Simplify the Season & Save Your Sanity

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Simplify the Season & Save Your Sanity

It’s early November, and you know what that means! The aisles of many stores are stocked with ornaments, wrapping paper, and red and green storage bins. We’re getting messages asking about our preferred dates for a holiday get together. Everybody and their cousin is starting to say things like, “Only ___ more shopping days until Christmas!” And my stress level just went up contemplating the buzz of activity around the corner. How about you?

It’s true—some of your loved ones (or maybe even you, bless your heart) may be gallivanting around like Buddy the Elf, “spreading Christmas cheer by singing loud for all to hear.” But the rest of us are already getting a little anxious just thinking about it. I’m here to help! I’ve gathered some of my best suggestions for simplifying your holiday season so you can save your sanity. 

A Simple Schedule 

What would you like this holiday season to be like? If you could wave a magic wand and have the next two months go exactly as you wanted, what would that look like? Would your evenings be spent at home, relaxing with some popcorn and hot chocolate, watching holiday movies? Would you drive through neighborhoods admiring the Christmas lights? How about making gingerbread houses with your children or grandchildren? Or maybe you live for those white elephant exchange office parties or rehearsing for the local community theatre production every evening. 

While you can’t always arrange your time exactly as you would like, you have more control over your plans than you might realize. If other family members are involved in decisions about your holiday plans, be sure to get their input. Ask them what makes the season special with a prompt like, “It wouldn't really feel like Christmas if I didn’t get to ________.” Have these conversations with loved ones as early as possible, and then adjust your collective calendar to prioritize the events that really matter. 

Be sure to leave some “white space,” some unscheduled time where each person can relax in the way they prefer. Some of the most meaningful moments occur during this unplanned free time. Not only that, but the more rested you are, the more you’ll enjoy the planned activities. So save some days just to chill; you’ll absolutely be glad you did! 

Standardize or Skip the Gifts

Try giving yourself a break and giving everyone the same thing. I know, it sounds like that should be illegal. I promise there is no gift giving police force out there hunting for those who break the “rules.” It’s 100% okay to give everyone on your list a gift card if that’s what they want. Aren’t we supposed to be giving people something they want anyway? If the gift recipient has an online wishlist, they just made your job much easier!

One year my husband’s extended family decided the adults wouldn’t exchange gifts at all. We opted for a long weekend together in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains eating, playing games, reading, hiking, and shopping. Not everyone participated in every activity, and we didn’t even plan ahead much except for what food to bring. It was pretty wonderful and continues to be one of our favorite holiday memories. Why not consider a group experience like this one, or something else completely different? 

In general, I’m a big proponent of giving experiences over things when it comes to gifts because they provide the priceless intangibles of time and memories. There are lots of unique ideas—membership to a zoo, museum, gym, etc.; tickets to a play, movie, or concert are just a few. If you don’t know the person well enough to know an experience they would enjoy, recruit some help from someone who does. Or just ask them! They might even like enjoying an experience together! 

Perhaps you’re part of a family or other group that usually exchanges gifts, but you’re all fortunate to already have most everything you need. Your group could decide to take the money (and time) they would normally spend on buying gifts and bless a needy family, a nonprofit or charity whose work the group admires, or some other worthy cause. What a fantastic blessing!

Downsize the Decorations

Depending on the size of your home and the amount of holiday decor you have, decorating for the holidays might take anywhere from an hour to two days. Before our downsize, I devoted a full day to decorating and another full day to taking everything down. I mostly enjoyed it, but an entire day is a lot of time to give up.

Now that we’re in a much smaller space, decorating for the holidays takes much less time, and I love that! I still like making and buying new things, but I don’t want to accumulate too much, so I have a strict one in, one out policy. 

My parents decided several years ago to simplify their holiday decorations, and now they mostly just put up one very small Christmas tree. You could do the same and scale down in any way that works for you! You could even hire someone to do your decorating for you. 

Speaking of outsourcing, you could also pay someone else to do any of the following: shopping for groceries or gifts, buying a Christmas tree, baking goodies, preparing holiday meals, assembling a gift (get it scheduled early!), wrapping gifts, ordering and addressing Christmas cards, house cleaning, and more. If these ideas sound wonderful but hiring someone to do them isn’t in your budget, how about trading services? There are lots of out-of-the-box ideas to gain back more time. 

Get Moving & Get Outside

Don’t give up your fitness routine during the holidays if at all possible. I’m not saying this just because it might prevent weight gain over the holidays (although it could help). Exercise, especially when done outdoors, is both invigorating and wonderful for stress reduction. Just a walk around the block can do wonders to lift your spirits and put things into perspective. 

I hope these suggestions are helpful for making this holiday season your best yet! 

Angie Hyche, CPO®, is a certified professional organizer and the owner of Shipshape Solutions. Her first book, Unholy Mess: What the Bible Says about Clutter is available on Amazon. She loves to hear from readers! Email her at angie@shipshape.solutions.

Controlling Paper Clutter

“It’s Easier to Keep Up Than to Catch Up”

Paper is one of the most common areas that I hear from my clients that they would like to conquer. It is a basic problem that everyone struggles with! It seems that everywhere we turn, we are collecting paper – whether it’s junk mail, bills, receipts, paperwork from school, tax documents, to-do lists, post-its, business cards, etc. The piles of paper that accumulate and seem to multiply overnight are a constant source of stress – whether we realize it or not! But the good news is – it is something that we actually have the power to control and do something about!

Here are some suggestions to get AND KEEP your paperwork organized!

First of all, Start Now! Start with the paperwork that you receive TODAY, not with what has been accumulating for months (or even years!) We will get back to conquering those old piles. However, first we need to set up routines for today so that those piles don’t get worse. You will be amazed that once you set up a system and it’s running smoothly, most of those piles that you accumulated in the past can either be tossed or shredded. But again – that’s a project for another day. Let’s start fresh TODAY!

Most importantly, remember…

Perfection is not your goal – Improvement is!

Most of our papers come in the form of mail. Here are some tips you can easily put into place to improve your mail clutter.

Think of your incoming mail in 4 categories:

• Garbage (or recyle)

• Action Papers (i.e. bills)

• Reading Materials (i.e. magazines, flyers)

• Reference Papers (i.e. insurance documents)

Garbage –

The Critical First Step – Open your mail near your garbage can! Throw away or recycle all of the junk mail and ads immediately!

Action Papers –

Next, open each piece of mail that needs your attention. Toss the outside envelope (and the inside envelope if you pay bills electronically.)

Separate your bills and keep them all in one place. I only use file folders that I can file vertically. I have a file on my desk in a vertical desk top organizer labeled “To Pay”. Filing things horizontally (i.e. piles) leads to stacks of papers that end up growing with extraneous paperwork and things can easily get lost that way.

I also have a vertical file on my desk labeled “Future Action” for items that need my attention that aren’t bills, but are still time sensitive.

Reading Materials –

Place items that you want to read where you will actually read them – perhaps on your coffee table or your nightstand or even your car if you spend time waiting in your car for kids, etc. (but be careful not to start accumulating paperwork in your car!)

Reference Materials –

Next, file any documents that you need to keep for future reference (i.e. statements, insurance documents, etc.). Again, using a vertical filing system. Do this immediately if you can. Yes, it will take you a couple of extra minutes – but that is nothing compared to the time that it will take later to try to find that document if it is not filed in its appropriate spot. Just like all of our other possessions, every piece of paper needs a “home”. This includes our important papers. It’s the only way we will be able to find them when we need them. Another option is to have a vertical file folder on your desk labeled “To File” – but I strongly suggest just taking the extra couple of minutes and file them where they belong immediately rather than having to handle that same piece of paper again later. Plus, if you end up needing that paper before you file it in its “home”, you’ll need to needlessly go through all the papers in that To File folder to find it (a waste of your precious time!)

How to Create a Filing System:

There are many ways to create a filing system. The most important thing is to create something that you will be able to easily maintain. Some people like all of their files in alphabetical order. Others prefer broad categories and then sub files within each category. There is no one “right” way. Do what works for you! The important part is that it needs to make sense to you and you need to use it!

Use a file cabinet or smaller file holder depending on how many files you have.

Common categories if filing alphabetically are:

• Insurance (separate folder for each type of insurance – auto, homeowners, life, medical)

• Automobile Maintenance

• Medical Bills – Current Year

• Bank Statements

• Credit Card Statements

• Home Improvements

• Tax Documents – Current Year

Common categories if filing by category are:

• Finance (subcategories could be bank statements, credit card statements, etc.)

• Medical (subcategories could be insurance, bills, health articles, etc.)

• Personal (subcategories could be pets, travel, home improvement, etc.)

• User Manuals (include warranties, receipts, etc.)

If you are a visual person, consider buying some colorful files or labels. It may sound silly, but this can help make the filing process more enjoyable and you will be more likely to maintain it.

An electronic filing system is also an option that we will discuss in a future blog post. However, as much as we hear about going paperless in the future, it is unlikely that that will ever likely happen 100%. You will always need a paper filing system at home (or at your office). There is no better time to get that started than Now!

And the most important thing to remember is –

Perfection is NOT your goal – Improvement is!