Seriously begin thinking about getting control of the CLUTTER in your life, your home, your office!

I realize that December is one of the busiest times of the year…with decorating, gift buying, entertaining, baking and other festivities.  However, if you are feeling overwhelmed, unfocused, inundated, irritable, claustrophobic, scattered, or perhaps desperate with the clutter in your home or office, it is time to take the plunge and actually do something about it.

Start with setting a date to BEGIN.  The first weekend in January might be a good time for you.  You choose.  You may only have time for one hour or one Saturday afternoon at a time.  The important thing is to begin the process.  Give yourself some time to think about which room, area, or space you would like to focus on first.

GET A VISION for what you would like that area to look and feel like. If you are unsure, look in magazines or websites for ideas and inspiration.

START SMALL,  such as a bathroom cabinet or a kitchen drawer.  Set aside at least 15 to 30 minutes at a time to de-clutter and purge through the items that you do not use on a regular basis.  Make a specific place for the items that you do use on a regular basis using bins, baskets, dividers, etc. to organize your belongings.  Keep items that are”alike” together (i.e., lipsticks, winter clothing/summer clothing, king-size sheet sets/twin sheet sets, kitchen plastic storage containers).  Clean as you go, so that everything is fresh.

STAY FOCUSED…Keep your thoughts on the end results.  Having your home and belongings organized will free you from the stress you feel when you walk into that area that is currently chaos.  You will feel better about yourself, you will take pride in your surroundings and you will have a sense of well-being.

COMPLETE THE PROJECT!  Don’t give up half-way through the process.

Below are some great websites that will hopefully inspire you to begin to organize your home ONE ROOM AT A TIME!

Closetfactory.com

Custominserts.com

Garagewerks.com

Neatco.com

Organized.com

Organizedliving.com

Pendaflex.com

Rubbermaid.com

Schultestorage.com

Shelfconversions.com

Smead.com

Stacksandstacks.com

Storables.com

Get ORGANIZED for the upcoming holidays!

* Make your gift list and begin to SHOP EARLY so that you are not so stressed during the month of December. This will allow you time to enjoy the season with family and friends instead of with all of those shoppers.

* PLAN your specific Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or Hanukkah meals now.  Decide which food items can be made ahead and placed in the freezer.  Stuffing, cookies and my yummy squash casserole are just a few of my favorite foods that can be made ahead.  Choose a couple of days to focus just on baking…let the kids help too!  Baked goodies are great gift ideas around the holidays for friends, teachers, neighbors, mail carriers and co-workers.

* If you are like my family, we usually have way too much food over the holidays.  Choose to ELIMINATE one, two, or even three food items from your big holiday meal (that extra pie or dessert, or maybe choose between mashed potatoes or yams, instead of both.)  This will cut down on time in the kitchen, as well as cooking stress and calories too.

* As you decorate for the holidays, DELEGATE a decorating responsibility for each member of your family.  For example, Dad can be in charge of retrieving all of the holiday decorations from the attic or basement;  older kids can be in charge of the outside decorating; someone can be in charge of setting up the tree and getting it ready for decorating; younger children can choose a place for the snow village or other tradition that you may have in your family.  Of course, everyone can help with the tree ornaments!

*DIVIDE up your decorating days instead of packing it all into one or two.  Pull out all of the boxes/decorations from your attic, basement or other storage place so that you can visually see what you have (hopefully, all of your boxes are labeled to ease this process).  Use your basement or garage floor space to divide up your decorations into groups; i.e. outside decorations, tree decorations, inside garland, table decor, bows and ribbons and other decorations that will be used in the rooms you will be decorating.  Plan a day for each specific area that you will be decorating.

*If you send out Christmas cards, create a letter from your family highlighting what has transpired over the past year with your family.  Print your letter on festive letterhead (found at office supply stores) and send to family and friends.  Include pictures and fun family times.  Plan to write your letter in November and send it out within the first couple of weeks in December.  To save time, you can type the names and addresses of friends and family and print out on festive labels from your computer.  Save and update the addresses each each year on your computer.

*And finally, in the midst of what is usually a very hectic time of year, SCHEDULE time to enjoy your favorite holiday event… Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family, a baking day with your kids, a Christmas play or musical, a family get-together, a tour of the holiday lights in your town, a Christmas Eve church service, serving at a local shelter, volunteering your time and services for a family in need.

ORGANIZE your personal and family financial information.

This is one of the MOST IMPORTANT things you can do for you and your family.  If you do not already have your financial information available and organized for your family, make plans to have one in place before the end of the year.

It is important to have:

– A Will: A legal document in which a person declares to whom his or her possessions are to go after death.

– A Living Will:  A declaration to the world, your family, your doctors, anyone who may be interested, that describes or lists the care that you wish to receive or do not wish to receive if you are in an end-of-life situation such as a coma, or if you have a terminal condition.

– A Health Care Power of Attorney: This designates a person to make health care decisions for you if you become incapacitated, not only in an end-of-life situation, but if you are just living and cannot make your own decisions for yourself.  This should also include what is called a “Health Care Directive“, which is similar to the language that is in a Living Will, that in a Health Power of Attorney it does not dictate to anyone what they must always or what they must never do.  It gives the designated person in the Health Care Power of Attorney the ability to make decisions for you and to instruct doctors or the hospital on what they should or should not do.

Below is a great document organizer that has everything you need to organize your affairs and prepare for the unexpected.  It contains a bestselling workbook, document organizer and Forms CD containing electronic copies of all the forms found in the workbook If Something Happens To Me, written by a Financial Planner and an Estate Planning Attorney.

The workbook takes you through step-by-step information you need to have in place and available for your loved-ones:

– Personal information (Social Security numbers, home addresses, children info., who to contact if something happens to you, etc.)

– Financial information (Assets, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, your IRAs, if you have a retirement plan at work, if you own a business, your cars, your house, etc.)

The kit includes:

– Worksheets to record details relating to your financial, legal and insurance affairs

– Professional insights on a host of legal and financial issues

– Step-by-step guidance for your heirs

– Worksheets to record funeral preferences and obituary information

– Comprehensive document locator system

– Websites and contact information for relevant government agencies

– Document organizer to store your most important documents

– Forms CD to make electronic copies of your information

and a lot more!

To obtain a kit, you can go to familylife.com and purchase online, or you can call 1-800-358-6329 and request the If Something Happens To Me 3-piece kit.

Yes, this will take some time and effort, and some $$ to make it legal (through an attorney), although you will be leaving a lot of questions up to the laws in your state if you do not plan ahead.

Take the time each month (before the end of the year) to complete a different portion of the necessary information needed until ALL of your financial and personal information is documented and organized for your family.  Plan to review and update these important documents at least once a year.

Set up an organized storage place for your children’s school-year keepsakes (artwork, important school work, awards, special invitations, etc.)

Below are some helpful ideas and suggestions that will guide you in this process:

1.  DO NOT keep EVERYTHING that comes home with your child.  Retain keepsakes that will be meaningful to you and your children years down the road.

2. Go through school work, art work, etc. on a weekly basis and decide what you will keep and what you will let go of.

3. Create a display place for your children’s most recent artwork, good grades, etc.  Then you can transfer what you would like to keep to a long-term storage place.

3. Choose storage ideas that will work best for you, your family and your time.  Scrapbooks are great, but only if you have the time to keep them updated on a regular basis.

4. Clear, plastic bins are a good, simple choice.  Use one bin for each child and label accordingly.

5. The art portfolio (shown above) can be found at playfairtoys.com.   Similar ones can be found at target.com and chocolatecake.com.

6. Creative frames are available that are made to display current artwork and also hold up to 50 other pieces of art behind it.  How awesome!

7. Another creative idea is to take a picture of all of the artwork that you would like to keep and save on a cd.  Plan to do this on a monthly or quarterly basis so the paper does not get too overwhelming.

Keep in mind that all of your children’s school work, artwork and school keepsakes can become BIG PILES, unless you take the time on a regular basis to store them properly.

The time you take NOW to do this will be meaningful to you and your family in the years to come.

Organize your G A R D E N  T O O L S!

Keep all of your garden tools nice and handy in a bucket organizer where you can tote everything you need as you tend to your lawn and garden beds. Be sure to clean off all of your garden tools after you use them, so they stay clean and ready for each use.

Bucket organizers can be found at Sears, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace Hardware and even K-Mart (shown above) and they are not very expensive.

Your garden bucket organizer can be stored easily on a shelf in your garage and you will be able to find all of your garden needs right in one place.

De-clutter that GARAGE!

What a great month to focus on the space in our homes that seems to catch all of the stuff that we don’t know what to do with……from winter snow boots, garden tools/supplies, extra pantry items, and so much more, as well as the “normal” garage stuff….lawnmowers, weedeaters, hedge trimmers and such.

Don’t stress out. BEGIN SMALL….

Focus on one zone or area at a time, since most of us do not have the time to de-clutter and organize our garage space in one day or weekend.

If your lawn and garden tools take up most of your garage space, start there. Plan a section of your garage that will store ONLY lawn related items. It may be a whole wall or a small corner area.

Sort through each lawn related item and only keep what you use on a regular basis. If you have two of the same thing, give one away.

Visualize everything up off of the garage floor (except maybe your lawnmower) and use pegboard or other garage organizing systems to help you create this space.

Lowe’s has a Gladiator rail organizing system (shown in the picture above) that mounts on your wall and can hold all sorts of items from large power tools to bikes to hoses and smaller items also. You can use this mounting system all around your garage and hang just about anything.

Stay focused on one area until everything related to that area has a specific place. From there, choose another area to de-clutter and organize (sports equipment, garden area, recycling space, kids outside toys, extra pantry items, etc.)

Remember to:

* Let go of the items that you no longer use.

* Work toward having everything up off of the garage floor, so that all items can have a home. It will also make it easier to sweep and keep clean.

* Create a SPECIFIC zone or area for EVERYTHING kept in your garage (lawn area, tool area, sports equipment, bikes, etc.)

* Use an organizing system (like the Gladiator system) and/or shelving to help you organize the things you do use on a regular basis.

* Work to de-clutter and organize your garage in small increments. It may only be 15 minutes a day, but 15 minutes every day for a week adds up and you are sure to see an improvement!

* Make sure to have your family be a team player with you as you de-clutter and organize. Everyone can help keep the garage in order.

PURGE YOUR ATTIC!

Now that the weather is getting nicer (not too hot, yet) this is a great month to venture into your attic and see what is lurking.

It is time to purge the items in this space that you have not used in the past year. If time and schedules do not permit you to do this on a weekend day, then take one small area in your attic at a time with your goal of completing this task by the end of the month.

Group the items in your attic that are alike together; such as Christmas/holiday decorations, winter snow gear, luggage, camping gear, etc. This will make it easier to locate when you need them.

Remember to keep in mind that if you have not used the item in over a year, you are probably not going to. Give the items that are still in good condition to a local shelter or to someone you know who will use them on a regular basis.

If you take the time to purge your attic once a year, then that space will not be so overwhelming and you will feel good about having that area of your home free of unused STUFF!

Go through your main clothing closet and get rid of the pieces of clothing that you did NOT wear this past summer. If you did not wear something because it did not fit properly, was out of style, or was simply “too worn”, it is time to:

– GIVE it to someone who will wear it;

– GIVE it to GoodWill or Salvation Army;

– Put it in a box for a future garage sale; or

– THROW IT AWAY!

Even if the clothing items you did not wear over the summer are perfectly good, if you did not wear it, you more than likely won’t wear it next summer.