This is one of my most requested articles. Here are the ideas and if you want suggestions on where to get them, you can use the link at the bottom of the article. I try very hard to give gifts that aren’t clutter and to find something which will create a memory, give the gift of TIME, or help my family and friends relax and have fun. Here are lots of ideas to get you on the right track and keep you out of the stores. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

 ADVENTURE and TRAVEL

•  A day trip or weekend away 
• A Hot Air Balloon ride (Did you know I was a Hot Air balloon pilot?) 

PAMPERING

•  A month off from housecleaning.
•   A MASSAGE!
• Gift certificates to the spa, hairdresser, manicurist. Go together.

 FOOD

• For the foodie on your list, very special cheese
• I just found a fancy cupcake bar. Great gift for the office
• My new favorite food is Sun Butter… peanut butter made from Sunflower seeds.

 HELP = TIME

• Tree service or wood chipping
• Car detailing 
• Chauffeur for a day.
• Window Washing
• Organizing Help, Closets, kitchen, paper, home office 

ENTERTAINMENT

• Dinner and a movie.  
• Plays, Music venues, comedy clubs

A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

• A fun, new learning experience; Glass blowing, art classes, knitting classes, cooking classes

MEMORIES

• A family photo session
• Have a old tapes or VHS converted to a CD 
• Have friends and family contribute letters about a life and create a scrapbook of memories.
• Arrange a surprise family reunion.  

CHILDREN

• Give one of your favorite recipes with all the ingredients and a date to make it together
• A day at an Aquarium, Natural History or Science museum
• Yourself – Plan an outing together. Something you’ll all enjoy. Fishing, canoeing, hiking, eating, mini golf, picnic, the zoo. 

DIMINISHED MOBILITY

• Organizing Help, Closets, kitchen, paper
• ·Kitchen or bathroom shelving roll outs for easier accessibility 

 P.S. If you’d like recommendations on where to find these items, you can link to my website gift page.  http://www.farmingtonvalleyorganizing.com/archives/date/2011/10

This is one of my most requested articles. When I look at a pile of store bought gifts, I think they are just adding more stuff to already cluttered spaces. I try to give gifts that aren’t clutter and to find something which will create a memory or help my family and friends relax and have fun. Here are tons of ideas to get you on the right track and keep you out of the stores this month. Hope you use them!

ADVENTURE and TRAVEL

·        A day trip or weekend away at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY. Have a look! www.mohonk.com

·        A hot-air balloon ride with Mick Murphy of AER Blarney Balloons (The morning is prettier than the afternoon)  203.910.4955 (Did you know I used to be a hot air balloon pilot?) 

·        A certificate to Riverside Nursery and Garden Center  . A visit here gives you a chance to enjoy the picturesque Farmington River.  

·        Plan a family day at the shore. Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough in Niantic. While you’re there, visit the Niantic book barn.

PAMPERING

·        A month off from housecleaning. Maid service from DomesticAide:  860.651.4933

·        A MASSAGE! with the amazing Jolly Lux in Avon. jollylux@sbcglobal.net 860.478.1536

·        Gift certificates to the spa, hairdresser, manicurist. Go together.  

FOOD

·        For the foodie on your list, this cheese is addictive. Washington State University Cougar Gold, aged 2 years. www.wsu.edu/creamery. Warning, once you try it, your annual cheese budget will go up!

·        Tea for two at charming Passiflora Tea Room in New Hartford. Delicious, healthy and organic food. www.passiflorateas.com

.    Fancy cupcakes from the Cake Gypsy .. YUM!    http://cakegypsy.com

 HELP

·        Car detailing at Fine Details in Simsbury. The service is wonderful there. 860-651-4934

·     TREE SERVICE or WOOD CHIPPING:  Lawns and Gardens by Norm

·        For someone who has difficulty driving, offer your services as a chauffeur for a day.

·        Window Washing, WOW!. I use Jonathan Oakleaf  860.693.6898

·        Organizing Help; If someone you love has a messy office, kitchen or closet that they could use some help with, give them a gift certificate for organizing services.  

 ENTERTAINMENT

·        Dinner and a movie with you at Gilson Cafe and Cinema  in Winsted. A fun way to have supper and see a movie.  

·        Tickets to a show at Infinity Hall in Norfolk. The renovation is a knock-out!  www.infinityhall.com 

·        Check out the shows coming to Bushnell or Goodspeed.

·        Tickets to  Bridge Street Live in Collinsville. Music and Comedy.

A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

·        A fun, new learning experience; Glass blowing workshops at Peter Greenwood studio in Riverton. www.PeterGreenwood.com   

·        A cooking class at Sur La Table. Even teens like this. www.surlatable.com

MEMORIES

·        A family photo session with Patty Swanson Patty Swanson Photography on Facebook She always has original ideas.

·        Have a old tapes or VHS converted to a CD of family photos and memories from New Day Memories: 1.877.431.1011   www.newdaymemories.com

·        Have friends and family contribute letters about a life and create a scrapbook of memories. 

·        Arrange a surprise family reunion.  

CHILDREN

·        Give one of your favorite recipes with all the ingredients and a date to make it together. My nieces love shortbread snowmen that they can decorate with candies.

·        A day at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk. www.maritimeaquarium.org

·        Yourself – Plan an outing together. Something you’ll all enjoy. Fishing, canoeing, hiking, eating, mini golf, picnic,  the zoo. Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven DINOSAURS!

IMINISHED MOBILITY

• Organizing Help, Closets, Paper, Kitchens from Farmington Valley Organizing 860.558.1747
• Roll out kitchen or bathroom shelving for easier access: Shelf Genie Designer Linda, 860.558.1747.

P.S. If you MUST go into the shops this year, arrange your shopping list by store and location, so you get everything you need in one stop

What I see most often is a mismatch between the existing systems and the client’s learning style or brain type. A client may be a very creative, right brain, visual thinker (Outy who wants to see her stuff) and she is stuck with a boring, left brain, linear, out of sight system which she will never be comfortable using. This is remedied by creating organizing and storage systems which suit the learning style. The reverse can also happen; an Inny (wants everything out of sight) has an outy system of open shelving and it drives her crazy.

Environmental or physical space issues are the easiest to address. It takes a fresh eye to see the existing limitations. Sometimes it’s just the wrong arrangement, furniture or storage unit (or lack of) that is obvious in the first few minutes of assessment. Ex: A stay-at-home mom has paper all over the kitchen and dining room because she doesn’t have her own desk or office space in the home.

Clients may have a shopping or information addiction. These cause stuff and book clutter and can be addressed with downsizing and organizing.  Unless the client addresses the underlying cause of the compulsion and finds replacement activities, the clutter will return.

I often see clients with ADD or ADHD. They can’t complete tasks, because they are constantly distracted by another task. The client has the energy and good intentions, but needs to focus. The job of the organizer is to keep the client focused and on task in order to complete an area.

Some clients are often very sentimental. This makes for a very sweet person with lots of emotional stuff. You never know what a person is most attached to. I was working side by side on a decluttering project with a client who did not smoke and I tossed an old pack of cigarettes into the trash. 10 minutes later she said, rather distressfully “The cigarettes! Where’s the cigarettes?!”   “Those were my father’s. They have been there for 40 years.” I offered to take them out of the trash, but she let them go.

Very often, someone will be going along with a perfectly uncluttered existence and will suffer the death of a loved one. This client has a three-fold challenge: They are dealing with grief. They inherit lots of stuff. It is emotional stuff.  Readiness to move on is the first step to successful downsizing.

 One of the most interesting reasons for disorganization is a lack of ‘Executive Function” / Sorting skills. Sorting is a very left brain activity and some people just can’t sort. Sorting is the first step in many organizing projects and the inability to sort will make people feel like they don’t know where to start. They don’t see categories, just 1,000 details. Luckily, sorting is my strong point, so I can help clients work through these projects.

The Institute for Challenging Disorganization lists over 80 reasons and not one of them is laziness. For more info on this topic or on other organizing topics, see:

 http://www.challengingdisorganization.org/     and search for FS-004.

You can see, my work is fascinating, and every client and solution is unique Please call or email me if you have any questions or would like to discuss a disorganized situation in your life.  FVO@Charter.net   860.558.1747

What does this have to do with organizing? It’s about situational blindness. When you live with something for years, you become blind to what is really there. What might be obvious to a fresh pair of eyes, is invisible to you. That’s why it takes a new, objective eye to see what is really going on in your office or home. During my initial client assessment, I ask a lot of questions like “What’s this? What’s in this pile? What do you keep in here?”  About 50% of the time, the answer is “I don’t know”.  So, our walk through can open your eyes to what is there, uncover the cause of some problems and identify solutions. I see things from a new perspective and help you think about the space in a new way. It can really be fun to work together, see the transformations and uncover buried treasures. You will feel relieved when you understand that it’s not all your fault. Usually, it’s not you, it’s your system.

Call me if you’d like a fresh perspective on what is really going on in your space. 860.558.1747

Thing 2 was a box of closet hardware which I ordered 5 years ago and needed last month. It wasn’t in the basement with all the other house hardware so I re-ordered it and spent another $50. Of course, after the new hardware came, I found the original box stored in the kitchen with the appliance warrantees.

Hubby (and his workmates) will get tons of laughs from this since he LOVES it when I make an organizing mistake. (I consider him the messy one)

What does this have to do with the most important organizing principle ever? The principle is “Store for retrieval”. My purse in the garbage was an accident, but the hardware was stored in the wrong place. Here’s how to put this principle into practice.

My clients always ask me “What should I label this file?” or “Where’s the right place to store this?”  The right questions are:  “6 months from now, when I am looking for this piece of paper, what word will pop into my head?” That’s the right label to use for your folder. And, “Six months from now, when I am looking for this item, where will I look first?” That’s the best home for it.

Ask yourself where you will look for it, (what place, what word) in the future, when you need it and put it there.  It really is the most important organizing principle.  Put it into practice and you won’t waste time and money replacing things.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, thinking about everything I had to do and everyone I had to do things for.  This is a clear (and exhausting) message that I need to get my “to do” list under control; get everything out of my head and onto paper (or PDA as your case may be).

As with every other type of Organizing, there are as many ways to write “to do” lists as there are personal styles. But, there are two major types:

Type 1: “My head is spinning. I can’t think straight. I have so much on my mind. I have to get it down on paper so I can function.”

Type 2: “My time is out of control. I’m busy but not getting anything important done. What am I doing with my life?”

Because you need to be able to think straight to do Type 2, we’re going to start with Type 1.

There are at least 50 ways to prioritize your “to do” list.

I’ll share a few of ideas with you, but it will have to be a personal solution that ends up working for you.

Choose your media. Do you like to write on paper or type into your electronic gadget? Do you need a large piece of paper / screen or a small one? Don’t like lists and like to move around? Maybe you need a large white board. Personally, I like a large lined paper pad. I write big and like lots of room for sections.

Create separate lists for Personal and Work.
Personal would be for you, your family, your home and your friends.
Work would be for your business, your job and your volunteer work.

If you are so stressed you can’t think about categories or priorities, just do a brain dump. Write down everything that’s bouncing around in your head and get it out of there.  Once you clear the mental clutter out of your head, you will be able to think about priorities.

Prioritizing your lists: For each list, Personal and Work, chose a way to prioritize. Here are some ideas:

Numbers: A client who is a math teach likes numbers. He separates his list into sections labeled 1-5 and gives each task a number.

You might like letters: A B, C, Z

Colors?
Red for “very hot task; have to do it right away”
Blue for “not urgent, but want to do it soon”
Green for “can wait a month”
Yellow for “nice, but the world won’t end if I never get to it”

Date driven?
Give each task a date for the next step. (You might like a ticker file, a kind of upright calendar made out of folders.)

Where you do it sections:
Phone calls
Office / Laptop / PC
Out in the Car
In the House
(these are not priorities, so you would have to prioritize within these sections, a little more complicated)

People Person?
This is my type of list. Here’s an example of my list sections by priority.
Personal List:
Me / health and wellness (wishful thinking puts me on top) Try to take care of yourself.
Family
Friends
House

Work List:
Current Clients
Current Speaking Engagements
Newsletter and Website
Networking
Admin/ Finance / AP/AR
New Ideas /workshops /articles etc.

How to get it done:
Those are some ideas on how to WRITE your “to do” list; how to execute it is the next step.
The reason you identified priorities is because you can’t do 50 things at once, so FOCUS on your top priority tasks. There is no such thing as spare time, so if you want to get it done, schedule time in your calendar for your top priorities.  “Calendar” assumes you have a master calendar that can travel with you. Choose your calendar media (paper or electronic gadget).  Have one master that you sync up with others each Sunday evening.

This is a start to uncluttering your brain and getting your thoughts organized. For more on  the Type 2 “to do” list (“My time is out of control. I’m busy but not getting anything important done. What am I doing with my life?”  go to the Time Management page.

My TO DO list is 5 pages long. First, I got everything out of my head and down on paper (the brain dump). I moved on to categorizing and sorting in a way that works for me; Personal (family, friends, dog, me), Soroptimists (volunteer organization I give time to), Business, (remember from our other chats on TO DO lists that this might not be the right way for you to sort). After sorting, I began Prioritizing, and got stuck there. As I was assigning levels of importance, I realized that entire categories of things that are important to me were missing from 5 pages of tasks. My HEALTH is important to me, but there is not one health or exercise related activity on my list and the only FUN/LEISURE item (a group trip to Amalfi) is not happening until next Fall. (no flags, no fun) So, before I move on to getting the important things scheduled on my calendar, I need to stop and think about how I WANT to spend my time. When we do this, we stop just catching up and move ourselves in the right direction.
So, bottom line, I need more exercise and more fun. Some of my friends like gyms. I don’t. I used to have fun dancing, but that’s no fun for my hubby. So, I’m thinking about trying Zumba! I’ll let you know how that works out. But, I will put it on my list and test out a class soon. Strike ‘soon’ and write it in for next week.
Are you controlling your TO DO list or is it controlling you?

If you need help, call me and we can schedule an appointment.

For years, I have only worn my glasses for reading. Recently, I got bi-focals, so I leave them on more often. I’m not happy to report that now, I can see the dust on my baseboards, toilet tank top and book case. I was perfectly happy not knowing it was there and I didn’t seem to loose any family or friends because of it. Now that I know its there, I feel obligated to dust it.

What does this have to do with organizing? Well, it has to do with perfectionists. (I am not one) Perfectionists have a problem with Perspective. They take things to a very detailed level and it usually slows things down. Organizing is a ‘big picture’ vs. detailed skill. So, to make progress quickly, you have to try not to get bogged down in the details.

An example; When you are sorting a room, the first pass should be to sort into high level categories like:

Trash
Donate
Books
Office Supplies
Articles

NOT

Bird books, cook books, garden books, novels, short stories.
pens, pencils, sharpies, 3 hole paper, index cards.
Business articles, technology articles, self help articles.

To make quick progress, work on the high level sort first, then attack the details at another time.
Finished is better than perfect.