Preparing for the New Year

Christmas has come to the end and now all you have left are piles every where.  Piles of empty boxes, piles of Christmas cards (hopefully you saved those envelopes that they came in).  Well you get the idea right?  It's time to get ready for a New Year.  I'm going to share with you some of my organizing tips to get me ready for the New Year.

Update Address Book

I always start right after Christmas getting ready for my New Year.  The first thing I do is take that pile of Christmas cards sort them.  So that I can update my address book.

This is what I look for:

• I look for any cards that were returned to me
• I look for cards from family and friends that have bought new homes 
• I look for information like newly weds (usually they have new addresses), new babies names etc.

While updating my address book I always try to remember did anyone get a new cell phone this Christmas and I make a note of that.  (My nieces and nephews always seem to get new phones around this time and it never fails that someone has a new phone #). 

Remember - at this time of year you are supplied with so much great information (look at those friends and families newsletters and cards and look for that special information) don't waste time and think that you will remember to do it later, do it now.

Clean Desk off


Next on my list of things to organize is my desk.  I don't know if you are like me but at this time of year my desk seems like a great big pile of papers.   Here are some of the things I do..

• I sort through my check statements and look for any medical bills that were paid during the year and put them into a tax file for this year.
• I gather up mortgage statements, house tax paper work, interest statements and 1099 I will be receiving and place them in one file marked Taxes.
• I file away this year credit card statements, bank statements, and make new files for the coming year. (I try to keep only one year of statement in my desk then I move them to the file cabinet)
• I take the time to make a list of office supplies I need. Also I take a note of what school supplies the kids might be missing and buy them too.
• I have a bill binder that I keep track of my bills with an excel sheet so I update that.
• I also have a home binder book and as much as I try during the year to keep that tidy it never fails that I always have a pile of things that I have to update or file away in there too.
• I get out the new calendar and look up kids school information for the coming new year and put special dates on the new calendar. I mark down important dates like birthdays, anniversaries and upcoming events too.
• In my desk I always seem to have one draw that gets full of junk, where miscellaneous things seem to pile up - so I take the time to sort through those things and get rid of any thing I don't need.
• During the year if I have purchased any major appliance for the home I keep warranty information and manuals in my home binder.  Usually at this time of year it never fails that I forgot to file some of those away so I do that at this time too.
• Usually when I get done cleaning my desk out I always have a pile of papers that have private information that I don't want seen so I schedule a couple of days to shred those types of papers.

There is nothing like a clean desk to get the New Year off to a great start.

Getting the house organized

There are so many great sites out there with organization tips so I won't bore you with a whole list of my preparation.   I will share with you a few of those sites that I found this year.  What I wanted to say here is a year ago I was reading one of my favorite blogs called Clover Lane and she gives out organizational tips too.  The one thing that stuck out to me is the way she approaches organizing her house.

She said, that she looks at her house as if she was going to put it up on the market to sell.  She pretends that she is about to have an open house.  She goes through each room and makes a list of things that need to be organized, de-cluttered, and fixed.  Then she breaks down each of those thing down and assigns a time or  a month when she knows that she can tackle those problems.  Isn't that brilliant!


Here are a few of the websites that I found had great organization tips.

http://www.mysimplerlife.com/2012.htm

http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/p/iheart-project-gallery.html

Hope everyone has a wonderful, prosperous and healthy New Year!

Carrie