Starting the New Year right

January is the time to start fresh or upgrade your plan from the previous year. Here are some pointers to keep in mind when you put together a strategy:

1. Look at your priorities. Are you focusing on projects that directly relate to your goals and priorities or are you spending time and energy on unimportant activities?

2. Ask yourself "why". When you reorganize your life and schedule, ask why your current situation isn't working.

3. Tackle one project at a time. In the excitement of starting fresh it is easy to begin several new initiatives at once. Before you tackle each individual project, lay out the exact steps needed to accomplish each goal.

4. Reward your efforts. Change can be hard so acknowledge your forward progress, no matter how small!

The problem with overcommitment

I have been reading ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau. This small portion on over committing our time was quite accurate. We cannot possibly organize our physical space if our time is stretched too thin: 

 Overcommitment is the commitment of your time beyond its availability

"If overcommitment is typical for you, you may even feel a sense of pride, at times, about the number of things you are involved in. As you rush from one activity to the next, you may not be aware of the cost, to yourself and to the people around you, of overcommitment. When you're up against the wall, struggling to meet a deadline, you quickly look for that individual that it is least costly to disappoint. Many people have fallen into a pattern of robbing their personal lives to compensate for professional overcommitment.

 For others... overcommitment results from approval seeking and difficulty in setting limits on the demands made by others. Some individuals live with a frantic seesaw of imbalance, trying to measure on a daily basis whether they should sortchange their jobs to meet their family's needs, or whether to disappoint the family and keep the boss happy. You pay a high cost for overcommitment on a daily basis. 

You pay with a high stress level because you are habitually late. You pay with chronic fatigue becuase your overcommitment doesn't leave time for eight hours of restful sleep. Many people... become almost proud of their ability to meet the crisis (often a crisis of their own creation) and prove the critics wrong. "I told you I'd get it done!" Sometimes adults... become hooked on the excitement of crisis management as a lifestyle. For others, overcommitment only leads to chronic anxiety because their life feels out of control and they can't find a way to keep a balance."

Preparing for Christmas

Simplify your Christmas meal prep: Store your seasonal china and crystal in a cabinet separate from everyday dishes. You will always know where to find the entire set and also minimize the risk of your special sets getting damaged by day to day preparations. Do you have seasonal bakeware and servers? Store them all together but away from your regular cooking ware, too. Be creative, like a shelf in the basement. Why take up room in your cabinet with the turkey roaster you use once a year? Good product: China storage sets and cases available at ContainterStore.com. "Trim" decorating time: Create a "decorations zone" where you can conveniently store seasonal trappings. Sort by season (i.e. autumn, winter) or by holiday (July 4th, Thanksgiving). Each category can be kept in clear, labeled tubs with color-coded covers. Group trimmings that have similar functions or that are used in a particular part of your home, and utilize varying sized tubs. Good product: Light winders and ornament boxes at ContainerStore.com. Wrapping: Keep your wrapping supplies corralled in easy to transport paper towers. Some have compartments on top for scissors and tape. Bows and ribbons can be packed into small plastic storage boxes with handles. See through is best, or you can create an all in one caddy with a plastic tote to keep accessories together and roll out friendly.  Good product: Gift wrap organizer at ContainerStore.com. Card and gift giving: Assign a small space gift nook duty. A consistent home for gifts you purchase throughout the year will eliminate extra time spent trying to find a gift when it is time to give it. This will work great for people outside your home, but you'll need to be creative to stump the amateur sleuths in your home! Keep mailing lists and gift lifts in Word or Excel. They can be alphabetized easily, updated and transferred to mailing labels. Be sure to back it up regularly, and you can dedicate separate sheets to family and friends.

Manage email so it does not manage you

Business and home email communication have a tendency to be overwhelming and disorganized. So many of my clients are frustrated by the volume of email they receive and the difficulty they have finding important messages in a packed inbox. There are a few simple guidelines I use to help others and myself keep emailing clean, organized and simple. 1) Do not sign up for every offer and newsletter available. This is like putting your name on a list for paper junk mail. Only subscribe to a publication if you have time to read it, want to read it and want it taking up space in your inbox. 2) Create folders for subjects or people. This gets the emails you have to keep out of the main inbox and into different sections. You can find the emails quickly and they are available only when you need them. To take things a step further, you can create rules in almost any email program that allow you to automatically route messages to specified folders as they come in. 3) Do not save everything. Just like regular paper, ask yourself, “Do I need it? Want it? Will I truly look at it again? Can I get this information elsewhere or on the internet?” 4) Finally, have specific times (or a single time) of the day when you respond to email. Being aware of what is coming in is ok, but to answer every message as it arrives is time consuming and inefficient. It also can contribute to a general feeling of being overwhelmed and as if you are at the mercy of the newest need.

Make your house guest friendly

With Christmas around the corner now is a great time to scrutinize your home with the eyes of a guest. Here are a few rooms that may not come to the forefront of your mind but can play a large role in the hospitality of your home:

1) The entry- Make sure it is clear and easy for people to move through. You do not want your guests to feel as though clutter is leaning in over them as they enter your house. Create a home for all your jackets and shoes and set up an area where you can quickly hang visitors’ jackets.

2) The bathroom- People who visit you during a large gathering can spend a lot of time in this room. Besides hiding your toiletry items so they are not in plain view, consider setting out a basket with replacement toilet paper, soap and the air freshener. This way your guests do not have to awkwardly hunt around your bathroom.

3) The guest room- If your family stay the night or for a few days, be sure the guest room dresser and closet have ample space to comfortably accommodate a visitor’s clothes. It is also pleasant for a guest to come into a room with bed linens and towels laid out for them so they do not need to ask you where to find them.

Purchasing a good file cabinet

So you need a place to put all those papers. A filing cabinet is the obvious solution. But you want to get one that will last and fit your needs adequately. Take these points into consideration when you shop for a filing cabinet, whether it is for home or business use.

1) Do you want legal or regular width drawers? If you prefer legal size papers, buy a cabinet specifically meant for legal size files. Trying to transform a typical filing cabinet into a legal size one wastes a lot of valuable space.

2) Be sure the drawers run on tracks. If the drawers are free and simply slide out they will be difficult to move once they are fully loaded. Invest in a cabinet with drawers that run on sturdy tracks.

3) Be sure the drawers have high sides so you can use hanging files. If that is not possible, purchase an inexpensive rack to insert in the drawer. A filing cabinet becomes a black hole if manila folders are simply lined up in the bottom of the drawer.

4) Consider the material. The rule of thumb is sturdy. I thin metal file cabinet will buckle over time and a file cabinet made of low quality particle board will not last as long. Invest in a cabinet made of high quality materials to get the most life out of it.

Top 8 items for a home command center

Top eight items a home command center needs: Family wall calendar- Every family member should have their activities listed on this calendar. Consider using it to plan meals as well. Message board- Have a dry erase board for phone messages and reminders. Magnet board- Sometimes you can find a magnet/dry erase combo. This is great for holding small papers in transition. Key rack- A simple key rack will keep every driver’s car or house key at the ready. Cell phone storage- There are several products out there that provide a home for cell phones and their charging cables. In/Out bin- You should have a spot for all incoming mail and outgoing mail. Go through the mail everyday to keep it from building up. Bill holder- Use a wall pocket or a basket to keep bills that are waiting to be paid so they do not get lost in the mail shuffle. Make sure you mark the due date on the envelope. Personal spots- Use wall pockets or small corkboards for each family member to put reminders, permission slips and school schedules. A great example of these components is the “Daily System” found at PotteryBarn.com.