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686 - December Planning Energy is Here! Decorating, Shopping, and Planning for December

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

Release Date: 11/28/2025

Coffee Chat: New Year, New You Enrollment Event + Webinar show art Coffee Chat: New Year, New You Enrollment Event + Webinar

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

You made it! All the holiday stuff is done. It’s the day after Christmas and you are finally coming up for air. You finally have a minute to think about what you need on this bonus day as your family is entertained with their new stuff.  Well I have a couple of treats for you.  I know on Black Friday, you were shopping for others. But now, now that you can think about what you’d like…You’d like to upgrade your DIY Sunday Basket®. You are in luck because when you get the Sunday Basket®, now till the end of the year, you will also get a portable Sunday Basket®! That’s a...

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690 - Purposeful Transitions: How to Prepare and Plan For a New Season show art 690 - Purposeful Transitions: How to Prepare and Plan For a New Season

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

Happy Boxing Day! Let’s talk about transitions and what you need to declutter or add to resemble where you are going. We are all transitioning into the new year. I’m sharing the smallest shift you can make to be more intentional with what you want to get out of 2026. How are you planning with that anticipatory energy of things to come when the ball drops at midnight on New Years Eve? Transition So yes, we are all transitioning into a new year. We have this anticipatory energy as to what could happen for us in 2026.  For me personally I’m thinking about a “new me” too. I know...

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689 - Christmas Sanity Savers show art 689 - Christmas Sanity Savers

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

We are in it! There’s no time left to plan anything so how can you still be proactive and ahead of things? I’m sharing my sanity saving tips to meet you and your family’s needs and still show up as your best self in these last couple of weeks in December. We are in those flexible strange last weeks of the year so what can you do to save your sanity?  Event Go Bags If you only have time to implement one thing - this is it! Event go bags are like the go back you should have packed to grab at a moment’s notice so you have the things you need while you are away from home for an...

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688 - Best Laid Plans With Sarah Hart Unger show art 688 - Best Laid Plans With Sarah Hart Unger

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

Are you ready to hear all about Sarah Hart Unger’s new book, “Best Laid Plans”? I learned new things from reading it and in this podcast I hope you too learn new ways to make yourself more efficient. Then grab your copy of her book.  There are few people who love to plan as much as me and Sarah is one of them. Sarah shared all about planning with school aged children, how she’s overcoming distractions and how to still dream. Closed Systems Input She had me by page 14! She was talking about all the input from closed systems that we are all overwhelmed with between an...

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687 - Taking Advantage of the End of the Year, Decluttering & Planning Energy show art 687 - Taking Advantage of the End of the Year, Decluttering & Planning Energy

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

I feel it and I know you do too. That decluttering and planning energy is starting to bubble up but who has time to deal with that? No one. We’re all stuck in this purgatory of sorts where Thanksgiving is done but there’s a lul until the December holiday that you celebrate. So I’m sharing best practices to harness that energy, use it for good, but all delay doing anything about it, for just a little bit. Decluttering You are waiting for all your purchases to arrive. You know what people are getting or even yourself and you want to purge the old. But wait! If you purge toys now, what will...

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686 - December Planning Energy is Here! Decorating, Shopping, and Planning for December show art 686 - December Planning Energy is Here! Decorating, Shopping, and Planning for December

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

Let’s revisit some characteristics of December energy because last week you were deep in Thanksgiving energy and you may have missed a few things I suggested planning. Do we all agree the energy has shifted? Even though the calendar still says November, we’re all in December! After the Big Meal The dishes have been cleaned and the company has gone home. Now what? You have a couple of days before you return to your normal weekly routines. Now is the time to plan so you can be a proactive holiday person instead of reactive. This is the time to prevent stress and over spending. It’s never...

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685 - The 3 Organization Essential F's of Thanksgiving: Food, Family & Fun show art 685 - The 3 Organization Essential F's of Thanksgiving: Food, Family & Fun

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

Are you ready for the 6 busiest weeks of the year? Let’s zoom out and look at our family, our houses, and events to orchestrate a place of planning, purpose, and memory making. I wanted to share the energy I feel this time of year and how I manage my expectations of myself and others during this busy season.  Fed People are Happy People When I think ahead and plan the food component of Thanksgiving I have much lower stress. Once you get the day before the holiday off of work/school, the day of Thanksgiving, and the next day, plus the weekend; you now need to plan food for 5-7 days....

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684 - Technology is Making Me and My House Dumb show art 684 - Technology is Making Me and My House Dumb

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

All these advanced technologies are supposed to be saving us time right? I ask you “Is it saving you time?” Our devices, robots, and social media seem to be sucking up a lot of time and cognitive load.  In my observation, it seems to me, I am spending more time on apps, updates, and managing robots and getting frustrated than saving time. I just wanted to have a conversation about what I am seeing and hear from you…you too? Smart Homes You all know the struggle I have had with our robot vacuum. I finally had waited out the lease on the last one that never seemed to connect to wifi...

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683 - PTO Time Just for ME! Modern Self Care show art 683 - PTO Time Just for ME! Modern Self Care

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

This may have been a first, once we decided to not go to Italy, I decided to take my full planned vacation and Greg decided to go back to work. We had our 4 day staycation but the rest of the planned time off was all mine. How did I spend it?  Golden Window I am definitely in a unique-to-me Golden Window. The PhD is winding down, we are making massive shifts at work, and I will soon be the grandma of two heartbeats. As I realized I was going to have a lot of time to do whatever I wanted I asked myself what that should be. I plugged Greg into my calendar with the things we wanted to do....

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682 - Italy Was Cancelled. My Staycation With My Husband show art 682 - Italy Was Cancelled. My Staycation With My Husband

Organize 365: Productivity Tips for Home and Life Organization

I know, I’m full of shocking news lately. Yes, we cancelled Italy again! I started to feel like we were really pushing this trip through and it was causing a lot of anxiety. Plan B became a staycation. I can’t wait to tell you what we did! Cancellation Reasons Everyone encouraged me to not cancel the trip. Four days before we were supposed to leave I turned to Greg and said “We can’t go to Italy.” And he completely agreed. I didn’t buy the insurance this time but we are able to recoup most of that money as long as we book within a year so third times a charm hopefully!  When...

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Let’s revisit some characteristics of December energy because last week you were deep in Thanksgiving energy and you may have missed a few things I suggested planning. Do we all agree the energy has shifted? Even though the calendar still says November, we’re all in December!

After the Big Meal

The dishes have been cleaned and the company has gone home. Now what? You have a couple of days before you return to your normal weekly routines. Now is the time to plan so you can be a proactive holiday person instead of reactive. This is the time to prevent stress and over spending. It’s never about all the things we need to do. It’s the order in which we do them, when we do them, and the energy we have when we do them. I want to start to focus on what needs to be done to set up this audience for success on Saturday and Sunday or these situations when we have unique pockets of time. Here’s the plan to set you up for success as we go into December!

Before You Unpack the Holiday Decor

Let’s plan decorating your home for December.  What does it look like, smell like, and taste like in your home during December? Remember how we asked our family what they’d like for Thanksgiving? Do the same for December.  My family told me it was all about lights for them. So a few years ago I just put up what I wanted and lots of lights.  I thought for sure they’d remember a certain item so I kept everything. But no. And the next year the same. But the dread I felt knowing I had tubs of decor I didn’t want to use put a damper on wanting to decorate. After Christmas that second year of not putting out as much I convinced myself to donate all the extras…even childhood items. I felt an epic amount of guilt.  But that next year when I went to get out the decorations all I felt was relief!!  I went from trying to fulfill non-existent family expectations to minimally decorating to donating extras and decorating in record time. But now is the time or you’ll blink and it’ll be the Monday before Christmas! 

And now is the time to shop! I shop now because the lists are ever changing. This prevents me from spending in September and December thus going over budget.  Lots of time the prices go down or you get better deals like bundles.  It’s less time that I have to hide what I bought although this year Organize 365® is the delivery address of choice so I (and all employees) don’t have to hide anything.  And this is the shopping energy season. Everyone else is shopping and I love to shop so naturally I want to be shopping too! This is also the time to stock up on cards and gift cards for global gifts for people like your babysitter, teachers, amazon delivery people, your house keeper, trash collectors, and etc.

Winter Break

This is the time of year I normally plan one big outing and a couple of smaller outings. You’ll all be home and the kids will be looking for something to do and you probably don’t want to spend a bazillion dollars. You can still sleep in, I am just encouraging you to plan something each day. Usually the most fun times come from someone planning it. You can plan an activity or goal each day. I shared how I planned my extra time in episode 683. I want you to revisit it and think about how you could best provide some self care? When the break is over you will feel like you made memories, accomplished a few goals, and ready for January. 

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