Don’t Make Resolutions this Year

With a new year coming, it’s time to take a look at where you are now. If you want to make some changes in your life, try something different this year: Don’t make a resolution.

Most people don’t keep their new year resolutions. This year, make a plan instead. If you set guidelines for accomplishing your goal, you are more likely to achieve it. Whether it’s losing weight, training for a marathon or clearing clutter, if you don’t have a plan, you won’t succeed.

Decide when you are going to start, how much time you are going to invest in the project, how you will know when you are finished and whether you have the tools and ability you need to be successful. If you have to promise yourself a reward for meeting your goal, choose it before you start. Create a contract with yourself and, if you have trouble following through, ask someone you trust to help keep you accountable.

If you really want to make a change, you can find a way to accomplish it.

Organized by Marcie: Getting you organized so you have time to do what you love to do!

Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/organizedmarcie

Don’t Make Resolutions this Year

With a new year coming, it’s time to take a look at where you are now. If you want to make some changes in your life, try something different this year: Don’t make a resolution.

Most people don’t keep their new year resolutions. This year, make a plan instead. If you set guidelines for accomplishing your goal, you are more likely to achieve it. Whether it’s losing weight, training for a marathon or clearing clutter, if you don’t have a plan, you won’t succeed.

Decide when you are going to start, how much time you are going to invest in the project, how you will know when you are finished and whether you have the tools and ability you need to be successful. If you have to promise yourself a reward for meeting your goal, choose it before you start. Create a contract with yourself and, if you have trouble following through, ask someone you trust to help keep you accountable.

If you really want to make a change, you can find a way to accomplish it.

Organized by Marcie: Getting you organized so you have time to do what you love to do!

Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/organizedmarcie

Are You Ready for Bad Weather?

When I lived in Los Angeles, everyone talked about “the big one,” referring to a disastrous earthquake. Now that I live on the east coast, earthquakes are not part of my reality, but the occasional bad snowstorm is.

A good part of the country got buried in snow over the weekend and the crowds were out filling up on provisions before the blizzard hit. Every year there are pictures in the newspaper of people with milk, eggs and toilet paper in their shopping carts. In fact, it’s become a shopping cliché.

Why those three things? Are people afraid there will be a shortage? I understand that there are always going to be people who need to do their regular weekly (monthly?) shopping just before a snow emergency, but what are the rest of those folks doing running out for these odd supplies?

You can create a well-stocked pantry with just a few basics and not have to worry about running out of food for several days. You can find a good list at the emergency-preparedness site Ready.gov. In the hopes that you will still have power during a snowstorm, I would also add canned soups, canned/bottled sauces, pasta, canned meat/fish and frozen vegetables. With these staples, you will always have something available to create a variety of meals.

Of course, it’s always a good thing to have some extra toilet paper on hand, too.

What food would you most want in a severe weather condition? Click on Post a Comment, below, and tell us.

Organized by Marcie: Getting you organized so you have time to do what you love to do!
Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/organizedmarcie

Are You Ready for Bad Weather?

When I lived in Los Angeles, everyone talked about “the big one,” referring to a disastrous earthquake. Now that I live on the east coast, earthquakes are not part of my reality, but the occasional bad snowstorm is.

A good part of the country got buried in snow over the weekend and the crowds were out filling up on provisions before the blizzard hit. Every year there are pictures in the newspaper of people with milk, eggs and toilet paper in their shopping carts. In fact, it’s become a shopping cliché.

Why those three things? Are people afraid there will be a shortage? I understand that there are always going to be people who need to do their regular weekly (monthly?) shopping just before a snow emergency, but what are the rest of those folks doing running out for these odd supplies?

You can create a well-stocked pantry with just a few basics and not have to worry about running out of food for several days. You can find a good list at the emergency-preparedness site Ready.gov. In the hopes that you will still have power during a snowstorm, I would also add canned soups, canned/bottled sauces, pasta, canned meat/fish and frozen vegetables. With these staples, you will always have something available to create a variety of meals.

Of course, it’s always a good thing to have some extra toilet paper on hand, too.

What food would you most want in a severe weather condition? Click on Post a Comment, below, and tell us.

Organized by Marcie: Getting you organized so you have time to do what you love to do!
Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/organizedmarcie

How To…Just About Anything

Have you discovered ehow? You can learn about any number of things on the website, including travel, cooking, business, health, finance and gardening. “Certified experts” and “everyday people” with subject knowledge have contributed more than 1 million articles and 170,000 videos.

Some of the posts are more detailed than others, but they can lead you to complete a project that you may have started and felt unable to finish.

You can view my first article at http://bit.ly/5sYjql and get inspired to find the time to start getting your life organized.

Today is also the day we announce the winner of the P-touch labeler. And the winner is…AnnieB! Please send me an email with your address so I can send it to you. Thank you to everyone who left a comment.

Organized by Marcie: Getting you organized so you have time to do what you love to do!

Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/organizedmarcie

How To…Just About Anything

Have you discovered ehow? You can learn about any number of things on the website, including travel, cooking, business, health, finance and gardening. “Certified experts” and “everyday people” with subject knowledge have contributed more than 1 million articles and 170,000 videos.

Some of the posts are more detailed than others, but they can lead you to complete a project that you may have started and felt unable to finish.

You can view my first article at http://bit.ly/5sYjql and get inspired to find the time to start getting your life organized.

Today is also the day we announce the winner of the P-touch labeler. And the winner is…AnnieB! Please send me an email with your address so I can send it to you. Thank you to everyone who left a comment.

Organized by Marcie: Getting you organized so you have time to do what you love to do!

Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/organizedmarcie

Books about Shopping

At this time of year, with so much emphasis on shopping, you may not consider how retailers bring you into their stores and get you to part with your money, often buying things you hadn’t intended to. We may have been urged, in the past, to show our patriotism by shopping; however, people are rethinking their spending habits now. Three new books and one update all have to do with shopping and are timely reads.

Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, by Paco Underhill, looks at the psychology of shopping and analyzes consumer behavior, exploring what causes people to buy.

Mr. Underhill said, in a recent Opinion piece in the Washington Post, “We cannot continue to be a country where more than 70% of our economy is based on consumer spending, especially when that spending is based on credit.”

Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What by Lee Eisenberg explores retail consumption, including advertising, behavioral marketing and the Internet.

Mr. Eisenberg noted, in PARADE magazine that it’s hard to resist things that are new, different and trendy. He suggests that we consider the value of gifts that we give and ends with the thought, “Shop thoughtfully, choose carefully, think value.”

In Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays, Joel Waldfogel speculates that when a gift is given, the receiver puts a dollar value on the gift that may be much less than what the giver spent, and goes on to say that “holiday spending generates some $85 billion dollars of economic waste each winter.”
Instead, Mr. Waldfogel suggests that people purchase gift cards that make donations to charity (which you can do at Charity Navigator.org and Charity Gift Certificates.org) and that the unused balance on retail gift cards be transferred to charities rather than going unredeemed.

Finally, Jodi Newbern lets us know that it’s okay to regift in Regifting Revival!: A Guide to Reusing Gifts Graciously. She reminds us that giving gifts to people that didn’t work for you is good for the environment and your finances. The trick, of course, is to regift properly, so it doesn’t look like you are passing on something you rejected.

In honor of these authors, consider refraining from giving gifts this year, or regift something that just didn’t work for you instead of giving something you can’t afford and that the recipient might not value.

These and lots more books are available at your public library; think about checking them out instead of buying them. Do you have a favorite book about shopping? Click on Post a Comment, below, and tell us.

Organized by Marcie: Getting you organized so you have time to do what you love to do!
Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/organizedmarcie

Books about Shopping

At this time of year, with so much emphasis on shopping, you may not consider how retailers bring you into their stores and get you to part with your money, often buying things you hadn’t intended to. We may have been urged, in the past, to show our patriotism by shopping; however, people are rethinking their spending habits now. Three new books and one update all have to do with shopping and are timely reads.

Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, by Paco Underhill, looks at the psychology of shopping and analyzes consumer behavior, exploring what causes people to buy.

Mr. Underhill said, in a recent Opinion piece in the Washington Post, “We cannot continue to be a country where more than 70% of our economy is based on consumer spending, especially when that spending is based on credit.”

Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What by Lee Eisenberg explores retail consumption, including advertising, behavioral marketing and the Internet.

Mr. Eisenberg noted, in PARADE magazine that it’s hard to resist things that are new, different and trendy. He suggests that we consider the value of gifts that we give and ends with the thought, “Shop thoughtfully, choose carefully, think value.”

In Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays, Joel Waldfogel speculates that when a gift is given, the receiver puts a dollar value on the gift that may be much less than what the giver spent, and goes on to say that “holiday spending generates some $85 billion dollars of economic waste each winter.”
Instead, Mr. Waldfogel suggests that people purchase gift cards that make donations to charity (which you can do at Charity Navigator.org and Charity Gift Certificates.org) and that the unused balance on retail gift cards be transferred to charities rather than going unredeemed.

Finally, Jodi Newbern lets us know that it’s okay to regift in Regifting Revival!: A Guide to Reusing Gifts Graciously. She reminds us that giving gifts to people that didn’t work for you is good for the environment and your finances. The trick, of course, is to regift properly, so it doesn’t look like you are passing on something you rejected.

In honor of these authors, consider refraining from giving gifts this year, or regift something that just didn’t work for you instead of giving something you can’t afford and that the recipient might not value.

These and lots more books are available at your public library; think about checking them out instead of buying them. Do you have a favorite book about shopping? Click on Post a Comment, below, and tell us.

Organized by Marcie: Getting you organized so you have time to do what you love to do!
Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/organizedmarcie