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Chaos Eradicated! Aggravation Abolished! Overwhelm Obliterated!
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Greetings!
Here's hoping everyone had a good summer, and is ready for fall. Mine included a really satisfying job helping someone move - I love setting up someone's house from the bottom up, before moving in. As always, I took a few workshops, including one on helping people with anxiety disorders, and one on helping "Heirs of the Chronically Disorganized," two groups I am seeing more and more of. And I did find time to recharge my batteries, taking a week with my husband on a lake in the Adirondacks in upstate New York - a beautiful part of the world.
But September is always challenging. Schedules change, things get moving after a summer lull, and more seems to be asked of us, in a lot of different ways. The tendency is to jump in with both feet and get involved. But Click here to see more.
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September Tip -
While you are looking after your household planning, bring your kids into the picture, too. These days, schools give them planners, but kids need our help coordinating all the pieces of their schedules. If you talk with your kids about their needs, classes, and out-of-school activities, you're letting them know that planning is important.
This is one of the most valuable skills you can teach your child.
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News:
- September is National Preparedness Month - FEMA actually comes to the rescue with reasonable measures to be prepared for the unthinkable. Read more . . .
The Home and Garden Fall Festival,
sponsored by Main Line Today magazine, at the Devon Horse Show Grounds,
in Devon, PA has been moved until spring, please look for more information after the new year.
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 National Preparedness Month
OK, natural disaster is not the first thing on everyone's mind. But things do happen, a fire, a major gas leak, a serious winter storm knocking out power. Few of us are ready. It takes less time than you think to put together a few items you need to get by for a few days. Just making a list could save you time, so you're not trying to make all these decisions in the few moments you have in that moment.
Most of us think of disaster preparedness in terms of bottled water and canned food, but if forced to leave your house, you also want a list of important phone numbers, account numbers, PINs and contacts. You might need to contact an insurance agent, credit card company, your bank. Keep a list of these contacts on a flash drive and update it once a year. It might also come in handy if you are called out of town unexpectedly, to care for a family member, for example.
I have taken the Red Cross certification course in Disaster Preparedness; please contact me if you would like to be better prepared for an emergency. Also, please visit the FEMA website for more information.
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Back To School with New Habits
Help your kids keep order in their lives with the follwoing suggestions:
--"I can't find my ___!" (fill in the blank). Odds are, it's in the backpack, the easy place to dump everything that doesn't have a place of its own. 1, Make it clear that the backpack is for transport. 2, Help them set up places in their lockers and their rooms to put things, and 3, help them establish routines for deciding, "OK, what do I need with me in school? What do I really need to bring home?"
--Still got artwork from last year? It's hard to throw away those treasures, and it can be hard for a kid to let them go. Set a routine of sorting regularly, keep the 5, 6 pieces you like best, and lose the rest. One alternative is to hang some cheap clipboards in your child's bedroom and let her play "curator,", with the stipulation that it rotate every month or so.
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De-clutter the fridge door!
An old louvered cabinet door or shutter, cleaned up and painted, will become a slotted message board. Lose all the magnets on the refrigerator door, and put all those different size notes in the louvers. (Leaves room for the "artwork!")
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Not Just For Soccer Moms
You don't have to have kids to get frustrated at the junk hiding - or rolling around - in the back of your car. Rackets, balls, flashlight, maps (if you still have those), wipes, jumper cables, bungee cords - everything can have a place, just like in the house. Get everything out from under the seats and into a plastic tub or stackable crates where you can find them.
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(cont'd from above)
before we know it, we're over-committed and over-stressed. Don't make any commitments, no new plans, until you have stepped back to take a good look at the whole picture. The momentum will gather itself, but the planning won't - only you can say STOP! and slow it down long enough to lay everything out according to its proper place in your life.a good way to get over-commt
Thanks for all the opportunities to help you on your journeys,
Anna Sicalides
The Organizing Consultant LLC
Please forward this newsletter to anyone you know who may appreciate it.
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