Have you ever played Candy Crush? It is so ridiculously simple and mindless… but addictive. In this week’s podcast episode, I compare organizing your house to playing this fun, addictive, and ultimately endless game of Candy Crush.

It was around three summers ago that I played this game obsessively. I would find any excuse to play Candy Crush. I would even make extra time to play it, and play it for way too long trying to get through a level. Finally, I had to take it completely off my phone because I just have no will power. A couple of years later, I put it back on my phone and found I wasn't quite so addicted as I was the first time.

A word of warning – if you have never played Candy Crush, don't take this podcast as permission to go and download it! When I first started playing it, I thought you could "win," that you could finish the game, but there are literally millions of levels. You can never win. I don’t recommend wasting your time on it!

What does Candy Crush have to do with home organization?

As the new year approaches, we all start to set goals to get organized, lose weight, and put our finances in order, all at the same time. These are the top three New Year's resolutions that we all want to achieve. On January 1st, when people ask you what you're going to do, you say, "I'm going to lose 10 pounds, I'm going to get out of debt, and I'm going to get organized," because that is what everybody plans to do every single January!

When it comes to home organization, at the end of the year you may say, "I'm going to get my house in order." What you mean is you're going to declutter, donate, sell, and basically get rid of things. That's what you mean by getting organized in the last week of the year.

That's like the first 20 levels of Candy Crush. You go in, you play it, you go to the next level. Or, when organizing your home, you go in the room, you fill a trash bag, you take it out to the car, or you donate it and you continue like this… donating, trash, donating, trash. You feel good and you're also getting a bit of exercise while doing it!

Another example – you're clearing the house, taking down decorations, and you feel like you're doing a great job, then suddenly you return to a room you have already done, checking for any other clutter, and you get a little stuck. You start to look for more help to make decisions about what you need or don't need. It's not as easy to get through the room.

This is like Candy Crush – often they don't let you through the level on the first shot so you have to play it again until you finally get through it.

What happens when you get stuck?

Let’s say you make great progress until you realize there are no more "quick wins." So where do we go from there?

Maybe you buy some little containers and organize some drawers, maybe tweaking and maintaining things you've done before. By about the middle of January, there is still 80% that has not been organized successfully and you don't know where to start to resolving this. You wonder if there are organizers you can buy. This usually doesn't work, it costs a lot of money, and there aren't organizers you can buy for the space you need to organize... don't you hate that?

This is because 99% of organization has nothing to do with the cute containers.

It’s like you are stuck on Candy Crush level 56 and you're asking yourself, what do I have to do to get through this level?!

There are two things you can do when playing Candy Crush when you get stuck:

1. Pay for help

You can pay for more moves when you run out of your lives, plus other pay options.

1. Head online – I go to YouTube

Just search for “how to beat level 57 in Candy Crush” and watch a video of some genius who knows how to beat that level.

Either you go spend the time watching someone who knows how to do it or you pay the money to take you to the next level.

Guess what, it's the same with organizing. You start to get wins and you are flying through your house. You will want to spend more time organizing your house because you are having such success.

Equally, when you get frustrated and your laundry room is driving you bananas, you are going to start figuring out how to beat that laundry room. Someone has to win the battle and you want it to be you. You get so determined that once it is complete, you have a sense of satisfaction and can give yourself permission to go and do something else with your time.

When you're in the middle of January and you’re going to tackle the front hall closet or the laundry room, for example, just like in Candy Crush, you have two choices:

1. Go online

You can go online and find many resources and people that can help you. For example, on Pinterest or YouTube, you can see spaces that have been organized by others and watch how they do it.

1. Hire help

You can get a professional organizer or you could do my 100 Day Home Organization Program.

How I can help you?

To help you get organized, I have two things to offer you that I am so excited about.

1. The Sunday Basket® Podcast

I’m so excited to let you know that on Sunday, December 31st, I’m launching the Sunday Basket® Podcast.

It is available now on iTunes. Please go check it out and subscribe.

Starting tomorrow, on the Organize 365 podcast I will be posting a podcast to listen to EVERY DAY through December 31st. I am calling this the Organize 365 BINGE.

These are previous podcasts that I have pulled out and put in the exact order I would have you listen to them if you were brand new to Organize 365. They will help you with the mental mindset you are going to need going forward. So whether you are new to Organize 365 (welcome!) or you are a regular, take a moment to subscribe, listen, and share this podcast with your friends and family. Help lighten the load for everyone!

Then from December 31st to January 7th, I will have 8 brand new episodes on the SundayBasket® Podcast. You have to subscribe to The Sunday Basket® Podcast, though, so be sure to do that so you get my daily tips and motivation!

1. The 100 Day Home Organization Program

Registration to my 100 Day Home Organization Program is now open – click here to join.

The program gives you 100 actionable, 15 minute a day activities starting on Monday, January 1st. Every day by email, you will receive a 15-minute activity with a short video, an actionable step, and any links to material that I talk about in the email or video.

It is designed to systematically organize your entire house in 100 days. Don't worry, it comes with a lifetime membership so you don't have to commit to do all 100 days IN 100 days. You can skip days and go back to them and do this over and over again. We do the program 3 times a year.

Also with the 100 Day Home Organization Program, you get my amazing planner!

On January 1st, I will go live in the private Facebook Group and take you through the first part of this planner to set your goals and productivity.

I also do a weekly live Q&A in the group which I also post online. So even if you aren’t on Facebook, you won't miss out.

This is the game changer from waking up on January 1st, 2018 saying, "I'm going to lose some weight, get out of debt, and get organized" to waking up on January 1st, 2019 saying, "I got organized."

My goal is to help increase your productivity to allow you to do whatever you were uniquely created to do. We as women are being taken out by the everyday and this is stopping us from being the unique individuals we are meant to be.

I really want to be your coach, motivate you, and help you reduce the time spent on everyday tasks, to become more organized, purposeful, and productive through 2018. If you would like to join the 100 Day Home Organization Program, just click here. I hope to see you on the inside!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/208

On the podcast this week, I ask you the question – who is in your top five?

Let me explain!

A few years ago, a cell phone company had a benefit for their customers where you could select the top five people that you talk to the most on the phone and those calls would be free. They would run advertisements where they talked about you having a "top five." My husband, Greg, and I used to find the whole "top five" thing amusing, and I recall it was often the source of jokes with comedians!

Then I heard a quote and it really had an impact on me.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” by the late Jim Rohn.

You’re the average of the five people that you spend the most time with in terms of income, positivity, taking action, etc.

The five people you spend the most time with are who you’ll be the most like.

I remember when I first heard this quote, it really caused me to think about who the five people are that I spend the most time with.

At the time, I was thinking how true the quote was. My income was the average of the five people I spent the most time with. My gossip level was the average of the five people I spent the most time with! (I don’t gossip anymore, but I used to gossip a lot!).

I changed how I spend my time

It was a conscious decision that I made to change how I spend my time. Hearing that quote over and over again and thinking, well, who do I want to be like?

• What income do I want to have?
• What kind of free time do I want to have?
• How do I want to spend my free time?
• What do I want to talk about in conversations?

I don’t listen to the news anymore, but at the time I was watching CNBC every day and I was freaking about the stock market… our money… every day.

I lived in a very moment-to-moment life. Now I live a much more peaceful, purposeful, proactive, cultivated life. I have cultivated the life that I am living. I let the media and the people in that I want and I don’t let in the rest.

My life is not directed based on what comes across my desk or comes across my TV. Even in my free time, I am choosing not to be marketed to through commercials, and I’m choosing not to get my news fed to me through a regular network news program.

Who are your five top people?

Now when you hear this, you may think about the five people you spend the most time with. They may all be under three feet tall! You’re not going to change that. You’re not going to change your spouse, your kids, your parents, your parish, your church, your whatever.

The people you spend the most time with are somewhat static and somewhat flexible. So, who you spend the most physical time with may not be as easy to change as who you spend your intellectual time with.

Ask yourself, who do I want to learn from? Who do I want to be like? If I could hang out with them tomorrow, and we lived in the same city, who would I hang out with?

I changed my top 5 through podcasts. I picked two or three podcasters I really liked at the time and I listened to every one of their episodes. And I would sometimes listen to their episodes over and over again so I would mentally be with them all the time.

When I find someone I like, I listen to their podcasts and (virtually) I become their "best friend" and get to know a lot about them.

You probably know a lot about me. You may listen to me every day. You may be interacting with me in social media. I like to think that I might be one of the top five people that you spend the most time with!

Great characteristics of your top five people

I want you to think about the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and who are the five people you most want to spend 2018 with?

Listen to the podcast to hear about four characteristics of people that I think would be most helpful for you to have in your top five going forward in 2018.

Change your mindset

A year from now at the end of 2018, what do you want your life to look like? Who do you want to be associating with? How much money do you want to be making? Who are those people that are living the life you want to be living 12 months from now?

Your top five don’t have to be the physical people you see every day.

So really, consciously, think about who is going to be in your top five going into 2018.

Then follow me on Facebook or on Instagram. I would love to be in your top 5 in 2018... and beyond!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/207

'Tis the season to get overwhelmed with stress and give yourself a migraine and cold sweats just thinking about decorating your house for the holidays!

We all love how our house looks when it is all decorated, but the task itself seems like climbing Mount Everest. We can get ourselves so worked up about how arduous the task appears. I know it feels like the biggest task of my life at times.

How can we change our mindset on this?

Recently, I held a "Holiday Blitz" challenge on Facebook Live, a free 5-day "get ready guide" for the holidays. To those of you who took part, I hope you found it super useful. The printables are available here and the videos are still on Facebook.

During the challenge, I discussed how women have many roles that they play, and how we have different things to do all the time that leave us feeling like we are always working. The holidays are a time where there is a lot of pressure on the female head of the home. She needs to produce great food, decorations, and gift ideas, and be the host for guests, just to name a few.

When it comes to decorating, we tend to put up every decoration we have because everybody loves them, right? Well, yes, but would they even notice if we didn’t use EVERY decoration? Well, most likely, they wouldn't!

Where to start?

It was around 10 years ago that decorating my house took on this momentous feeling. I used to love it, but so many things led to a change for me.

I've tried various approaches over the years to get back into the swing and take joy from festive decorating, and the approach that has worked best is a giant purge. We all have that box of decorations sitting in the basement that we no longer use.

You collect all these decorations and wish you had a space, but really they are just guilt in boxes and it is okay to get rid of them. Yes, go ahead and donate them. You will not need them in the future. And you will not miss them either!

That doesn’t mean you can't ever add new things, just as long as they make sense to you. We bought a Christmas tree (ours have to be fake as I am allergic to real trees) around 10 years ago and, at the time, I loved it. Then Christmas tree technology really moved on and I got pre-lit tree envy, but for years couldn’t justify the cost. This year though – I bought it! Or rather, them. I got a few… but they were a great addition for us, as I’ll explain shortly.

What next?

This year, I decorated my entire house in 3-1/2 hours and I’m going to share my secrets with you. I break it down into 4 steps.

Clean

I always decorate on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The kids are on holiday and I’m off work, but my husband isn’t. So he gets the gift of leaving the house looking normal and returning to it fully decorated. This year, it fell perfectly that our housecleaner was coming that same day, too.

Block out time

I started optimistically by blocking out the whole day, but life happened and I couldn’t get started until 12:30 pm, rather than 10 am as I had originally planned. I already knew I had to be done by 6:30 pm. We had family coming in from out of state, and it was likely that my husband would finish work early. I was a little stressed at losing a couple of hours in the morning, but knew that I had to get it all squeezed in somehow.

Start with the hardest part

For me, the hardest part was always setting up the old tree. So I started with the smallest of the new trees. It took me no time! I was amazed. Then, I moved onto the bigger tree and assumed that would be simple, too. I shifted the furniture around and "ta-da," in 20 minutes I was done and had a beautiful big tree. Getting the new tree(s) saved me so much time and so much stress. It will alleviate so much worry for me next year.

Keep going until you’re done

At 2-1/2 hours into it, and with the Fall decorations down, nativity scenes set up, wreaths hanging, and baby Jesus in his wooden manger, I was done. But I wasn’t done. Those tree ornaments weren’t going to hang themselves! I made excuses. I even hid the ornaments on the other side of the room. I so desperately wanted it to be over already.

But I didn’t quit. Our ornaments are separated into boxes by which tree they go on. I put the living room tree ornaments on and it was so fast and easy. By this point, I realized I had been so close to giving up and had been moaning about something so simple. I looked at what I had left and made a plan. I changed some things up and put things in new locations. Yes, I gave myself permission to change my own rule! We get so locked into tradition sometimes that we lose the sense of things.

By the end, I was exhausted. So I had a coffee and took a nap in the time that I had to spare. My husband was thrilled when he got home and I was so pleased with myself that I actually got it done.

Remember…

You are in control. You can ask family which are their favorite decorations (do this before you put anything up so you know they actually remember it) and you can take away the pressure of having to put up all the other things that they don’t mention and won’t notice aren’t there anyway. Ease the pressure on yourself where you can and bring back the joy of holiday decorating.

To see more about my holiday decorating and whatever else I'm up to, follow me on Instagram. Happy Holidays!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/205