You control Christmas OR Christmas controls you. By learning to simplify Christmas through Holiday Planning this holiday season can be both peaceful and joyful.

I was invited again to do a Studio 5 TV segment titled “Overcome the Overwhelm: Tips to Simplify Christmas”. I shared some great tips for Holiday Planning including some clutter-free gift ideas to make this holiday season easy to manage.

The three tips I shared for better holiday planning were:

1. Make a list of ALL your holiday plans, activities and events, THEN PRIORITIZE your list.
2. Schedule your “Must Do’s” on your December Calendar. Then add in pencil your “Might Do’s”. (see below to print your own Calendar pages)
3. Simplify EVERYTHING you’ve kept on your calendar.

To receive a FREE copy of your very own Christmas Holiday Planner pages, click any of the page links below you would like to have. These are PDF pages and will print just as they are shown. Please leave a comment telling us what you have found to be a “must do” holiday tradition for you or your family.

1. Christmas Holiday Planner (cover page)
2. Holiday VALUES Analyzer
3. Holiday Priorities List
4. December 2009 Calendar
5. Holiday Family Traditions
6. Holiday Decor Inventory
7. Gift List Planner
8. Gift Closet Inventory
9. Holiday Meal Planner
10. AFTER the Holidays Analyzer

We had 75 entires in our drawing and I am pleased to announce that Heather McDonald of Pleasant Grove is the LUCKY WINNER of the Smith’s Food Stores gift card center $100 certificate. She will be able to choose any combination of gift cards from the more than 300 retail stores sponsored and stocked through Smith’s Food & Drug Stores. To enter, Heather subscribed to The Organized Woman Show by email. YOU can subscribe too, right below the show summary (scroll down one or two inches to find it on the left hand side). Click on the link and fill in your email address. You will then be asked to go to your email inbox and finalize the request. It is very easy; 1,2,3 and you are signed up. Once signed up you will be entered in the Smith’s gift card drawing AND will receive weekly updates of new shows with easy tips to help you better plan and organize yourself, your home, your workplace, your family and/or your career.

My online radio show, The Organized Woman Show has many new shows to help you maneuver the holidays easily and with greater finesse. Click on the link above to listen and learn. Some of the shows my co-host and I have recorded this month include:

• 025  Goal Setting including Resolution tips
• 024  Organize your Christmas Decor Storage
• 023 Blended Family Holiday Tips with special guest Janet Peterson
• 022 Organizing a last minute Party
• 021 Winter’s Fun Family Traditions with special guest Cindi Barton
• 020 Clutter Free Gift Ideas
• 019 Preparing a Holiday Meal
• 016 Preparing For House Guests

Are you interested in finally getting yourself organized but are unable to find just the right organizing products? Organizing products that are a real help in setting up an organizing system that works for you today and for many years of tomorrows. The Container Store is one of my favoite online stores. It’s SO fun to walk through and almost as much fun to surf. Visit your local Container Store for the purchase of organizing products. Decide on the room that needs your attention most, go shopping online, and when your products arrive, shout “HOORAY!” and begin my steps to organize any space formula. If you can’t find what you need in the container store, I have compiled some additional links for unique and hard to find organizing products.  Who knows…one of these organizing products may be just what you have searched for for years and never been able to find.

I was interviewed on the WIN Show (The Womens Information Network) this month because I am a show host with The Organized Woman Show. In the interview, we talked about how my FREE WIN online radio show, The Organized Woman Show, can benefit listeners in their lives. We touched on systems for organizing your shoes, systems for organizing your papers, systems for organizing your time, and how to organize any portion of your life.  To watch the interview, click the title here: The Organized Woman Show with Vicki Winterton.

My show co-host, Laura, and I record and upload 8 new shows a month. Our shows talk you through the steps to plan and organize your spaces, your papers, your office, your family, your personal time, etc.  If you would like to be notified by email each time a new organizing show is available to our listeners, subscribe to The Organized Woman Show through RSS or Itunes feeds by clicking on this link and then click on  the or logos on the right side of the web page to subscribe yourself through your email account. You can then pick and choose which shows interest you.

I’d love to have you join me to win online at The Organized Woman Show for ANY of the many 12 minute shows that meet your needs or may be the answer to an organizing question you need answered. If you have an organizing concern that a new show could answer for you, just email me at vicki.theorganizedwomanshow@gmail.com and recommend a show topic. Be sure to include your specific question or concern.

My goal and the goal of The Organized Woman Show is to allow you to live a better life by learning a new way to accomplish your life goals. I want to help you live your best life!

I offer you options to organize your life and bring relief to life’s obvious pitfalls! Are you tired of feeling overworked and unable to maintain control of your life? After participating in any of these options you will feel you are better able to take control of your time, spaces, family, etc.

1. Please join me as I conduct a Utah Valley University community education workshop, Organize your Office (I teach this 2 hour class each January and October) which will focus on helping you better organize your life by implementing the following:

• Balance – Time management for busy people in 3 easy steps
• Five steps to organize your home and/or business office
• How to organize your inbox with my 6 D’s and
• Three systems for managing your incoming papers AND file cabinets

Now, if that is not enough, here is help #2 for organizing your life a little better.

2. The Organized Woman Show now has greater than 40 shows to help you organize your life. Some of the show titles included are:

• Fun Fall Family Traditions to help you organize your life and your family fun
• Perfectionism – Is it worth it?
• Setting up a Family Management Center to help you organize your life
• Setting up Family Rules so all family members understand that if they live there, they work there

We are now recording four new shows each month to help you better organize your life. Click on the or feeds in the middle right of the show page to be automatically notified through email of new shows as they are loaded. If you subscribe, you get to pick and choose the shows that interest you most.

3. I was invited for the 5th time to be the organizing expert on a KSL TV’s Studio 5 segment “How to Prepare for Murphy’s Law”. I shared the trick to preparing for Murphy’s “drop in” visits.

Kitchen Organizing Tips are often the focus of my free seminars. Our kitchens are the most used room in our homes. Kitchens are called the heart of the home for a reason. We love to gather there to:

• Enjoy our family’s conversation
• Eat
• Entertain

Four techniques and time management tips were discussed in my recent TV appearance on Studio 5. Click here to view How to Pad your time for Murphy’s Law.

Here they are again:

• Plan Ahead to Prioritize your Tasks with only a 5 minute investment each day–two of my favorite locally produced planners are: daily home planner & jot it down
• Simplify by shortening your morning routine
• Delegate Tasks that someone else can do nearly as well as you
• Estimate Time Accurately by rewinding your journey

For additional time management solutions click here

Kristin Nielsen of Salt Lake City, Utah won a SET OF 3 FAVORITE TIME MANAGEMENT PLANNERS in a random drawing held September 10, 2009. See her biggest challenge in the comments for this post.

Have you ever wondered if the brand of food you are buying is really the best tasting option on the grocery store shelf? Twice a month, my wonderful brother-in-law, Richard, provides us with an organized taste test for the Winterton family as part of our extended family Sunday dinner. The taste test results are often surprising to me in that I am NOT a generic food buyer. I do LOVE to save money and am a real professional when it comes to money saving strategies, I organized my mind years ago to believe the name brand foods were superior in quality.

The Winterton taste test clan typically consists of 8 voting adults. We meet at my Mom-in-law’s home for her great meals. Richard organizes his blind taste test as an appetizer OR an after dinner snack.

• His goal is to see if we can figure out which is the generic brand
• My goal is to decide if the generic brand is as good as the name brand variety

Richard is a Target Store Shopper, so the generic brands he provides for our taste tests are either Archer Farms or Market Pantry. Last week we tested 1) microwave popcorns and 2) cashews.

• The name brand popcorns were Pop Secret and Orville Redenbacher’s
• The name brand cashews were Planters

Popcorn – There was no difference in quality between the popcorns. The popped corn was cold, so of the options offered, a large majority of us preferred the NO FAT TARGET MARKET PANTRY generic brand over the Orville Redenbacher’s Movie Theater OR Pop Secret’s Movie Theater OR Double Butter types

Cashews – There was no difference in quality between the cashews. The Planters brand looked to be darker in color and seemed to taste saltier. We actually preferred the Target Market Pantry generic brand. It tasted and looked a little less oily.

I recieved a phone call a few months back from a TV producer. She invited me to be a guest on her show. Today, I returned from taping a KSL TV Studio 5 segment titled: Declutter, Organize, THEN Spring Clean.

The show producer and show host were a delight. I thourally enjoyed the experience they provided me. Listen to my online radio show The Organized Woman Show. Be sure to sign up for the RSS or itunes feed to be informed of new organizing show topics we address. Email me and let me know what you’d like to learn.

I am a scrapbooker. Do I love scrap booking? NO! However, because I do think it is a parent’s job to journal family life, I do scrapbook. A year ago I spoke with my friend Teri Cook, and decided to move exclusively to digital scrapbooking. It is so easy and brings no messiness with it. (I will write about my favorite digital scrapbooking CD’s in another post.) All that is necessary are my digital photos, my scrap-booking papers and elements (all digital and organized on my desktop) and Costco or Walmart’s photo print shop. I spend a few minutes creating my family memory page and with a mouse click, my page is sent to the print shop. 

   Now, the reason I am writing this post is because I want you to know that there is a great product now available for you to back up your digital photos with. I was made aware of this by Kelsey’s blog at www.vanillajoy.com and love the idea. The photo is a link. Click on it and take a minute to learn about Clickfree, it automatically backs up anything new.  Oh, and one last thing – it’s tiny, about the size of an MP3.  

Make the change to digital scrapbooking and organize those photos now. You can become Super MOM!

Today I organized my freezers. I have never taken on my frozen food before and decided today was the day.

I have two freezers, an upright in the garage and a side-by-side in my kitchen. The kitchen freezer is a frost-free variety and does not allow nearly the shelf life of the food stored in it, so…I categorized food items by type, use AND shelf life. Here is the process:

1. Clear the freezers out completely, placing the items in general categories as emptied. Get rid of the clutter and purge as you go.
2. Gather and label clear plastic boxes in the 6 quart and 15 quart varieties
3. Place food items in the labeled, categorized boxes and after completely defrosting (a fan really speeds up the process…it circulates the air quickly) and cleaning
4. Place the boxes back in the freezers

Today I realized again the happiness that comes to my clients when they get rid of the clutter and finish a newly organized area.  Wow! What a difference a few hours makes!