Christmas Holiday Ideas

Organizing tips for this years Christmas countdown can help if you have you found that Christmas has snuck up on you.

Do you find yourself with a million undone things to do and feel like there is no time to do it?

Are you in a panic? Christmas is a season to be enjoyed, being organized and having a plan can be the best way to take the stress out of this season.

Brian Tracy, a productivity and success expert, advises that for every minute of planning you save ten minutes in execution so sit down, get planning.

So how do you organize an unorganized Christmas?

Create your personal organized plan:

BRAINSTORM

Sit down for ten to twenty minutes and brainstorm everything you need to do for this holiday on a page of paper. Purge your mind. Let everything out and get it written down. It doesn’t matter if it is messy, out of order or makes no sense.

The purpose is to declutter your mind of those repetitive thoughts that are just ideas at the moment.

MAKE LISTS

Your Christmas Countdown involves three main categories: Gifts, Greetings and Food.

This can be done in front of the T.V. one evening. They can be messy. You can change them. But having a list as a reference takes so much stress out of what you have to do.

MAKE A GIFT LIST

This will include family, friends and those small gifts you need for school and work.

Estimate the price of each gift and what store it will be purchased from so you can estimate a quick budget and organize purchases. This one tip alone will save tons of time.

MAKE A GREETINGS LIST

This will include Christmas Cards, phone calls and e-mails. You may want to start a contact Christmas list that just needs to be modified every year.

Creating a master contact list for Christmas will make those Christmas cards quicker to do and makes keeping in touch with friends and family a lot easier, as well as giving you a jumpstart on Christmas planning.

ORGANIZE FOOD – MENU PLAN AND GROCERY LIST

Make a menu plan and grocery list at the same time. Once you have your Christmas menu plan, check what you have in your kitchen.

You can even do a quick declutter and organize as you do this and then make your Christmas grocery list. Once you have your list you can delegate some of the shopping.

GROUP SIMILAR TASKS TOGETHER

This organizing tip alone can be your biggest time saver. Look at your lists and group purchases that are made in the same area together. Do your Christmas Cards, and e-mails in one evening and complete this task. Save errands until you have several things to do in the same area and then do them together.

Grouping tasks together means you save time by not making so many trips, get multiple tasks done with one effort and frees up your time.

SCHEDULE WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

Once you have your lists and you have grouped similar things together, schedule your shopping, decluttering, organizing and cleaning.

The idea behind making a schedule is you are blocking out time to get specifics tasks done. This creates focus and energy and gets a lot more done in a lot less time.

Keep these four simple organizing tips in mind to put the sanity back into your Christmas countdown. Make a plan by brainstorming everything you need to do, make three master lists for gifts, greeting and food, group similar tasks together and schedule what you need to do.