipad, with as little clutter as possible in the space it is used in. If you are a crafter, then think about using vertical space in your designated room.
- Create time to enjoy your creativity. Often we don’t allow ourselves time to spend in what we love most. Be sure to include a time each week set aside just for creativity. This may seem less than spontaneous. However, my artist clients find that having a time to paint gives them the opportunity rather than miss painting all together. Also allow yourself a large block of time for your creativity. It may take a few minutes to get started, but once started you want to have time to enjoy!
- Create time to set up systems that work for you with your organizing. If you prefer visually appealing spaces with lots of visually organized items, using wall space makes a difference. You can see “it”, whatever the tools or items may be, so you incorporate that into the work itself. Take time to decide how you will use your items. Will they be stored in units by craft? Or will they all be used together? It can be a work in progress as you use your items, but create an awareness so you can refine your systems later.
- Create a space that will fill you with promise and fun! Your space should be a color you love, with music to inspire, lots of light and great spaces to work on. After this, think about rolling carts, rolling tables, rolling chairs and movement to assist with your creativity. Use a picture to inspire you!
Organizing for your personality and your creativity will make the most of your time and space.
Want more to read on this topic? Pick up a copy of Organizing for the Creative Person, by Dorothy Lehmkuhl and Dolores Cotter Lamping
Staying on top of the paper tsunami!
Getting on top of the incoming flood of paper takes getting a great plan and personalized routines into action! Without a doubt, dealing with paper is one of the most overwhelming tasks. Attack it with gusto!
This Smead Stadium Sorter is just the tool it takes to combat paper. It is 12 tiered pockets so that you can see all your categories simultaneously. Labels are included, such as by month, or household subject, or you can make your own with your personal categories, including your kids, your partner, receipts, dinner menus, coupons and other common categories of paper. It is a small enough size to fit on the counter, right by your phone. It is large enough to hold up to 900 sheets of paper!
Let’s go step by step with this sorter.
- First decide what your categories should include for your family. I recommend not only the names of your kids and partner, but also Action, File, and Pending. Label the files with the labels included, your sharpie pen or your label maker.
- Now place this in the spot that you can see it daily, and set it up as a work zone for incoming mail and kids’ papers.
- Every evening, sort into your sorter. If you miss an evening, try to sort at least twice a week.
- Once a week, go back into your sorter and have your administrative time. This is the time to review what is in the sorter, do your filing into your real files, toss out expired, and make a list of actions left to do. Having this time weekly means you are up to date on your papers.
- Now the bonus! Give yourself a reward for your hard work! That can include a walk, bubble bath, time at Starbucks or Jamba Juice, or your choice. Working with paper is not for sissies!
What is your best tip for staying on top of paper?
TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More
Why not make organizing more fun? Why not build a team of people with different strengths to get the job gone? Gather your team together to make a difference. It’s teamwork that works! Simple ways to gather your team include:
- Gather your family for the family meeting. Share with them a project you have in mind. Ask how each can contribute to the project using what they do best.
- Gather your friends together to support a cause. Ask each of them to bring a friend to the meeting.
- Gather your co-workers and find ways to support each other in having power periods. Find a way that each team member can have an undistracted time to get their heavy duty work one.
- Gather your faith family together to support those in need around you with child care or healthy meals.
- Gather your grandkids and have a no technology day, learning how to use a yo yo or play jacks. Your grandkids learn and connect with you regularly, creating an extended support for them.
- Gather your family together for a power hour to get house cleaning knocked out.
Who can you gather together to get more done and have more fun?
Technology Tweaks with Big Organizing Payoffs
Even the smallest tweak and tip with technology can make a difference.
- Need to create your grocery list or other list by store? Try the app ziplist for your smart phone. It helps you create a checklist by store.
- Use click ‘n ship at www.usps.com. Get postage online and print it on your computer! All you have to do is drop it off!
- Getting lost? Print out your map from google and keep it on the car seat next to you.
- Use Evernote www.evernote.com or Dropbox www.dropbox.com to keep up with your ideas and notes.
- Use Send Out Cards to send cards and gifts to family, friends and clients. I joined Send Out Cards because I am passionate about making mail more fun! Just click on this to send a smile, a congratulations or celebrate an event! https://www.sendoutcards.com/storefront/ellendelap/
- Love to try new recipes or looking for old favorites? Try www.allrecipes.com.
- Keep all your important phone numbers in your phone for easy dialing.
What is your favorite technology tweak?
Getting Your New Business Organized
I am honored to post again on D. Allison Lee’s blog, Organize to Revitalize.
If you have just started your new business, getting organized is vital to long term success! Check out this post to learn the critical organizing success factors!
http://dallisonlee.com/blog/2011/07/14/get-your-new-business-started-right-get-organized/
We specialize in working with ADD/ADHD clients. Whether in your home or your office, we motivate, empower and affirm our clients in their quest for organizing and productivity! 
