Category Archives: time management

Preparing for the Holidays Series (Post 1 – Food)

Help, motivation, Organization, time management

It’s October. It’s time to start preparing for the holidays! You may still be figuring out what you are going to be for Halloween but Christmas decorations are creeping into stores (or have been there since August). That means the holidays are right around the corner. If you’re hosting Thanksgiving, a New Year’s Eve party, or just want to be able to relax with your family, start preparing now!

The next few weeks we are going to look at different tasks for preparing for the holidays from food and decorations to gift buying and spending time with your loved ones.

Let’s start with food.

If you’re hosting a meal, dinner party or holiday event, keep reading! These are the tasks you need to get on your calendar!

  • Clean your oven. Do that now before you are putting your turkey in the oven or baking your favorite holiday treat!
  • Check the state of your linens, dishes, glassware, stemware, and serving dishes. Does anything need to be repaired? Do you need to buy anything? Make a list of what you need and schedule a time to complete this task.
  • Plan your menu. Do you provide the main meal and everyone brings side dishes? Or are you doing everything yourself. Figure out who is doing what and let everyone know ahead of time.
  • Write your grocery list. Watch for sales and stock up on items early.preparing for the holidays
  • Identify what can be made ahead of time and schedule time to prepare as much as possible before the big day.
  • Plan when you will start preparing those items that need to be made the day of. If people are bringing food, will they need the oven? Make sure there’s time to warm up everything before dinner. Can you use a crock pot or roaster to save room for other items in the oven?

Your action item this week is to start thinking about these tasks and get them on your schedule. It will help the holidays be much smoother!

Next post: Decorations!

Wishing you a fun and happy holiday season! If you need some help figuring out how to prepare for the holidays, schedule a call with me or send me a message!

Simplify Your Decision Making

Organization, time management

Today I want to talk about meta decisions and guiding policies and how these can help simplify your life. Lisa Montanaro describes meta decisions as umbrella-type decisions impacting the smaller decisions that follow. Having guiding rules and policies, as described by Lorie Marrero at the Clutter Diet, is also helpful in decision making.simplify your decision making

Let me provide some examples of how I use these in my own life. Many people are raising money for various charities. While I know they are all worthy charities, we decided several years ago to only give to 2-3 places of our choosing each year. I simply say no to any other requests. My family is considering making Sunday our family day. We will simply say no to any invitation we receive that is for an event on a Sunday. Before we had kids, my husband and I had a date night every Tuesday. We said no to any event that fell on a Tuesday. I work out on Monday afternoons and don’t schedule anything else that might interrupt that time.

Having these decisions made ahead of time sets boundaries for your life. It leaves breathing room and keeps your schedule from being too overwhelming. Maybe your kids get 1 sport and 1 other activity each semester (baseball and guitar lessons). Maybe you are only gone 2 nights a weeks (PTA meeting, dinner with friends). When something comes up that goes against these decisions, you can say no. No need to explain why not, just say no.

How could this benefit your life? What meta decisions can you implement today? Schedule a call or send me a message and let’s talk about how to incorporate meta decisions in your life!

Organize Your Home Office

Help, Organization, time management

organize your home officeThe second Tuesday of March is Organize Your Home Office Day. So this post is all about organizing your home office. You can plan to organize yours on Tuesday, or take a little bit of time each day or on the weekend to make sure your home office is working for you.

  1. Gather any tools you might need: a shredder, trash bags, a box for any paper that needs to be sorted and filed, sticky notes or label maker, pens, markers, and any cleaning tools you might need. 
  2. Pick one corner of the room, a spot on your desk, a shelf, whatever spot makes sense to you. Work around the room, sorting into piles (like with like) everything that you come across. This helps you see what you have and allows you to start identifying what needs to live where.
  3. Once you have worked your way around the room, take out the trash and shred everything that you’ve piled up near the shredder (unless you were shredding as you went along).
  4. Then work through each pile and find homes for everything. Think about how close you need it to you as your working. Archived files can live in the closet. Your inbox should be convenient to your chair. Keep in mind how you work and what items you need access to when.
  5. Make note of any supplies you need to restock. Keep in mind that you don’t need all of your sticky notes to live on your desk. You can have a couple of pads out and the rest can be in your closet or on a shelf with other overflow supplies.
  6. Get in the habit of ending your day by cleaning up your desk. Put items back in their appropriate places and prepare for tomorrow’s tasks. This way you can start each day with an organized workspace.

Make some time today to organize your workspace and create habits to keep them organized! Happy organizing! 

If you want some guidance in getting your office organized, schedule a call with me or send me a message!

Let’s Be More Productive!

Help, Organization, routines, time management

be more productive

As we wrap up February, I thought I’d share a few productivity tips. I don’t know about you, but my to-do list seems to grow longer each month instead of shorter. Somedays it’s downright overwhelming. Maybe it’s being home with a 14 month-old who doesn’t like to nap. Or maybe it’s me. Either way, I could certainly use to follow some of the advice below to be more productive!

  • Find a calendar you love and commit to it. It may be on your phone, on your iPad, or a paper version. Find one and use it. 
  • Create a list of everything you need to do. You can have separate lists for work and home, but don’t keep too many separate lists. Things get lost this way.
  • Manage your technology, don’t let it manage you. Check your email at certain times each day and have a specific time to respond to emails. Make sure the blogs and other items you receive are supporting you, not taking away your focus from something important.
  • Schedule downtime. Otherwise, that elusive spare time will never happen. It’s perfectly fine to put it on the calendar.
  • Break down tasks in to smaller steps. I’ve been wanting to work on my scrapbook for months now. As a whole, it feels very overwhelming. But I sat down a few weeks ago and put everything in my scrapbook box in order. Then I sat down and over a week went through pictures (all on the computer) to see what to print. Then I printed them. Next, I need to take those prints and get them mixed in with everything else. Then I can sit down and start scrap booking. Tiny steps means I’m on my way to catching up with it.

These are just a few productivity steps to help wrap up February. Start thinking about how you can use them in March. If you want some guidance in how best to use your time, schedule a call with me or send me a message!

You Do Have More Time Than You Think!

habits, Organization, time management

you do have more timeYou have 168 hours every week. You’re in charge of how you spend those hours. Are you using your time as best as you can? According to Laura Vanderkam, you have more time than you think. And I agree with her!

We have dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, microwave ovens, and many other devices to help us get more done quicker. So why does it feel like you still have more to do than you have time?

Maybe it’s how you’re using that time. If you’re watching 23-30 hours of TV a week, like the average American, that’s a lot of time you could be doing something else. Or maybe you’ve signed your kids up for every activity imaginable and you’re rushing around to 1-2 activities every night, trying to figure out how to get your older child to swim practice at 4:00 and pick up your youngest from karate across town at 4:30, all so you can get home, figure out what to make for dinner and head out to choir practice at 6:30.

Maybe you struggle to get everyone out the door in the morning because lunches need to be made, you need to sign a permission slip for your son, your daughter needs help finding her soccer cleats for practice tonight, and you need to gather paperwork for an important meeting.

Or maybe you feel exhausted come Sunday night because you had 3 birthday parties, grocery shopping, errands to run, a house to clean, and a family dinner to attend. You’re left wondering where your weekend went and still feel like you have a million things to do, let alone spending any time relaxing with your spouse.

So What Can I Do?

So how do you fix it? Can you? I’ll give you a few ideas to get started. Then read Laura Vanderkam’s 168 hours: You Have More Time Than You Think for even more.

Start by keeping a time log. For one week, log everything you do and how long it takes you. Once you know how you’re spending your time, you can identify things that you can change or tweak. I’m guessing this task will be eye-opening.

Think about your morning and evening routines.

What can you do at night to make the morning run smoother? And vice versa. Pack lunches and gather paperwork, sports equipment, etc. at night to save time in the morning. Conduct nightly clean ups, putting all toys, books, and laundry away so clutter doesn’t pile up. Plan meals out for the week so you’re not scrambling to feed hungry family members at the end of the day.

Don’t pack your schedules so full that there’s no room for emergencies, last-minute changes, or even spontaneity. Maybe each family member gets one activity per semester. Have one day a week with no technology, unless you’re watching a moving together. Or if your family enjoys being so busy, see if you can share carpool duties with 1-2 other families so you’re not driving all the time.

Plan your weekends a day or two early if possible.

My husband and I will talk about the things we need to get done (errands, groceries, cleaning) and things we’d like to do (go hiking, go out for ice cream) and anything else that’s already planned (birthday parties, family dinners). We’ll identify who’s doing what and when we’re doing it. Then we’ll check in throughout the weekend to see how we’re doing on our tasks and if anything needs to be tweaked. I by no means am saying our weekends are always perfect. I have many Sunday nights where I wonder where the time went and why it feels like I got nothing done. But planning our weekends makes them easier.

See what other tasks can be outsourced. Can you hire a cleaning service? Find a way to have your groceries delivered? Automate your bill payments? Delegate tasks to your kids? Depending on their age, they can empty the dishwasher and help clean up meals or put away their own laundry. Maybe they can even be in charge of their own laundry from start to finish. Maybe they’re old enough to help with dinner or make dinner for the family every now and then. It may feel like a bigger hassle to teach them these things, but in the long run, it will be helpful.

There are numerous other tips I could provide, but these should get you started. Think about how you’re spending your time and what changes can be made so you feel less overwhelmed. Remember, you do have more time than you think!

If you want some guidance in sorting out where your time goes, schedule a call with me or send me a message!

Just One Thing

Help, motivation, Organization, time management

just one thingJust one thing is how I get through a week when I’m feeling overwhelmed. When I add three tasks to my to-do list for every one task I cross off. I just pick one task to accomplish each day. I know I can send an email, pay a few bills, or put away the clothes in the laundry basket. If that’s all I get done from my to-do list in any given day, I’m ok with that. And sometimes, just one thing is all we need to get us moving forward in what we want to accomplish.

If you want some guidance in identifying your daily priorities, schedule a call with me or send me a message!