Small Projects with Big Payoffs for the Upcoming Holidays
With Halloween in the rearview mirror, several major holidays will be here before you know it.
A little advance planning, a few checklists and you’ll be on your way.
Here are a few ideas to help you ease into the holiday season:
Holiday Cards
Holiday cards.
These can be made early online with services like Shutterfly, Minted, Tiny Prints and more.
I make our personal cards early each year once I have a good photo and then let the card live in my account until the sales roll out; then I order.
Yesterday, with 50% off cards at Shutterfly and free shipping, I ordered ours.
BTW, I do not earn a commission for recommending these sites.
Holiday labels.
I LOVE to make fun holiday labels for our cards.
Of course, you can also upload a mailing address list to the sites listed previously and let them address and even mail your cards for you.
If you prefer to make “fun” mailing labels – check out Avery.
You can make custom labels using their fun templates, or make your own.
I do both. For our personal cards, I use one of their templates, but for the Eliminate Chaos cards, I make our own label.
For both sets of labels, I have an Excel spreadsheet with name, address, city, state and zip. (Our Eliminate Chaos cards also include the company name).
You can merge the data to Avery to one of their fun designs.
Throughout the year, update your address spreadsheet, database, or wherever you store this information to have it ready for the holidays.
Be sure to order online the type of label you want to use, based off the label template you choose. I order all of our labels from Amazon since they always have the correct size in the quantities needed.
These labels really do make the front of your cards look amazing, without too much effort – and you can do this in advance.
Stamps.
As soon as I start seeing holiday stamps, it’s time to stock up.
Sometimes I’ll purchase them at Costco if they carry the holiday ones. They are less expensive than buying them at USPS.
Sometimes I order them in advance from USPS and have them shipped.
One less line to stand in and then I have them ready to go.
If you are not into sending Holiday Cards – you know what? That is great too.
You’ve just saved yourself a lot of time, expense and maybe some headaches trying to figure out what picture to use – or card to buy.
You can cross a few things off your list right now!
Kitchen Prep
The kitchen is the one place in your home that seems to be the central gathering place for meals, entertaining and of course, cooking.
Why not prep your kitchen now?
Even if you’re not entertaining or cooking for the holidays, here are some helpful tips:
Take stock.
You need to know what food you have on hand now – in both your pantry and kitchen – depending on where you store it so you know what you have and don’t need to buy more of.
This will help you cut down on what you may need to buy and give you an opportunity to use up some things before they expire.
Start a list of what you need to purchase to re-stock or for any special items you will be cooking.
Organize your pantry or where you store food in the kitchen.
It doesn’t have to be Instagram worthy, you just need to be able to see what you have on hand.
And, it needs to be easy for you to quickly make a list of what you need to purchase for your holiday meals based on the recipes.
Group similar food items together, for example: baking items, spices, seasons, oils, snacks, breakfast items, chips, crackers, canned goods (sorted by type), condiments, etc. You might be surprised at how much you have on hand.
If there are things you are never going to use/eat – donate them to a local food bank. (Be sure to check expiration dates as not all food banks will accept expired items.)
Guest Bedroom Prep
If you will be hosting guests for the holidays, start now by clearing out some space in the room and the closet for their clothes.
Why is it that the guest rooms becomes a dumping ground inside the house?
Maybe because it’s a room in the house that is not used often, so it’s easy to set things in there and forget about them.
It’s what I call the room of “unmade decisions.”
Set a timer for 20 minutes and see how many things you can remove from the room by putting them in their proper location, or letting go if the item(s) no longer serve a purpose.
Repeat this once a day until the room is cleared out.
You may not have a “proper” location for all of the items right now – and that’s OK, the goal is to clear the room for your guests.
If the closet doesn’t have extra hangers for clothing, be sure to add some.
Make some cards – doesn’t have to be fancy – with your Wi-Fi information on it for guests so they don’t have to ask. Be sure to include the Wi-Fi name and password.
No time? No Problem.
Call us for expert assistance to quickly cross more things off your list!
425-670-2551
We can tackle any of these items – and more for you to make the holiday season a little less stressful for you.
Wishing you sustainable organization and purposeful productivity.
