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 unknown amount of time. In this instance, you will look at the calendar and place a bag, in an out of the way area, for each event. Then you're going to put some kind of clip on it to attach any notes you make to yourself about the event like grab the appetizer from the refrigerator or return the book to Aunt Betty that you want to remember as you go out the door for the event. As the date approaches, you can add items to the bag too that you want to remember to bring…maybe Aunt Betty's book.

And I strongly recommend a donation area. I know I talked about it recently that you may be getting the bug to declutter. We have January energy creeping up on us and we want things to be clean before company comes. A great free activity is decluttering with your kids. Because they are home and they are bored! But you definitely don't have time to pack everything up and head to a donation center. No problem. Create a designated area for items you may want to donate. And while decluttering you may find Aunt Betty's book which then you can place in that bag which is likely near the donation area. See how that just works out? This is the beauty of the Sunday Basket® that we all appreciate. It's one designated place for safe keeping actionable items until the time we intend to address them. I know these two spaces may create a little clutter but let's be honest most of our homes look like it's the day before laundry day right now anyway! Let's stay sane.

Two Week Big Haul

I realize this next suggestion you may have to play with your paycheck schedule now but utilize it this year and plan for it next year in your operations binder. I want you to make a grocery haul for the next two weeks. We talked about a version of this before Thanksgiving. You need snacks, meals, and more snacks. The kids are off school and people are snacking like it's their job. Think about all the appetizers or items you need to bring to any parties. Consider paper plates this year in between the meals or even for the meals too depending on your phase of life. Just decide what is right for your family. Then do it. Consider your finances and then decide what all you can do and get it done to save your sanity! You don't have time for multiple trips to the store in addition to everything else.

Final Suggestions

Gas up the car so you can get to where you need to go without having to make yourself late stopping to get gas. Make sure you have enough stamps for thank you letters or Christmas cards. And if you are stuck in the stone age with me using cash, get some cash. You never know when you'll need to pay someone back for your half of the meal or something they picked up for you. Or you could just send it on Zelle or Venmo like the cool kids. Take advantage of these tips because these last few weeks are going to be amazing!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media.

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 organization's app, Whatsapp, school apps, etc. It'd be nice if they all talked to each other…or would it be? I was so excited Grayson's school was able to populate my google calendar till I realized it was all events for the school. I guess I liked it better with manual entry but then we discussed there has to be a cadence to checking all the closed systems and knowing where to put it in your trusted system so you will see it when you need to. We also talked about the cognitive load and admin time it takes to collect all of the information that needs to be on the calendar. And for the love, people, plan your planning time; don't just try to work it into the nooks and cranny of your day.

Long Range Planning

Sarah offered such a powerful way to think of long range planning. Start with thinking of how old your children will be, you will be, and how you want life to look by that time. It's effective to zoom out to a bird's eye view to get a different perspective of time passing. I really loved that way of planning for the future and planning the next 5 years. She suggested thinking of milestones or big birthdays and how do you want to celebrate them? She envisioned a celebration which included travel for her 20th anniversary and now they are headed to HI next year to do just that. What you think about you bring about. Sarah did hers for travel but you could do it for your career, a PhD, your family, living location, type of house, or anything else.

Time Blocking

We learned something interesting here, I retroactively fill in how I spent my time if there's a blank space as a reminder to myself and my family that I did act as the wife, mother, and grandmother while I pursue my career and passions. And Sarah retroactively fills in her media use to hold herself accountable even podcasts she may have listened to. She got a gold star for having documented listening to the Organize 365® Podcast.

Time Sucks

Sarah shared that she doesn't have social media because she cannot trust herself on it. Some people can't have a little bit of chocolate and she cannot have a little bit of social media. Although we both laughed how we somehow got sucked into Reddit! I shared how I will be filling my old PhD time slot with the gym. Sarah said yes, to replace a time suck with something that you want to start to do or something more productive like audio books. We all have to fill our cups and you could be filling your cup instead of wasting time.

Planner Privilege

So imagine (these are general observations) the wife says "Let's plan next weekend." Husband replies he doesn't want to and "It always works out!" Sarah and I laughed because for the most part everything fun you have ever done was planned. It always "works out" for the other spouse because it was planned by the opposite spouse. We talked pros and cons of the white board and digital solutions. Then we talked about how you get your family involved with the system you've chosen and how to communicate the schedule. It was all so good! Listen then grab her book, "Best Laid Plans"

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Best Laid Plans by Sarah Hart Unger

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

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 they play with until Christmas (this will be my example because that's the holiday I celebrate)? I recommend starting a slash pocket for decluttering alone. This way in the future you will remember what you brain told you to declutter. You have too much going on right now and there will be time for decluttering in the last week of the year. However around the 22nd or 23rd you may wanna get a little head start. It would be fun to reward your kids for their efforts too. If you are in the Productive Home Solution, you can find certificates for the kids and it's just a fun spin on the tasks. They want to make room for the things they asked for too.

Planning

You already are experiencing that dreaming energy of what could be for 2026. Your brain is begging for a new planner and expressing dreams for 2026. In episode 681, I shared the 4 ways I will plan from now to the end of the year, and that first step is dreaming. So go ahead, make a slash pocket just for goals, then write down what comes to mind on index cards, place in your Sunday Basket for safe keeping till you have the time and energy. The time will be Planning Day because they match up to when planning energy is high for most people.

Power of the Sunday Basket@

The Sunday Basket in general is for capturing ideas when your brain has them so when you have time and energy you can do what your brain wanted you to do. In the Holiday Blitz Planning Day we divided the Sunday Basket into three Sunday Baskets®. We we delaying some ideas into the New Year Basket®, we had holiday ideas, and then one remained our weekly use Sunday Basket®. You always get a workbook that has some planner components and gets you in the planning mindset.

Finally, you get to do the planning that was brewing in early December. On December 29th at noon (CST), you will once again reorganize your Sunday Baskets® for new purposes. Planning Day Prep is first and you will clean out your weekly Sunday Basket® for a fresh start for the new year. This is when you take notes and "guides" about your family holidays and file that slash pocket back into the Household Operations Binder. This day is for filling in the workbook with the "ground work" information that will support you completing the workbook during Planning Day, go through that planning slash pocket you created, relabeling your slash pockets, and labeling your tear pads.

Now you are prepped and ready for Planning Day on December 31st at 10 am (CST). You will spend 4 hours planning the next 4 months. It's time, you have the time and the energy has been bubbling this whole time, go nuts, plan away. Remember that planning slash pocket? Now you get to decide what you take action on that your brain wanted you to remember. You will plug in your goals, play with routines you want to establish to support your goals, as well as plan around your family and work responsibilities. My childhood ritual was to get a new planner in December, May and August. I just loved leaving old objectives in the past, dreaming of what I could be, I could do, and what did I want? And now I get to teach you how to do the same for you and your house.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Planning Day

• The Productive Home Solution

• 681 - 4 Ways I Will Plan From Now to the End of the Year. Holiday Blitz, Holiday Blitz Mini Planning Day, Seasonal Sanity Savers and New Year Planning Days.

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

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.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Black Friday Sales Catalog

• Episode 683 - PTO Time Just for ME! Modern Self Care

• The Sunday Basket®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

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. Think about your own weekend habits. You eat differently, you spend differently, and you have a different energy. In my experience when people are fed they are much happier people and then I get to enjoy the holiday too. Think ahead and plan a fun breakfast, have on hand some snacky/appetizer type treats, and what meals you'll have.

Ok now, on the big day…this is a food holiday! This is NOT the holiday to try a new recipe or a spin on a favorite dish! Talk to your family and find out what foods are important to them. Do you need a whole dessert table maybe? Make sure that "certain" dish is there for the ones you love. Now that could get pricey so here's a tip to cut the budget: Ask that guests to bring their special dish. I've noticed as my eating habits have changed so too must my plate at Thanksgiving. Now I just take a few bites of everything I like and leave it at that. No need to overstuff myself and feel miserable the rest of the day.

Family

Once all the food is in place you get to catch up with all of your family. Please people manage your expectations. Lean into gratitude for the family you do have. I have lost loved ones, so I choose to be grateful for the family in the room on Thanksgiving. You may need to change a conversation or hop in a game that people are playing to avoid certain conversations.

And permission to not kill yourself cleaning. Your family is not doing a white glove inspection and they aren't going past the common spaces and a bathroom. Speaking of the bathroom, make sure you have plenty of toilet paper! You'll need lots of that and dish cloths to ensure others can help with all the dishes and cleaning up!

Fun to include everyone

I love a game being played to infuse fun into the room and include others or people who are joining your family for the first time. You may hear of someone who will be alone on Thanksgiving because loved ones have passed, or travel isn't possible, or other reasons - invite them to join you and your family! It's that much easier to make memories when fun is in the air! Break out some fun board games and put the Thanksgiving Day Parade on followed by some football.

And then it's like you have a 3 day weekend after the big day so here's what I do. I shop the Black Friday deals on my phone. Side note: I do want to thank everyone who will be working the Holidays like our first responders and retail personnel. Heads up Organize 365® will be starting our Black Friday sale on Wednesday so no one has to break from the festivities. I'm also planning to do some holiday baking and normally this is when I decorate for my holiday of choice - Christmas. I hope this helps to reduce your stress this holiday season and let's you be more present in making holiday memories.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

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 or be charged. This new one I can get charged. I can get it to connect to the wifi. I was pumped on one of my days during the staycation when all the stars had aligned and I was ready to run her. I opened the app to start her up and got a notification that I needed to update the app…no problem. I had the day off. But now there was a wifi issue. At this point, I could have burned a few calories and had my floors vacuumed but no I was still messing around with the wifi connection. The kicker? I knew once I finally got her working, she can't even complete the first floor without recharging so I couldn't even get all the floors vacuumed. I'd have to pick 3 of the 4 zones to get cleaned. Like come on people, this is not saving me any time.

Recently we replaced our HVAC with a top of the line system. It's so good, it took 4 service calls to actually get it working correctly. The zones were set wrong so it wasn't performing correctly. This wasn't saving me any time. What good is the app at saving me time, if the system isn't set up right? And don't get me started about the washer/dryer combo unit I invested in. I'm getting notified of everything it's doing whether I care or not. It's taking my cognitive load and increasing it. Can I just get some base model machines with start and stop buttons and that's it? I don't need all this technology, frustration, and distraction.

Phones

Then I slowly started to notice my increased phone time. And my kids noticed it of themselves too. Joey in fact asked for a dumb phone. I dont' know what is it lately but I go to check email and all the sudden I'm scrolling on Instagram and forgot what I got on my phone to do in the first place. We are more entertained than ever but we are also more lonely than ever. When Greg and I went to those small towns, we didn't see people. Where were all the people? In their homes, on their phones. So I started to think, what did I used to do when I got bored? Now I scroll Instagram or play a game on my phone. BUT I used to like to scrapbook, do puzzles, listen to audio books, and organize. I want to challenge you to make a small list of things you can do off your phone when you have free time. What do you like to do? Ask yourself, Are you in control of your phone or is it in control of you? And is that how you want it to be? Turn off notifications, place your phone face down when not in use, and put your ringer on silent. Create the home environment you want.

Short Conversations

And it's great that we have so many sources for information but it's limiting our conversations. Since it would appear we all the know the same news, I am challenging myself to have deeper conversations with the people in my family and you may want to too. Here are a few questions to have more meaningful conversations.

How do you feel about that?

What do you think will happen next?

How did you find out about that?

Yeah, I did hear about that but tell me what did you hear about that?

I want to have rich relationships with the people in my house not monitoring my robots so I have more time to scroll. I want to be growing and learning in my free time. What do you want?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

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. Then I looked at Abby's calendar to see went the optimal time was to spend time with her and getting her ready for the baby. I did end up spending a 4 hour block of time in the office on Sat. morning but it gave me the opportunity to bring home some Workboxes I've been wanting to clean out and organize. I also took a little time to fill in my home and work 2 and ½ year planners.

Scrapbooking

On Sunday Afternoon I got the best treat, Grayson fell asleep on me for about 90 minutes. But you know me, I'm productive. So while I was trapped in grandma heaven I ordered pictures. Because one of my initiatives once the PhD is done, is to get back to scrapbooking. So I ordered pictures and loved on Grayson. During this time off I was able to get a lot of sorting of pictures done and now I feel ready to start #allthescrapbooks

Shopping Like it was the 80's

And then I had a friend who was going to kind of be on standby for Abby and Grayson while we were gone who said "Ya know, I still have that time free, do you want to do something?" I did! I wanted to go shopping. We took two whole days shopping. We thoroughly went through the women's department in each store and just took our time. This made going through my closet fun too. I did a little rearranging of what's in my closet with the newest modification of Hunter (our dog) sleeping in my closet now. I am ready for this next phase of life.

And we checked out Costco and Sam's Club. I wanted to compare products that they offered. And I knew Sam's Club had the diapers and wipes I wanted to stock up on for the baby. This grandma is ready for grandbaby number 2!

As the week came to and end, I had the choice to go back into the office on Thursday or take one more day to myself. I talked myself into staying home. I got to get to some binders, workboxes, and slash pockets I'd been wanting to. I got to grab high tea with my cousin and after we went for a nice long walk. With the baby coming and the hurry up and wait game with the dissertation, I knew to maximize on this time. Self care is more than a massage. I wanted to share how I spent my time, to give you ideas of different ways of self care.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

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 Abby told us this spring that she was pregnant we were excited for this new little heartbeat but also realized that meant she'd be 25 weeks when we were away. Now the time had come and we just didn't feel right leaving her. I had set up all these people to come help her and then there was the dog to worry about and it was leading to a lot of anxiety. Once we decided to cancel, that all went away and the environment in our house was immediately better. It's funny once you cancel something and then the issues that were prohibiting you all of the sudden are gone. But nonetheless, we decided on a staycation and I got to planning!!

4 Days with Greg

Day 1: We decided to visit a few small towns nearby to do a little boutique shopping. You could still feel the effects of Covid because the store hours were limited and some were only open on the weekends. Then we went to a cooking class and learned how to make pasta. We had fun but might not be "our thing." And then toured Home-O-Rama. It was different than what we were used to.

Day 2: We had a great day in Lebanon, OH. We went to lunch at the Golden Lamb and tried to shop again. I quickly realized all the shops were for women. We found an art gallery though and really enjoyed our time there. We found out we both really like the same artwork and found a few artists that we will keep our eye on. Funny enough some of the artwork was that we had seen in the homes of Home-O-Rama. And then we drove to another little town and we checked into our hotel. There was nothing to do so we waited till the restaurant opened at 4pm. We had a two and a half hour dinner and I was really intentional with the conversations I started. This is "our thing" and I'd like to have more leisurely dinners with Greg.

Day 3: Family needed us so I am glad we didn't stray too far.

Day 4: Last day we were off together and we headed to the Keenland horse track in Lexington, KY. We had a great time. The people watching was fantastic. I discovered I might need to pick up a sundress because this too was something we really enjoyed that I would like to do more of and I like to look the part. When in Rome… It was fun to discover new things we like to do together and it was great to connect with Greg!

Baby Ready

And I got to spend some time with Abby. We spent some special time together really getting her ready for the baby. It was nice to have some undivided time to support Abby.

I can't wait to tell you what I did with the remaining days of my time off. And I want to share with you something I realized about technology and how conversations are more difficult these days because we have all the information coming at us all at the same time. It's not like we are sharing new information with each other. That was why I got so intentional with my conversation with Greg the night of our long dinner.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!