Planning

You Can Make Every Day Earth Day

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Earth Day rolls around once a year to remind us to practice the three R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle.  Many of us take advantage of the convenient and local events to recycle those old electronics, athletic shoes, worn out books, burnt out light bulbs, and stacks of papers that need to be shredded.

You may have been collecting and storing these items since last Earth Day. After all, you don’t want to contribute any of them to the landfills.

It is a great and noble thing to take care of our earth. But if you are using your home as a temporary trash storage area while waiting for the once a year Earth Day events then that could be a big problem.

You don’t deserve to live in a trash dump!

Take advantage of this Earth Day to gather the information about places you can take items to be recycled year round. Newspapers (online and printed) are writing articles and listing websites and local addresses at this time. Create a folder, either on the computer or paper, to keep this information.

In August, when you take advantage of the back to school sales on computers you can look up where to recycle the old one. The same with all those outgrown rubber athletic shoes. Or those burnt out CFL light bulbs.

Many stores such as Best Buy now have bins to recycle small electronics year round. I know my local city has curbside recycling plus lots of schools now have the big metal bins for recycling. I’ve even noticed ones that are for recycling old clothes.

So there are lots of places to recycle your stuff everyday and feel good about taking care of the Earth. Just make sure you take as good as care of your own home. You deserve it!

To a lighter load along the way.

Janice

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Stressed Out About the Holidays?

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Our expectation for the holidays is to always make this year the best year ever! But as it gets closer and closer the stress builds when we realize there is still so much to do and very little time left to do it.

If you find yourself getting stressed out each year then you may have what I call Pre-Holiday Syndrome. The media, movies, and even your own memories (often distorted) promote expectations of a wonderful Christmas that we should all aspire to having. For most people it’s unrealistic and we set ourselves up for unnecessary stress. Don’t buy into it!

Decide what is realistic and important for you and your family. Here is an article I wrote with lots of tips to help you have a realistic, happy, and less stressful holiday.

Pre-Holiday Syndrome

To find more time to get things done be sure to check out the 10 Time Wasters at the end of the article.

Janice

P.S. Be sure to check out my new Facebook Page. Become a fan and keep updated with lots of tips on decluttering and organizing.

https://cutclutterwithscissors.com

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How To Prevent Holiday Clutter

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A couple of weeks ago (before my computer crash) I sent out a newsletter listing things you can do to help prevent cluttering up your holidays with too many things to do and/or buy. Here is the list again. I’ve included links to articles I have written that can give you more information and tips on those subjects. Planning ahead will help you keep your life and finances under control.

1. Make a list of who you are buying gifts for. On this list write out what you want to buy this person and how much you can spend (maximum).

2. Always take this list with you when you go shopping. It will help you stick to your budget and make it less likely to get caught up in the marketing ploys the stores use to get you to buy what they think you need.

3. Plan out your holiday meal on paper. List what dishes each guest will be bringing (if you do it this way). Confirm this with your guests a couple of weeks ahead of time so they will be organized.

4. Check all your recipes and write down any ingredients you will need to buy. Buy non-perishables a week or two ahead. Buy the perishables a few days ahead of the day.

5. Make out your holiday card list before you buy those cards. Check out my article, “Holiday Greeting Card System” for more information. http://bit.ly/aXvbwE

6. If you are traveling this holiday season you can make a Travel Planner that will help you pack the things you need and leave home the things you don’t need. (clutter) http://bit.ly/bt3WlX

If you haven’t already signed up to get my free newsletter be sure to do so now. You don’t want to miss out on any tips. Plus you get a free eBook filled with tips for year round decluttering and organizing. You can sign up on the sidebar of this blog or go to my website. https://cutclutterwithscissors.com

Janice

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Computer Crash–Safety Back-ups

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I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I enjoyed having my sons and daughter-in-law visiting during the week. I didn’t have much time to write any blog posts nor did my newsletter make it out last week. It really wasn’t because of visitors as much as it was because my computer crashed.

If you’ve ever had a computer crash then you know how frustrating it can be. I was having withdrawal symptoms all week. I was able to check emails on an old slow laptop but even that got frustrating. Fortunately my younger son is an IT guy and was able to save my computer. I have an external hard drive for back-ups so that helped.

Which brings me to the point of this post – do you have a back-up system in place? Whether you save important information on paper or electronically or both you should have some sort of back-up system. There are lots of ways to do this but it will take a little work on your part. Here are a few suggestions.

Important papers:

1. Keep the originals in a safe-deposit box and copies at home.

2. If you don’t have a safe-deposit box then keep the originals at home and copies with a trusted family member.

3. Make electronic copies and keep in the safe-deposit box or with family member.

Electronic (computer) information:

1. Make sure you back up information on an external hard drive, flash drive, or CD on at least a weekly basis.

2. Taxes, financial, photos, and any other vital information should be backed up on two separate back-up devices. Each time I back up my Quicken I alternate two CD’s plus it’s automatically backed up on the external hard drive each week.

3. A second copy of the information should be stored in a safe-deposit box or with a trusted family member. In case of a fire, storm damage, etc. you want to be able to reconstruct the lost information without a huge nightmare.

I still haven’t loaded all my programs back on the computer but each day I’ll take care of a few more. My son was able to restore all of my stored info on the new hard drive. I think I’ll take some of my own advice and buy some flash drives to keep an extra copy in the safe-deposit box.

We’re so dependent on these computers now. You just don’t know when they may crash! Good back-up systems can keep the panic level down to a manageable point.

Janice

P.S. I now have a Facebook page. Please become a fan to get more tips on decluttering and organizing. http://bit.ly/99D10k

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The Holiday Rush Has Started!

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The holiday rush has already started! There’s Thanksgiving to prepare for. Holiday cards need to be bought along with presents for Hanukkah and Christmas.

As Willy Wonka said:

“So much time, and so little to do! Strike that, reverse it.”

The cooking shows and magazines are giving ideas about how to make a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner along with having the best Christmas or Hanukkah ever. In theory, it looks and sounds great. In reality, it’s a whole other story.

Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas can be simple and great at the same time. All three holidays are celebrating: being grateful, hard work, miracles, and compassion and understanding for our fellow man/woman. If we think about these basic reasons for celebrating it will be easier to keep from being caught up in the commercialism of fancy cooking, elaborate decorations, and over the top and expensive gifts.

To help counteract the media pushing us into believing these high expectations we need to have a written plan for the holiday season. The best way to do this is to create a notebook and write out your plans for each holiday you will celebrate. These plans should include what you want to accomplish and by what date.

Here are some links to help with the planning of Thanksgiving:

http://www.oceanspray.com/planit/essentials/planning_book.aspx

http://www.bhg.com/holidays/thanksgiving/planning/

If you don’t know where to get started with Christmas then Flylady.net has some great information.

http://www.flylady.net/pages/HolidayCruising1.asp

I have written an article on how to set up a holiday card system that I’ve used for years. It may take a little time to set up at first if you have a lot of people on your list, but in future years it will save you tons of time. You can check it out here:

http://bit.ly/aXvbwE

If you are mailing gifts this holiday season then check out the USPS site for dates. Write in your notebook who you want to mail gifts to and when you need to buy them and mail them. You may want to mark your main calendar with the “mail by” dates to make sure you aren’t late.

http://www.usps.com/holiday/shippingcalendar.htm?from=home_ftpromo&page=holidaymaildates

Below are links a few more links to help with Thanksgiving planning. I’ll be adding links for Hanukkah and Christmas on the next blog post. Be sure to check back soon.

turkey

*Thanksgiving Day – Thursday, November 25

http://www.butlerwebs.com/holidays/thanksgiving.htm

http://www.history.com/content/thanksgiving

http://holidays.kaboose.com/thanksgiving/

http://www.holidays.net/thanksgiving/

Janice

https://cutclutterwithscissors.com

http://twitter.com/jlscissors

If you have piles of paper clutter then you need to get my eBook, “Cut Out The Paper Clutter”. It can help you clear out the piles and organize the important papers.

3Debook_Clutter8 http://organizebythemonth.com/CutOutThePaperClutter.html

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