Great Organizational Christmas Gift Ideas

Anyone shopping for me this holiday can feel free to send some of these things my way! With the holidays in full-swing I figured I would share some gift ideas with an organizational touch. These are great for anyone. Anyone and everyone can always use things to keep them more organized, including me! Happy shopping! :)




Snapfish.com is one of my favorite websites. There are several fantastic organizational gifts that I would recommend here. For starters, I love their notebooks that you can create a personalized cover with any photo that you upload to your account; otherwise, there are a variety of calendars and notepads that make great organizational gifts too.

Post-it notes are perfect stocking stuffers! I love the idea of a great multi-pack of Post-its.

2011 Calendars - hello - everyone needs a calendar or two!

Oh boy... these next two could be a new favorite for me, Miss Menu Planner. This What To Eat and Planning the Menu pads from our friends at www.knockknock.biz is a great find.





Beautiful Vineyard Baskets from Pottery Barn




Is it weird that I am suggesting Glass Canisters from Crate & Barrel for a Christmas gift?
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/organizing-and-storage/food-storage/glass-canisters/f37054

No?

Well, what about OXO Pop Containers, also from Crate & Barrel?
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/organizing-and-storage/food-storage/oxo-pop-containers/f27738



This last one I would REALLY like for Christmas. This would go wonderfully in my den. And is much needed, I must add!
Bedford 2-Drawer File Cabinet from Pottery Barn
http://www.potterybarn.com/products/bedford-2-drawer-file-cabinet/?pkey=cfile-cabinets-storage




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Plan of Attack for Holiday Shopping

Black Friday (11.26.10) and Cyber Monday (11.29.10) are surely sneaking up on me this year. I have never once been to a Black Friday event - in fact, I steer clear of the mass chaos whenever possible. This year, however, I will be losing my Cyber Monday virginity and participating in some of the online deals. I am really looking forward to this because I am doing all (or most) of my holiday shopping online this year and certainly love to save a few pennies when I can. In order to maintain some order, I have some thoughts for preparing for either shopping holiday.



Step one: Christmas music is a must. Fine if you insist on waiting until the day after Thanksgiving.

Step two: Detail a list for whom you are purchasing gifts this year or what you are looking to buy as a gift to yourself. This would also be a good time to consider a budget to avoid going overboard when you get googly eyed by the sale prices.

Step three: Make sure to get a newspaper on Thursday because it will have all of the best deals for you Black Friday patrons (and probably a few surprise coupons as well).

Step four: If I was to plan a Black Friday trip I think I would probably start at a department-ish store or somewhere that has the majority of the gifts I plan on buying so as to kill as many birds with one simple stone.

Step five: Determine a plan of attack - what time will you arrive to your first store? What items will you plan on purchasing at each store? What time does each store open? When do the best deals begin and end?

Step six: Go to bed. Early. And set the coffee to start brewing before you get up. Make extra. Set out all of the coupons and random shenanigans you need to take with you on your shopping extravaganza.

Or if you're like me and will be doing your holiday shopping from your fingertips, grab some hot cocoa and peppermint shnapps, crank up the holiday tunes and put your pajamas on and...

*Make sure that you're registered for e-mail specials from your favorite retailers so you can begin preparing your plan of attack come Monday morning. If you are not receiving these e-mails - go to their website and look around to figure out where to sign up to be on the e-mail list.

*Browse the web for specials - figure out when the various retailers will be having their online holiday specials. Many will be on Cyber Monday, but some will also take place on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, over the weekend, and even extending all next week. You need to know these in order to take advantage of the lowest prices.

*Instead of waiting until Monday to figure out what the deals are, create your Christmas shopping list and seek out to find what your retailer(s) of choice are offering and when. Be advised that like Black Friday Early Bird Specials, Cyber Monday shoppers need to pay attention to time frames on sales.

Happy holiday shopping!

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Kitchen Counter Clutter

Next time you see a celebrity kitchen or a featured kitchen in a catalogue, take notice on how much “stuff” is sitting on their countertop. I bet you’ll find a very bare minimum. It doesn’t take much to create a cluttered kitchen – especially if yours isn’t as sizeable as most of the celeb kitchens you’re familiar with.

CLUTTERED:



UNCLUTTERED:



After we moved in and got settled and unpacked I looked back at the photos of our kitchen when it was professionally staged and noticed that there were very few items sitting on the countertop. Now, mind you, I hardly had anything on my countertop in comparison to my former kitchen and many kitchens in America. Taking note of this I decided to keep only the bare minimum essentials out on my countertop. Here is what I am keeping: coffee maker, coffee canister, butcher block, fruit bowl, stand mixer. Oh, and my little bowl with my sponge.

BEFORE:



Here is what got removed: salt, pepper, butter dish, sugar bowl, olive oil, utensil holder and probably at least four other items. Where are they now? Well, my utensil holder is no longer a member of my household; instead, all of my utensils are nesting happily in their drawer – neatly organized of course! All of the other little guys are inside a cabinet somewhere easily accessible. These are all things I use daily, but there is no reason for my butter dish to be on display. The only thing that should be on display is my mixer and granite.

AFTER:



My kitchen is now free of clutter and it looks great and very sleek. I challenge you today to remove all but the bare essentials to your cabinets to create that sleek and professional look on your kitchen countertop.

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Preparing for Turkey Day

We all know that Thanksgiving comes at the same time every year, but somehow it seems to always sneak up on me. I wanted to share with you my Thanksgiving checklist to yield some potential inspiration for how to host your perfect or maybe first Thanksgiving meal for a crowd.



Ali’s Thanksgiving Preparation Checklist:
• Create a menu and grocery list.

• Don’t forget about beverages and hors d’ oeuvres.

• Go to the grocery store – plan for several trips because chances are high, you will forget something!

• If you are planning on purchasing a fresh turkey (not a frozen one) you should call your grocer as early as possible to order one. If you’re using a frozen turkey – be sure to begin defrosting it the weekend before Turkey Day!

• Clean the house.

• Prepare the table linens – stain removal? Ironing?

• Decide what cutlery and serving dishes you will be using on the big day. I always like to set them out in advance to figure out the best place for each dish.

• Bring out the cookware that you will need to utilize to cook your meal – be sure that everything is clean and that you didn’t loan your only pie pan to your sister, leaving you without one.

• Set the table. This can be done days in advance and is often my favorite part of the process.

• Determine a timeline for food preparation. What can you prepare in advance? What is the order in which you need to prepare the food so that it all comes out of the oven at the same time as the turkey?

• If you only have one oven, as I do, be mindful of the fact that you will likely need to bake many more things at a time than will fit in your oven, not to mention that many things will be cooking at different temperatures. Plan this out in advance to avoid any last minute challenges in the oven.

• Hint: visit Cooks Illustrated to view their Thanksgiving Guide, which includes a schedule planner with some excellent suggestions on planning ahead and when to begin preparing certain foods.

• On Turkey Day – grab some vino, follow your schedule and have fun!


(Yep - that's me on my first Thanksgiving in our old house! Thanks to preparation and planning, my first Thanksgiving meal was a triumph - yours can be too.)

My favorite sites for Thanksgiving meal ideas:

www.allrecipes.com – a plethora of recipes created by home cooks across America that must hold up to reviewers like me in order to survive.

www.foodnetwork.com – recipes published by your favorite celebrity chefs and tested time and time again by the Food Network kitchens.

www.americastestkitchen.com – recipes tested over and over and over by Christopher Kimball and his team of chefs – there are only a limited number of recipes available without purchasing a subscription.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Unpacking and Organizing the Kitchen

Really, in all honesty, I don’t mind unpacking as much as I mind packing and physically moving. I can’t say I did much in the physical moving department because I was at work during that time (well played on my part, I might add!). My assistance was best utilized in the unboxing and putting away departments.




On move-day, my first priority was to make a great big dent in unpacking the kitchen. The kitchen is my domain and stomping grounds, so I wanted to take extra time to make sure that it was exactly how I wanted it to be. We have some pretty snazzy cabinetry that allows for ultimate space maximization.



If you have the capacity to make some changes in your kitchen cabinets, here are some recommendations:

Lazy Susan’s that pull out of the cabinet





Custom, adjustable shelves – be sure that you can fit your tall bottles of olive oil and other assorted cooking liquids



Deep, enormous pantry – mine goes at least 7 cans deep.



As you can see, I use my pantry door as a little note place – great for keeping the recycling schedule handy + our calendar of what’s going on. No better place than the pantry door!



Drawers for pots & pans – this is just a must



Cookie sheet cupboard (I don’t have this )

...but I do have a great refrigerator!



Built-in drawer organizers (for things like spoons, forks, etc.)
(Don't have this either - I just do it myself and keep it civilized.)


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Becoming a Homeowner

Yep. It’s official. We’re homeowners! Now, never did I ever think that becoming a homeowner would take so much time, energy and effort, not to mention, organization. Maybe that just comes with any house, whether you rent or own, but regardless – we have incurred major changes here in our little gray house with the red door. We’ve upgraded our 850 square foot downtown condo overlooking Elliott Bay on the Puget Sound to an adorable Pottery Barn-esque 2200 square foot craftsman house in a nice peaceful, quiet neighborhood in the east central area of Seattle proper.



As I change the tone and pace of this blog, I plan to discuss organizational challenges that I am facing as a homeowner, projects that we’re tackling to make our home functional, things I’m learning, some of my favorite finds (expect a lot of Pottery Barn!) and lots of random tid bits and some fun photos.



A few of our projects thus far + many more to come:

• Re-designing the master bedroom closet
• Creating a gear room closet
• Filing system for paperwork
• Making the storage room functional
• Kitchen cabinet storage maximization
• Cabinet shelf placement and customization
• …one other non-organization surprise that we’re dealing with



Stay tuned for great tips, especially with the holidays coming up, I have big plans for this site! 

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New Blog Posts Coming SOON!

I am busy planning and writing away for my updated blog posts from a new perspective as a homeowner with more space than I know what to do with! Please stay tuned...

For now, here are some pictures of our first project.... the closet!







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Update

Since I last wrote, many things in life have changed! I have busily been preparing myself for home ownership... a new type of organizational challenge to undertake and anticipate with great joy!



Our new house is darling. It is the epitome of a perfect Pottery Barn house. The house is recently renovated, so it doesn't need much in the form of improvements... other than organizational improvements! :)

I have never been so excited about an organizational project as I am about the ones I am about to undertake. Stay tuned for exciting updates about Organized Ali as I take on the life of a home owner.

As a teaser, here are some of my first organizational projects:

*How to unpack your house without drowning in boxes and stress
*Make the kitchen more functional with lazy Susan's and other cabinet helpers
*Completely redesign the master closet
*Build a shed for the backyard and incorporate some unique, creative organizers
*Maximize our storage space
*Create a completely new and updated filing and bill pay system, now that we have taken on new and more important bills (aka mortgage payments!)


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Moving

One of my absolute least favorite things to do is move. I love change, don’t get me wrong, but the physical act of moving is not something I, or most people, enjoy in the least. Hopefully these tidbits of helpful hints will make moving a little bit more streamlined and as positive of an experience as possible. I must say, once everything is all moved in I do love unpacking the boxes and finding a place for everything and organizing all of my belongings – that’s the fun part. But the stuff you have to do before that is not fun.


I am beginning a mental preparation for moving. We have been house-hunting now for seven long months. We have to be getting closer to the finish line by now, right? I am assuming that we will be packing our own belongings into our own boxes this time around (the last time we moved I sat in the kitchen and watched so gratefully as the movers wrapped and packed all of our boxes for us. That was so blissfully wonderful I can’t even tell you.), so the first step for me will be to go on a man-hunt for boxes and stock up on newspaper, packing tape and permanent markers. The best boxes I have found have come from liquor stores, golf courses, restaurants, grocers, gas stations and any boxes you have received in the mail (say from Amazon or Zappos, etc).

In conjunction with my box hunt, I will ultimately clear out a space in my condo for all of the moving supplies and packed boxes to be stored until moving day. Likely, that space will be our den. It is the most secluded area in our home at this time, and I can avoid looking at the mess, as I would have to do every day if all of this were to be stored in our living room (the only other viable space in our current digs – hence why we’re moving).

I have been employing the philosophy “if I pack, the house will come” – similar to “if you build it, they will come” – you know, from the movie Field of Dreams. So, I have been slowly knocking out a few boxes here and there. My strategy goes like this: start in the storage room and make sure that everything is boxed up and can easily be pulled out come moving day; then move into your kitchen cabinets to pack up the duplicates or the items you infrequently use, such as the china, the extra linens, etc.; then work your way to the bedroom and pack up any out-of-season clothes (this will be a challenge for me, here in Seattle, as it is June 20 and we are still in the thick of winter with no sign of spring ahead) and shoes, as well as jackets and any sporting equipment that is out-of-season. Another day, I would grab some boxes and work on the office – I am not going to be reading my book collection between now and the time of the big move, I don’t think, so that can be packed up and closed off; along with the stuff we store in the office – cords, wires, connect-y things, office supplies – all of this can be packed up in advance, if you ask me.

To keep me sane, I do like to chip away at the task of packing a little bit at a time to avoid a stressful situation just prior to closing on our perspective new home.

In the week or two before the big move, it will be important to determine what the most important belongings you have are – things like the coffee pot, a few place settings (plates, bowls, glasses, flatware, coffee mugs) toiletries, the computer(s), a few outfits to wear, etc. Keep these useable, but at this time, it will be necessary to pack the extras – linens, mixers, pantry items, and so on. I would pack these last-minute items in a box labeled just that – “Last Minute Items” so you know that is a box that needs to be unpacked before everything else, once you’re in your new space. You could also pack your last minute clothes and towels in a duffel bag or suitcase.

A cross-country or International move will require an enormous amount of patience and flexibility. Trust me on this one. I moved from Minnesota out here to Seattle nearly two years ago and it was not the biggest piece of cake, ever. The movers changed the date they would arrive with all of our stuff several times, which made it very frustrating and difficult to plan for. But, we did turn the experience into a mini-vacation – we packed up our suitcases and headed to the lake for a week of fun and relaxation while our moving truck was en-route to Seattle. We flew out to Seattle with those two oversized suitcases, hoping to arrive the day before the moving truck, so that we wouldn’t have to be in our new home without anything to eat on or sleep on in the meantime. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, as the moving truck was several days late (how long, really, does it take to drive a truck from the Midwest to the west coast??? I’ve done that drive in 2 days!) That was an experience I do not wish to repeat anytime soon.

Some tips I have for you, as someone who has moved 6 times in 3 years and 8 times in 4 years (so, 14 times in 7 years?):

• Label correctly: when I hired movers who packed – they did an absolutely horrible job at correctly labeling my boxes. My bedding was in a box marked “Kitchen” and my pots and pans were in a box labeled “Office Supplies.” This was very frustrating because there are things that you want to get unpacked before others – bedding is one of those things, especially when it is brand new and you need to wash and dry it before the end of moving day. I also suggest labeling two sides of each box, as well, so that you can see what is in a box if it is in a stack with other boxes.

• Things alike go in the same box: this will simplify and streamline the process, come moving day and unpacking day(s). I suggest labeling every box with the room it is to go into along with an in-depth contents list.

• Don’t over-pack: make sure that you can still lift your box without the bottom bowing out – that would be a horrible experience if the box split open at the bottom (especially if it was filled with something fragile).

• Use high-quality tape and use it well: if your tape doesn’t hold up, your box could break or it could come open and spill everything out.

Summer is usually a fairly busy moving time – be sure to call ahead to rent your moving truck or to hire your movers. They will probably ask you questions about the size of your home, the number of boxes you have and your location to determine the size and quantity of the truck(s). We live in a condo in downtown Seattle, so we have a lot of hoops to jump through here with our HOA – paying a fee, reserving the “moving elevator” and making sure we reserve a parking space for the moving truck(s) since it’s on a busy street. After we move, we’ll have none of that nonsense to worry about anymore!

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Inbox Reduction

A little while back I read a fantastic book that was recommended to me called “Organize Yourself with Office 2007.” One of the focal points of this great text was about how many “inboxes” we have. Thinking about all of the places where we store new information is outrageous. One personal goal I have, since reading this book, is to limit all of the inboxes I have, specifically in my office.

To give you a better idea of what I mean when I say “inbox” here is a short list of inboxes that I have at work:

• E-mail inbox
• Mailbox
• Voicemail box on office phone
• Voicemail box on cell phone
• Paper messages to return a phone call
• Text messages from employees on cell phone
• Six stackable baskets for things that are coming in that I need to deal with, categorized of course
• To-do list on paper to add all of the items coming in that I need to deal with

That’s a lot! And that was just a quick 60 second brainstorm that didn’t even go into personal inboxes.

Honestly, inside that list of work-related inboxes there aren’t many spots where I can trim down and reduce incoming information overload. I can’t just cut out my voicemail on my office phone or cell, nor can I stop receiving e-mail (though I often wish I didn’t get so many e-mails!). But what I can do is manage how I store all of the information in my inboxes.
Six stackable baskets for things that are coming in that I need to deal with is a bit much, eh. I have reduced this substantially. Now, I really have one basket with things that I need to deal with, and the remaining five baskets are for filing things that I’m either working on or need to refer back to. I even turned one of those baskets into an outbox (things I need to mail).

One thing that I used to rely on heavily was little notes ALL OVER MY DESK. Those started cluttering everything and becoming a nuisance and getting lost among each other, so I have discontinued that habit. Instead – I create fewer notes but have a category for the notes. For example, I run an educational program where one of my responsibilities is to put together materials for my staff. Instead of having 17 notes all over my desk saying that Joe needs x, y, z and Jenna needs a, d, t and Hannah needs t, u, v, I have a list of who needs what materials. This sounds so trivial and obvious, but it has made such a big difference in my sanity. Oh, and I got some super cute Anne Taintor sticky notes that say “I dreamed my whole desk was clean.” They make me smile.

It’s the little things that you can do during your workday to make the 8-12 hours you spend there more organized and entertaining. Reducing my inboxes and information intake has been a minor adjustment to a major change.

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Anne Taintor and all her wit

By now, you have to know of my love for sticky notes, notepads, notebooks and anything related to writing a note. I prefer handwritten notes in any capacity, than those written electronically. I have a moderate obsession with notes; however, after a recent discovery of a new notepad designer, that obsession has reached a new level.



After 3M, my favorite note designer is Anne Taintor. Her products are absolutely hysterical. My good friend turned me on to her when she sent me postcards that were designed by Anne Taintor, then she started sending me notepads and my life had taken a turn for the best.
This is the first notepad I received, so eloquently stating “Just file it under “who cares?””:



Some more of my favorites from my good friend, Anne Taintor and her collection titled “Modern Office Revisited”:



The simple pleasures, like witty notepads, that give me a smile on the toughest days are worth every penny.
Anne Taintor’s products can be found on her website: www.annetaintor.com and in specialty stores or boutiques across the country.




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Recipe Organization

I love to cook. I love trying out as many new recipes and ways to prepare a dish as possible. Recently, I subscribed to two new cooking magazines, one of which has at least 100 different recipes in each issue. With great excitement, I rip out the recipes and add them to my pile of recipes to try. Unfortunately, that pile grows faster than I can keep up with it! I decided recently to combat that pile and get some order to its unruliness.




Initially my loose recipe pile was stashed in a bulging manila file folder. Well, three bulging manila file folders, to be exact. It was a mess, at the very least. As if that wasn’t enough, my cookbook cupboards couldn’t fit another darn thing in them (that’s another story…). I had recently seen a recipe book where you can protect recipes in sheet protectors bound together in a 3-ring binder and separated by category. Of course this could be a do-it-yourself project – find a plain old 3-ring binder, buy a ginormous package of sheet protectors and some file dividers and call it a day. I however decided that since this binder would house all of my very best recipes it needed to have a bit of style and class.

I scoured the web. I mean scoured. I needed to find the perfect recipe storage book. One of the most important components to my perspective purchase is the categories of foods that would separate the recipes I was going to store. I wanted something that didn’t just break the sections into “breakfast,” “lunch,” and “dinner;” but had some thought into them – baking is too generic, it needed to be separated into “desserts” and “bread” (I would have liked to have added “pastries” too, but I guess that was too much to ask) and pasta needed its own special place (right up front) – it doesn’t quite fit in the “main course” section with the chicken marsala. I think that I was more dedicated to my quest for the perfect recipe storage book than I was to some of my college research papers!



Finally, after hours of searching and days of pondering, I made my decision: the C.R. Gibson Pocket Page Recipe Book in Paddock Shawl.

And I thought that was going to be the hard part.

The hard part was fitting my recipes in the darn book! Let’s be real here, I have probably 14 cookbooks and several hundred loose recipes (not to mention hundreds of recipes stored in online recipe books) – how likely is it that I am ever going to cook even half of the recipes I have? Probably highly unlikely. I love to try new things, but don’t get me wrong, I do have a staple of “go-to” recipes in my back pocket when nothing else sounds good – I do tend to stick with familiar recipes I can trust. That means I must consolidate my enormous recipe collection and become a little bit more realistic. I really cut down - I probably recycled at least 100 recipes. Now, my recipe book is basically complete and I can actually find everything without sorting through hundreds of loose recipes. Every recipe has its place and I still have a little bit more room to add fun new recipes as I find them.


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Take Back Your Life with Microsoft Office 2007

I have recently begun employing a new work organization model. After my to-do list continued to grow and grow and grow I was compensating by working long, long days – getting up earlier every morning, working in the evenings and even on weekends, I decided that this is not a healthy lifestyle choice I wish to continue making.



Though I have a wide-range of natural organizational skills, it is still sometimes enlightening or groundbreaking to read books or articles about organizational strategies that have been successful for other people. One book I am just getting into is called “Take Back Your Life with Microsoft Office 2007.” The main idea of the book is becoming far more organized in your daily work routines by prioritizing and scheduling out your time efficiently and effectively. My hope of a takeaway from this book is to be able to be more productive in 8-9 hours per day than I was in 9-11 hours per day.

You can bear witness to me surrendering my old habits and bowing down to a new work organization model. I will accomplish my priorities in a smaller amount of time and really be able to focus and work towards my daily objectives, which I will spend time each morning outlining.

I will continue to write more about how my office organization is taking off, as well as what you can do to make your work-life more organized.

P.S.: I heard a great interview question recently that I am going to start asking: “Describe the organizational style of your sock drawer.” There’s a freebee if you ever interview with me!

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Online Document Management

I am always looking for new ideas for storing files on my computer. I have a very meticulous organizational system of my documents; however, there are several inter-office documents that I refer to regularly and share with several members of my work team. I recently looked into Google Docs, as well as a few other document sharing websites and think I have found the Golden Ticket.




Check out Google Docs at: www.docs.google.com and you can see for yourself how great it is.

Why I like Google Docs: it is so easy to share documents and for others to make amendments to those documents without having to e-mail them back and forth, as well as the document that is on the screen is always live. You can control if other people can edit the document or if they can just view it.

Ideas for what to share on Google Docs:

• Spreadsheets
• Inter-office documents or information
• Travel plans and documentations
• Event logistics

How to upload & share a doc:
• Visit www.docs.google.com
• Log in (you don’t have to have a gmail/google account – you can use whatever e-mail address you have) or create a log in.
• Click “upload” on the upper left-hand side
• Click “select file to upload”
• Select the file you wish to upload
• Click “start upload”
• Click “share” and insert the e-mail addresses of friends/colleagues you want to share with
• Determine if the people you’re sharing with can view or edit the document(s)
• Save & close – and you’re set!
.
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New Year, New Resolutions

Wow, has it really been almost 5 months since I’ve last written? In those last 5 months my time has been really precious. I can come up with every excuse in the book for why I haven’t written, but the best one is that I didn’t make time to write. Really, I sit in front of my computer for 8-10+ hours at work, and why would I want to come home and only sit in front of my computer again? Well, read on to hear about my new years’ resolutions as they relate to you.



2009 was a great year for me. I got a new job followed by a promotion, which I love; I had three powder ski days and took a ski trip to Deer Valley and Whistler; I found out the hard way I am allergic to shellfish – but am forever grateful that I have remained very healthy throughout and even lost 8 pounds! With all of that and much, much more, 2009 has been one of the busiest years ever. I had to put new systems into practice in my own life and would love to share some things that have worked well for me and some things that have not worked out so well. At three days into the New Year, I have much anticipation that 2010 will be about 4 times busier than last year.

In the last 4-5 months or so my job became a lot busier. During that busy, stressful time I learned a lot about myself, what I do to control stress and how to manage my time more efficiently and the ways that work best for me to organize and use my time efficiently. In the next several posts I will be writing both about some new years’ resolutions I made with regard to organization of my life, as well as writing about being more productive in the workplace.

Effective immediately I will be limiting my workday to 9 hours at the most per day, which means that I will have to be extra productive, use my time in the most efficient manner and prioritize. More to follow in another post… My home life will need to become a little more planned, also. Instead of exhausting myself during the workday and coming home at 8:00, fixing dinner and vegetating on the couch in front of HGTV I will be coming home promptly by 5:30 whenever possible and making the most out of my evenings at home, either sitting in front of the computer writing my beloved blog, working on growing (ok, starting) my calligraphy business, reading a book for fun, exercising, spending some time outside, getting things done around the house, productively running errands, or preparing a delicious and healthy dinner. Of course there is much more that encompasses my life than that, but I am focusing on the organizational elements of maximizing my time at work and at home in order to fulfill my responsibilities and routines.

The last 4-5 months have been very enlightening for me. I feel like I’m actually a real person living in the real world now that I have seen the stress and heavy work-load that I did. This makes me even more equipped to write this blog.

I am so excited for the new and exciting challenges that this New Year will bring. I look forward to sharing with you how I deal with the organizational challenges and dilemmas I face along the way.

Cheers!

-Alison

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