Who’s organised? We’re on the countdown folks. 5 weeks till Christmas. Not surprisingly my love affair with lists is in full swing along with the joy of the season.

The two I would encourage immediately are

  1. Christmas Card List
  2. Presents List

Here’s how I tamed mine. Simplifying and organising is always the way to go in my opinion. If you want to try it out for yourself. here’s how…

When you make up your lists this year keep an original copy, a master list if you will. File it in your home manual. Do an electronic copy if you wish or both. From here on in it will just be a matter of adding or deleting people each year. Wracking your brain to remember everyone or going through your address book each year is a waste of your precious time when we can make this quicker and easier for the future with next to zero effort.

Next though see if you can reduce it. Here’s the thing … time and money. When we are looking for ways to free up more time for ourselves and the people we want to spend the most time with it has to come from somewhere. Everybody knows we all have the same amount of hours – we’ve all heard it – we all know it and if you have ANY kind of debt at all you should be looking for ways to reduce your spending and increase those debt repayments. YES. Even at Christmas. For some people, Christmas is an absolute goldmine of opportunity for looking for savings and every little bit counts.

Starting with your cards list. Cards like presents should come from a place of genuinely wanting to wish someone a great festive season and new year. Eliminate anyone you send cards to out of habit, that you barely know and aren’t likely to get to know any better. That you send out of a sense of obligation or that you have grown apart from or no longer spend time with. Years ago when I started this I realised there were people I still sent cards too that when I sat down and thought about it,  I hadn’t heard from or barely heard from in years. People that I hardly knew but thought “I should”. People. Organisations. Places I thought would expect one.  I immediately stopped. The earth didn’t end. In fact, absolutely nothing changed except I saved a lot of time, energy and money on buying, writing and posting cards.

After you have eliminated look over your list again. How many of those can be emailed cards? I am not advocating this for your nearest and dearest. By all means, buy the beautiful cards, hand write, send. For those on your list though where you want to send cards but they aren’t on your nearest and dearest list and you have email addresses there are plenty of quality free sites around now.  You don’t have to buy cards, leave your house and postage is zero.  Load up the addresses pick a date in the future or send immediately. You care. You want to let them know you’re thinking of them and you are. You are also though prioritising the time and money you have for yourself and those closest to you. Which is as it should be.

Work mates. Have the conversation. Ask… “Hey, would you guys be happy to forgo cards, gifts etc?” Time, money, clutter and the earth’s resources all will be saved. You will be surprised how often the answer is yes, yes please or even HELL YES when you’re brave enough to be the one to start that conversation. Alternatives if you can’t eliminate .. REDUCE ..throw in a couple of dollars each and buy a team/office plant, a box of something scrumptious to share or group cards as opposed to bunches of individual ones.  E.g “To the Marvellous Maintenance team” or To my Fabulous fellow team mates…etc etc… Mucho Love…. You (or your team) x” How many cards do we throw out, recycle or repurpose every year… wouldn’t it just be better to eliminate that as much as possible to start with.

Next, I want you to repeat the elimination process with your presents list for the same reasons, using the same criteria. Presents can be a bit trickier but there’s plenty of ways to look at, action and simplify that too. We will look at that next. This week though, do your lists, buy your cards, load up your emails.

Do you have other ways you’ve addressed this? I’d love to hear them.

E x

 

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