Thursday, December 20, 2012

Organizing for the Holidays

Yesterday I realized there was less than a week til Christmas.



That's when my anxiety started to hit the roof.

I looked at my to do list, it seemed so long and overwhelming.

So I sorted myself out using some techniques I used in planning my wedding and I got myself on track.

I hope this will help you to.

1. Divide list between urgent, important, and after the holidays.  Try to make the after the holidays list as long as possible.  Everything else on the list should be either urgent, which means it needs to be done asap, or important, which means it needs to be done before the holidays.

2.  Take the after the holidays list and hide it (This is most of my normal day to day to do list.  I'll pick it back up next week.)

3.  Now mark everything on the urgent and important list if can be done fast.  If it's fast and urgent? That's where you start.  If it's fast and important, it's up to you whether it should be done quickly to make your list shorter and less overwhelming.  I recommend getting as many fast things done asap.

4.  Next mark your urgent and important things: at home, on the computer, or out of the house.  That way you are working on all of your computer things together and running all your errands together.

5.  Now that your list is organized, start with your urgent list and work down through the important list.

6.  Last bit of advice is: keep a notepad.  I usually find random things come up.  I forget them, and then they keep coming up.  ie.  we are out of sponges and pepper.  I will never remember these details.  Write down normal day to day things so they can be added to your out of the house list.  We are going to need pepper and sponges before Christmas.  So don't forget your day to day life, you don't want that adding to the stress.

If you need help figuring out what to get your friends and family for Christmas read The Perfect Holiday Present.  It will help keep you from feeling embarrassed when you hand a loved one a gift.  I hope these suggestions will help ease the stress of the holiday season.  Happy Holidays!

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