Are you sidetracked or on schedule?

Happy Thanksgiving!

How is everyone doing with their Holiday Planning? Are you on schedule, or sidetracked (like me!)?

I've gotten calls/emails from several of you, with updates and some GREAT suggestions, and will be posting soon.

I've been dealing with other project deadlines and a sick child, so my updates are actually behind schedule.

We have about 1 month to go until the December holidays. So that we're not too overwhelmed, let's concentrate on doing what we can, in small bite-size tasks, each day (like FlyLady advises). Whatever we can do, we'll do. If we can't get to every little detail, or some things end up not getting done this holiday, well so be it.

We'll celebrate our achievements together, no matter how big or how small. Please share with us what you've done so far, and what you'd like to do going forward (send email, call me or click on Comments for today).

See you tomorrow.

Holiday Shopping - Start Early

Here are some tips on how others are starting their shopping early:

1. One mom starts shopping in the summer. If you also are a summer Holiday shopper, what types of things do you buy in summer?

2. Another friend is trying eBay for some Holiday shopping. Anyone else have good experiences with buying gifts for others through eBay?

3. I like shopping by Internet. Many places offer free shipping and big discounts through Web-only sales (although many time, quantities are limited). Some sites that I've personally shopped at in the past: Old Navy for kids clothes and One Step Ahead (www.onestepahead.com) for baby items. Anyone else have any favorite websites?

3. The best retail store that I like to shop is Barnes & Noble. Their hours are great, and I can shop for a lot of people at once. We give a lot of B&N gift cards for children, teens, adults, co-workers and even teachers. I've bought calendars as gifts, blank journals, kids games and toys, and of course books. I like shopping in their bargain books sections. The B&N Cafe has nice food gifts too, like coffee or tea package gift set, chocolates, etc.

4. If you have friends or acquaintances who represent direct sales companies (like Avon, Pampered Chef, Home Interiors, etc.) try to do some shopping from them as well. You'll get personal attention, at-home delivery, unique gift selections and plus, you'll be helping your friends by supporting their business as well. As a Creative Memories consultant, I offer wish lists for my customers to fill out so that husbands, boyfriends and family members can easily shop for scrapbooking supplies for their wives, mothers, etc.

What other ideas do you have for Holiday Shopping? Click on today's Comments or send me an email with your suggestions.

See you tomorrow.

Holiday Gifts - Get Ready to Buy

Some of you may have already started shopping. Great! Tell us your tips and suggestions in Comments so that we can learn from you.

Yesterday, we worked on prioritizing our lists and writing down the due dates for each item or task. Today, we'll take our Gift List to the next step.

Assignment: Get ready to buy priority items on Holiday Gift List (10 minutes)

1. Starting with your priority items and the earliest due dates. Will you be buying these items at a store, hand-making the gifts, ordering from a catalog, etc.? If you haven't filled in that info, go ahead and finish that now, including the name of the store or catalog, etc.

2. Think about and start to pull together the supplies and resources that you'll need before you shop: Do you have catalogs, ads, coupons, previous gift cards, etc. that you could use to buy these items? Are you using a certain credit card or a Holiday Club account that you need to transfer money from? Take 5 minutes to jot down what you need.

3. Take the next 5 minutes to find these things and put them together in one spot (in your folder or notebook binder that you've been using for your Holiday Planning so far). If you haven't been using a folder or notebook, see if you can find one to start using now. If not, do you have a large, clean 1 gal. ziplock bag around, that you can use to put your stuff in for now?

4. Also see if you can find an envelope to use for your Holiday receipts. Use whatever you have on hand, or recycle a used envelope from your mail. Label the envelope "Holiday 2005 Receipts" and put it in your planning folder/notebook, with the other things that you pulled together today.

STOP for today. Don't forget to let us know in today's Comments how you're doing!

See you tomorrow.

Holiday Planning - Prioritize

Ok, we've gotten a good start so far. Let's begin figuring out what needs to be taken care of first.

Assignment: Prioritize your Holiday planning lists (10 minutes)

1. Take a look at your lists so far: Cards, Gifts, Cooking/Food, Travel/Visitors, Supplies, etc.

2. What are the top categories that you have to start working on right away?

3. Within each list, begin highlighting or circling the tasks that have to be started on right now. For instance, I just found out that we're having my in-laws flying in, THIS FRIDAY, rather than at Thanksgiving, when they were originally schedule to arrive, so my "Visitors" list now gets top priority. Also, since I'm so disorganized with my address lists, I have to make my Card list and the task of gathering addresses, a top priority now, because it'll take the most amount of time to work on.

4. In another column, next to each task (if you haven't done this already) write the due dates that you need to complete each item by. Go through and do this for all your lists.

STOP for today. Don't forget to click on Comments for today to let us know how you're doing.

See you tomorrow.

Holiday Supplies - See What You Have

Yesterday, we made a list of supplies that we think we need. Today we'll continue...

Assignement: Search for your Holiday Supplies (10 minutes)

1. Look over your list of Holiday Supplies from yesterday's post (if you haven't started it, go back to Mon. Nov. 7th and do a quick catch up).

2. Fill in anything else that you might have missed or forgotten in each section.

3. Now, take 5 minutes to see what you can dig out around your house for some of the smaller items Holiday Supplies listed (e.g. tape, bows, gift tags, etc). Limit it to only 5 minutes, don't go crazy trying to find everything! Stop after 5 minutes.

3A. If you were organized from last year and have everything in one place, GREAT! You're ahead of the game. Pull out that box from last year and take a peak inside to see what you have.

4. Put your supplies that you found in one place that you can have easy access to (inside a box or bag in your closet, or the corner of the room, etc. Label the box or bag with a big sign that says "Holiday Supplies" so you remember what's inside and so no one will throw it away.

STOP for today. Don't forget to let us know how you're doing by posting a comment for today or send me an email.

See you tomorrow.

Holiday Planning - Supplies needed

Ok, after taking a day off on Sunday, let's get started again on our planning.

Assignment: List of Holiday Supplies needed (10 minutes)

1. On a new sheet (either paper or Excel), label it "Holiday Supplies".

2. Let's start brainstorming and listing what we need, starting with Holiday Cards (e.g. how many # copies of kid's photos to send, buy # boxes of Holiday cards, postage stamps, return address labels, address book, pens, # of copies of family newsletter to send, etc.). Stop after 5 minutes.

3. Next, brainstorm and list the supplies needed for Holiday Gift list: (wrapping paper, bows, gift tags, shipping supplies if your mailing the gift out, etc.). Stop after 5 minutes.

That's it for today. Don't forget to click on Comments for today (or email me) to let me know how you're doing or if you have any tips or helpful ideas to add.

See you tomorrow.

Holiday Travel & Visitors

Just joining us now? Been too busy to keep up with every assignment? Not to worry, just jump in where you want, pick and choose which assignments you want to tackle. Scroll down through the archives to take a look at what we've been working on so far and do what you can, one step at a time.

Assignment: Plan for Holiday Travel & Visitors (10 minutes)

Are you traveling this year?
Are you expecting visitors to your house?
Let's do a quick pre-planning session today.

Travel (5 minutes)
1. Label a new sheet (on paper or Excel) "Holiday Travel"
2. List your travel dates and destinations.
3. Start brainstorming and write a list of what you have to do before you leave (just off the top of your head, don't worry about leaving anything off right now).
4. Next, start listing what you need to bring (again, just off the top of your head).
5. STOP for today. We'll continue another day.

Visitors (5 minutes)
1. Label a new sheet (on paper or Excel) "Holiday Visitors"
2. List the names of visitors coming and dates.
3. Start brainstorming and write a list of what you have to do to prepare for the visitors (clean basement, bring cot down from attic, wash towel & sheets, etc.).
4. Next, start listing what you need to buy for your visitors (special food, fresh flowers, new washcloths, slippers, etc.)
5. STOP for today. We'll continue another day.

Don't forget to click on today's Comments to let me know how you're doing.

See you tomorrow.

Holiday Cooking - Part 1

Assignment: Start a Holiday Food List (10 minutes)

Will you be cooking or baking for Thanksgiving or the holidays? Let's start planning for that.

If you're not cooking, but you plan on buying and bringing a dish for a holiday dinner or to give as a gift, let's start the planning for that instead.

1. Create a new sheet (either on paper or in Excel), labelled "Holiday Cooking / Food".

2. Write in one or two column headings:
a. Thanksgiving (if applicable), and / or
b. December Holiday (write in whichever one you celebrate).

3. For each column heading, fill in the following:
a. Date needed & Event (e.g. Sat. 11/26 - Aunt Judy's Family Get Together)
a. Dish (e.g. Apple Pie) note: if baking, do you know where your recipe is?
b. What to buy: (list your ingredients, if you're cooking)
c. Where to buy: (e. g Bee Supermarket or ABC Bakery, order from FGH Catalog, etc.)
d. Date to buy or order by: (if shopping for ingredients, write this shopping date here; if you're buying or ordering food gifts, write in the date that you need to place your order by).

Ok, STOP for today, and let me know how your doing, by clicking on Comments for today.

See you tomorrow.

Holiday Planning - cont'd

We'll give you a chance to catch up today.

1. Take a look over your Holiday Gift List and/or Holiday Card List and continue to fill in the blanks.

2. Start thinking the addresses that you need for each list. Where do you keep your addresses for everyone? Is it in one place (address book, palm pilot, etc.?) Or do you have your addresses in a couple different locations like me? I definitely have to work at consolidating all my addresses to one place!. Going forward, let's start keeping our Holiday Gift and Card Lists next to our Address Books, so it will be handy.

3. Think about if you have any presents on your Gift List that need to be mailed or shipped out. If so, add another column on the right labelled : Ship Date. Then, write in an approximate mailing date that the items need to be sent by.

Don't forget to click on Comments for today to let us know how you're doing.

See you tomorrow!

Holiday Gift List - Part 2

Ok, how are we doing so far? Have you gotten started on your Gift Lists?

If you're just joining our blog for the first time today, or haven't had a chance to do the first 2 assignments, scroll back to the first few days of the postings at the bottom, and see how much you can do (limit the time spent to 10 minutes tops, so you don't get too overwhelmed).

Let's move on to the next assignment...

Assignment: Continue adding to Holiday Gift List (10 minutes)

1. Open your Holiday Gift List sheet (on paper or Excel).

2. Spend 5 minutes to review your list and add any additional names that you didn't think of last time (e.g. people that you work with at your job/spouse's job; teachers; neighbors; other friends/acquaintences; service people like hairdresser, mailman, garbage man, housekeeper, clergy, etc.) Also, many people, through work or place of worship, "adopt" a child for the holidays and make a purchase of needed items for donation. If this is something you do every year, or are considering it for this year, you many want to include it on your list too.

3. Put yourself on the list too, and jot down some gift ideas that might make it easier for others to shop for you. (The big gifts are obvious; if you have young children, think of some little items that they could either make for you or help shop for, such as socks or gloves, etc.).

4. Now add one new column heading on the right: "Budget" (oh, fun). This is where Excel really comes in handy. (Note: If you're not good at creating an Excel spreadsheet and would like me to email you one that's already created and formatted, just email me).

5. Spend the next 5 minutes filling in some estimates of how much you'd like to spend on gifts for each person.

After 5 minutes: STOP. If you didn't finish, that's fine, leave the blanks in for now, save your sheet, and walk away. We'll continue tomorrow.

P.S. Don't forget to click on Comments for today to let me know how you did (or drop me an email, or give me a quick call if you have my number).

See you tomorrow.

Holiday Gift List - Part I

Assignment: Start listing names for Holiday Gift List (10 minutes)

1. Open (or start a new) Excel workbook "Holiday 2005, (or grab a piece of paper).

2. Title the sheet “Holiday Gift List”

3. Make 4 or 5 columns (starting on the left side of sheet):
a. "Done" column (to check off when completed)
b. "First & Last Name"
c. "Gift Ideas"
d. "Where To Buy"
e. "Make It" column (optional, if you're giving handmade gifts. list materials needed).

5. Set timer for 10 minutes, start listing all the names and gift ideas you can think of in 10 minutes for your Holiday Gift list.

STOP! That’s it for today! Save the file (or put the paper in a safe place, in a folder, notebook, etc.).

Come back tomorrow for the next assignment.

P.S. Don’t forget to click on Comments for today to let me know you did it, or you skipped it, or if it doesn’t apply to you, or if you’re completely overwhelmed by all of this, or if you think I need to get a life, or whatever, just so I know where you’re at.

See you tomorrow.