You did it! Ribbons are slung everywhere and the fridge is bursting with delectable leftovers! Now what? The holiday season is a wonderful time of year to appreciate time spent with family and friends, exchange gifts and eat delicious meals! However, it does become a bit of a whirlwind experience. Time seems to move even faster during the holiday season and we emerge in January with a feeling of disarray and sometimes discouragement. Try to avoid those feelings this year by preparing for the post-holiday season!
Follow these simple tips to regroup, catch-up, resurrect routines and start good habits all over again!
1) Get immediate closure by writing your holiday thank-you notes.
2)Fine tune your storage system for your tree trimmings and other holiday decorations.
3) Plan your budget for the upcoming year.
4) Kiss that sugar high goodbye! Toss or freeze sweets, look lustfully at those leftover mashed potatoes one last time, and stock up on healthy food. Getting back to eating right is one of the quickest ways to feel on top of your game again.
5) Get your excercise program back on track if you’re kicking yourself for not getting to the gym over the holidays. It can be hard to get the momentum going, but the minute you start working out again, you’ll feel better. Exercise also strengthens the immune system, helping your body resist viruses that are particularly virulent during the winter months.
6)Tinker with your priorities to make sure they are still working for you! Find ways to bring your life back into balance. Create new (or bring back) family traditions, such as game night or movie and pizza night so its not “all work and no play” once the holidays are over.
7) Designate a night for putting holiday photos in albums and frames or burning digital photos on to CDs. This way you will set a date, get it done, and it won’t weigh on your mind as you try to accomplish further organizational goals in the new year!
8)If you have children, set up a toy-storage system or you might find that half the new toys are broken or have missing parts by Valentine’s Day. Enlist your kids on this project. Ask them to make a pile of toys they are ready to give away to make room for the new ones Santa so generously brought this year!
After this you can relax and contemplate your further organizational goals for 2010! Good luck 
The efficient office at home or work should be zoned into activity areas. These areas will help you stay focused on the particular task you are working on.
To most people meal planning sounds like a huge commitment of time, energy, and money. However, you may be surprised to know that just putting in a bit of effort can pay off in SO many different ways. You and your family will be more organized, you can actually be healthier and lose weight, and even save money at the grocery store!
Brown Bag Meal Planning Quick Tip:
When looking for lost items on your desk becomes scarier than the things that go bump in the night, something must be done!
Every home needs a dumping ground for spare keys, pins, and such, but how fast can you find those items when needed? Even the smallest changes to this drawer sized abyss of junk can make all the difference! If you’re feeling motivated to tackle that scary junk drawer, these steps may help you on your way to organized chaos!
Plan: Once you have everything sorted and have gotten rid of some extraneous items (hopefully!) you can begin to think about organizing within the drawer itself. Take a look at the items you have chosen to keep in the drawer. You will need a drawer organizer or a system of drawer organizers that can help you keep things seperate and able to be found. For smaller things such as batteries, buttons, safety pins, paper clips, and small items such as these you want to find a series of smaller boxes or compartments. If you have larger items such as scissors, pens, tape dispensers, and scrap papers, you will want to find larger or longer options. If you find you have all types of things, buy something that accomodates both sizes. If you can’t find something that perfectly suits your needs, try to make it work by being a little creative. For example, if a compartment is too large, cut out pieces of thick cardboard or even wooden pieces and arrange them in a cross for a quick fix to make smaller compartments.
3) Execute: Once you know where and how you will keep all the junk drawer items, its a matter of execution. Put the drawer organizers you planned in the previous step into place. Then begin placing the objects into each compartment. Try to put the items you use the most close at hand. If you’re always grabbing for those scissors, put them in the front of the drawer for easy access. Remember, not ALL items must be sorted perfectly into compartments. If you still have some items floating around place them in that area of the drawer thats not so perfect. Just make sure they aren’t items you use a lot! 
It’s Fall and even though the leaves are falling we can still save some trees:
owing away other items in our home, for example clothes, furniture, and old towels. The truth is giving to a charity can be easier than just junking items such as clothes, furniture, and other nicknacks. Dealing with transporting the item to a waste disposal facility can be pricey and inconvenient, not to mention unpleasant! Instead pick a charity! It will feel better to give to the people who truly need it. You can even get your kids involved so they can clean out old, outdated toys and see what it’s like to give (and to organize). As for the other items, get creative! If you cut up those old towels they can be used for reusable cleaning rags or even hand towels in some cases. Save those paper towels AND recycle old towels! Now you’re getting green.
After all that organization you now have lots of room and space. Keeping it clean and organized is the next step in the battle towards organization. However, the notion that when we clean our homes we make that environment dirtier is not a pleasant one. Consequently, we rinse and flush a lot of extremely harsh and unfriendly chemicals down the drain where they overwhelm the water treatment plant’s ability to neutralize them and they are flushed out to contaminate the watershed. In addition, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the air inside our homes averages 2-5 times (and up to 100 times in extreme cases) more polluted than air just outside our homes. These harsh chemicals have a lot to do with this terrifying statistic. But you can keep the cleaning process green as well! Eliminating the harsh chemicals from our homes is even better. Not only are there new environmentally safer products to choose from, but also there are older alternatives that were used, and effective, before harsh cleaners were ever made. One great line of these eco-friendly products is the Caldrea line. They offer everything from countertop cleansers to laundry detergent, but use all-natural and non-pollutant ingredients. You can even feel good about their aromatic hand lotions!
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