Make this holiday season memorable without breaking the bank. Let’s explore how you can make it personal and meaningful to the recipient.

First, I should tell you we have favored gifts of experience over “stuff” for a long time. We are all so very busy, getting to spend time with family or firends is what we long for. Going to a show with my family or even on a hike or bike ride is so much more meaningful to me. Spending time together is a genuine gift. 

Here are 31 of my favorites some are great for families, others are perfect for the seniors on your list:

1. Game night - board games, card games, trivia games; I bet you have them all. Pick one and have a family or friend’s game night. You will laugh and be high-fiving in no time flat.
2. Movie night - pick a movie, make some popcorn, get the blankets and pillows fluffed up, and enjoy the time together
3. Make your own family trivia game. Weird or funny family stories make a great game of whodunit. How well do you really know your family, friends, or coworkers?
4. Make a Memory Jar. Fill with letters and cards remembering your favorite experience with the person. Take turns reading the cards out loud and filling in the details of the story as you remember it.
5. Pizza Night. Who doesn’t love a good pizza!
6. Potluck night. Each person makes a part of the meal. Sit down together and enjoy every course.
7. Go to your local library and explore whether they have a free pass program for local attractions. In our area we have a butterfly arm, a children’s museum, an aquarium, local university sports programs, science centers and even a zoo. You need to reserve in advance. Such wonderful opportunities for family fun. For FREE.
8. Take them to see the holiday lights, a tree lighting ceremony, a free concert of holiday music.
9. Create a family holidays calendar. Include the wedding anniversaries, adoption dates, birthdays, and other significant milestones. Search for photos to illustrate the events that month.

20 years ago, just after opening my business, I got a call from a prospective client. Before we started to work together, she asked me to meet her for lunch so we could discuss her needs. She was not willing to let me (or anyone) into her home until she knew we were a good fit to work together. We spent a couple hours talking about the process, my philosophy of organizing, and why she wanted to become more organized now.

Here is what I learned. She was organized at work where there were rules and structure, but she could not recreate this same order for her home life. She had friends at work, but could not invite them to her home for fear being judged for her the clutter and disorganization.

Her goal was to have a home where she could invite family and friends to visit, to relax, cook a meal to share, and to sleep in a furnished bedroom, not a mattress on the floor with piles and baskets of clothes all around.

When we finished lunch, she paid me for my time and scheduled an appointment the following week to begin the project.

It was a bright sunny July day, when we met at her home. I arrived with my toolkit in hand. The doorman announced my arrival, and the client met me in the lobby to take me to her unit. There was silence in the elevator as we passed floor after floor.

When we arrived on her floor, she walked hesitantly down the hall to her door. Once there, she stood silently in front of the door. Thinking she needed my help, I put my hand on the doorknob to open the door. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Standing there in the hallway, I knew the stuff was not the only issue.

Today is a very special day for me and for All Ways Organized. 20 years ago today, my organizing and productivity consulting journey began. I want to thank the mentors, clients, and colleagues who have been part of it all.

First, Barbara Hemphill, I have been a fan of Barbara since launching my business. She has been the most supportive mentor, walking with me every step of the way. We met at the NAPO (then the National Association of Professional Organizers, now the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals) Conference in 2006 in Boston.

I joined Barbara’s training program at the Productive Environment Institute and became certified in her methods and was the first to attain the Master’s Certification. Andrea Anderson, and her team at PEI are constantly working to refine the program and give immense value to the trainees and their clients. Andrea is always in my head, telling me to, “trust the system.” Great advice for us all.

In the fall of 2019, Barbara called to discuss collaborating on a book about email. I was all in. Barbara, known as the Paper Tiger Lady, wanted to show that the Productive Environment Systems could be for any organizing challenge, including the world of Email. I believed her when she said her methods would work for anything.

Remember this number when composing an email.

Current studies show that on average we spend only 13.4 seconds reading an email. Remember this when the temptation strikes to write a long, complicated email with multiple points or questions. The first one or two will get answers, and they do not address the rest. What then? Send another email and another until they answer all questions? Try this instead, one topic, one question, one email.

One way to have less email in your inbox is to send less email!.

There are other ways to communicate besides email. Do you use a chat tool at work? Using chat in a project manager keeps information on a particular project, for a team or a group, or any other related items together. It is quick and to the point. It makes it simple to know where to look for the information.

Mute conversations you need not be part of, and check on a regular schedule.

When you are finished with your part, remove yourself from the project.

Will a quick phone call get you the answer you need?

Email takes time to write, since there is no tone or inflection, often you need to write and rewrite the email to be sure that your reader will understand what you want.

Ten years ago, Japan suffered a series of massive earthquakes leading to a 10-Meter tsunami. Kate Middleton married Prince William. Apple founder, Steve Jobs passed away at age 56, and Oprah Winfrey ended 25 years of sharing her wit and wisdom on the Oprah Winfrey Show. It hardly seems possible that all these events happened in 2011.

It was also ten years ago, Marie Kondo, the Japanese Tidying and Organizing expert, started “sparking joy” around the world with her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. The book was first published in Japan in 2011 titled Jinsei Ga Tokimeku Katazuke No Maho. That book introduced us to her signature program for “Tidying Up.”

We love those words, "Tidy Up" and "Magic". They are so enticing; they make the actual work of getting and staying organized seem easy and quick. At least that is how I feel when I think about “tidying up.” It seems the sessions will be no problem and will take only minutes to accomplish. She captured our hearts and minds, helping us to see a way out from our clutter and overwhelm.

I think we all hoped by some bit of magic, we would be joyful and clutter free, but in reality we knew from experience there would be hard work and tough decisions ahead.

Smartphones are so much more now than a simple tool to make a phone call. We have more computing power in our pocket now than NASA had in all those rooms full of servers used to send man to the moon. So, the big question is, what are we planning to use them for? Are they serving us well, or are we serving them?
I read a review online this week of a new smartphone. The reviewer said he would pay more for the device if it did NOT place phone calls! He felt we could be more efficient without the bother of talking to another person. That was a surprise! I doubt I will ever adopt this philosophy, but it shows how different we all are in what we expect from our devices and the apps we install on them.
One of the most frequent questions I am asked by clients when we work on digital organization is: “Is there an app for that?”

Less Paper: Earth Day 2021.

According to Records Nation, in the United States we use 65,395,000,000 sheets of paper per DAY. That is 815,000 pine trees every day! 4 Billion dollars every day, on paper! No wonder the average office worker spends 30-40% of their time looking for information stored in file cabinets.

Earth Day is just around the corner, so today I am sharing some ways to be more mindful of the amount of paper we use. Paper, printer ink, postage and storage are just a few of the costs of printing our electronic files. The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper per year on average. We throw away 45% of what we print by the end of the day. Most of the forms printed by S corporations are outdated in 3 months’ time! Reducing paper consumption in your office is a great way to regain space, save money, increase peace of mind, and show kindness to our planet.

Want to get started on the road to less paper in your office? Try these 7 ways to reduce the paper you use, today!

It was two years ago today that Barbara Hemphill and I had a discussion in the Productive Environment Network™ about Marie Kondo and the KonMari method. Yesterday in the mail, I received an ad from one of my favorite stores, The Container Store. Guess who has a new line of products at the Container Store? Yes, Marie Kondo.
Here are some of my thoughts

What should I do?

This question often leads to a discussion of what is “best”, and where can I find the perfect tool?
You want to do the right thing, the best thing, the thing that will make someone else proud. How does it make you feel when you ask yourself, what should I do? When you ask what should I do, does it lead you to do something or not?

Psychologist Clayton Barbeau coined the term, “shoulding yourself” referring to the intense pressure to do something in a certain way based on what we think we “should do.” The word should causes you to do one of two things, you freeze unable to move forward or you run away and avoid the work altogether. Either way, you are not doing the work. When I work with clients, I see some big emotions attached to shoulding yourself, like fear, guilt, and shame. Fear of the consequences for not completing the task; guilt for falling behind; and shame for not asking for help in the beginning when you knew you needed help.

When I meet new people, and they find out I am a Professional Organizer/Productivity Consultant, they will often stop in their tracks and tell me how much they need me at their home or in their offices. Then, they ask about my home or my office. They want to know if my home or office is immaculate, if I have everything put away, or if I always know where everything is. I often laugh to myself wondering if I have some superhero power that I do not know about.

Always and immaculate are some strong terms. How about this - sometimes my home and office are just how I like them, other times they need work. Life happens, we travel, we get home late, something unexpected comes up, and bad things happen.

Perfection is a productivity killer. I choose to: clean up, tidy up, straighten up, put things back where they belong, or whatever terms you use to describe this task on a routine basis, but the key is an underlying system to use when things get out of control.

So, today I want to share some of the things some of the things you may have wondered about me in my life as a productivity trainer and professional organizer. Why am I sharing this with you? Because, we are all in the same boat. We all get busy, we all have last minute interruptions, we all have days we are just too tired to put everything away…Don’t worry, with the right training and systems you can decide to get your home or office back in shape when you are ready.

Have you ever thought of living with less? Have you ever wished you could do more of the things you love? How is this even possible with the demands of our busy lives?
Let’s begin with the way 2019 started for me. I chose a word to guide my efforts this year. That word is intention. The choices I make must serve my intention, which is to live more simply with less.
Why is this coming up now? Well, I am getting older, I have been acquiring for years and it is now time to live in a different way. Relatives and friends have become ill or disabled. People close to me have died.
I have felt the weight of helping others declutter. Often decluttering is to get rid of things that have been kept because of the guilt and shame they have been bathed in. It belonged to Great Aunt Bethany… it cost a lot of money… it is very valuable…what if they found out you got rid of it? I would like to think that I have not given gifts with the intention that they must be kept forever. I want the recipient to enjoy the gift. If they do not it is OK to let it go. All I want is for them to be happy.
I have come to understand that the younger generations do not want our stuff (much of it anyway), and I have too much stuff. I have also come to realize that the things we have been told are valuable, may or may not be. There is a cost to keeping everything, your job is to decide if you are willing to pay the cost: time, space, energy, and money.
Being a professional organizer, I can tell you that this is not only true for me, but also in the experience of many of my colleagues around the country. The NAPO (National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals) discussion boards frequently visit this topic. What to do with all these “valuable” artifacts of lives well lived. In truth, many in the younger generations are choosing life experiences over stuff. Living more simply and experiencing more of the world around them is perfect. The things that they do buy are not too expensive and can be changed when they are worn or outdated without a boatload of guilt.