Permalink

3 Weeks til Passover, Time to Plan

First Seder, Friday, April 3 — is in 3 weeks. This is part 2 of our 5 week Seder-Guide of how and what to prepare for the most widely observed Jewish holiday of the year.

Plan your Menu.

— Start to build your menu so you have an idea of what you need to purchase, which elements you can delegate (wine, centerpieces, afikomen gifts), and if you want to cater any portions of the meal; you need to place your orders soon!

This is not the time to suddenly go gourmet. You will want some dishes to prepare on “auto-pilot.” Think of your family’s simplest favorites and modify them for the holiday.

Create a Passover Station.

— Remove any Passover items from your cabinets (left over from last year or recently purchased)

– Create a separate table (or space) for items that are Kosher for Passover: both from your existing pantry AND new items you purchase for the holiday

With Passover items out of the way you will see the pastas, grains, and snacks to ‘eat down’

Make things easier on yourself.
— Prep the areas where guests will stay.

— Declutter your dining room (now, not when you’re also dealing with Passover cleaning).

— Clear access to the areas where your Passover items are stored.

If yon’t know where to start to de-stress your holiday, call us. We are experts at helping you plan for and think through the holiday. 610-896-6896

Permalink

Don’t Stress Over Passover, PLAN

Passover begins on Friday, April 3 — one month from today. Stay tuned each week for the Seder (order) of how and what to prepare for the most widely observed Jewish holiday of the year and check our our weekly countdown to the holiday:

Secure your Seder invites and travel plans. Extend invitations to family members and friends. If you’re spending the holiday out of town, confirm your travel plans.

Take stock of chametz. Check your pantry (both dry and frozen) to assess the amount of leavened food you will have to ‘eat down’ over the next 4 weeks. Resist the urge to do full shopping runs.
Take care of your taxes!
You have 2 business days after Passover before the final postmark date: April 15.

Kelly's filed taxes.

If yon’t know where to start to de-stress your holiday, call us. We are experts at helping you plan for and think through the holiday.
610-896-6896

Permalink

Backsliding isn’t Fatal — it’s Natural

Expect slip-ups but don’t get stuck in a rut.

Learn to build healthy habits.

Backsliding is when your organizing efforts slip a bit: Once you’ve made progress…you need to stay on top of maintenance. Keeping that area orderly must become a habit. Some clients pronounce a newly organized spot (drawer, floor area, countertop) as ‘sacred space’ to remind them to be vigilant about clutter that might creep back.

Expect to slip-up: It’s natural when a things pile up…but you’ll want to limit it to just a few. Think of organizing like exercising — see it as a process, not an end result.

No one ever “got in shape” without having to continue staying fit. It’s the same with organizing. You don’t arrive at a spot called ‘organized’ and remain there for long without putting in time and energy. Like exercise, routine is the best remedy.

Permalink

Recommit to Your Resolutions

While Valentine’s Day may celebrate love, statistically speaking, it is a total downer for staying true to New Year Resolutions.

If the numbers are correct, half of us have already fallen off the wagon toward our goals. A simple semantic shift will get us back on track! Peter Bregman, of the Harvard Business Review Blog encourages changing our language from goal to area of focus.

“An area of focus taps into your intrinsic motivation, offers no stimulus or incentive to cheat or take unnecessary risks, leaves every positive possibility and opportunity open, and encourages collaboration while reducing corrosive competition. All while moving forward on the things you value most.

How do you do it? Identify the things you want to spend your time doing — or decide what’s the most valuable use of your time — and spend your time doing those things.

The key is to resist the temptation to identify the outcome you want to achieve. Leave that open and allow yourself to be pleasantly surprised. I’m not suggesting that this is easy to do. I never realized how goal-focused I was until I tried to stop focusing on goals. Without goals, I found it hard to trust that anything would get done at all.

But things got done. And in my experience, not only will you achieve at least as much as you would have if you had set goals, but you’ll enjoy the process far more, avoiding unnecessary stress and temptation.”

If you don’t agree with Peter, maybe Ray William’s list of 8 Steps from Wired for Success will satisfy you:

Focus on one resolution, rather than several and set realistic, specific goals. Losing weight is not a specific goal. Losing 10 pounds in 90 days would be;
Don’t wait till New Year’s eve to make resolutions. Make it a year long process, every day;
Take small steps. Many people quit because the goal is too big requiring too much effort and action all at once;
Have an accountability buddy, someone close to you to whom you have to report;
Celebrate your success between milestones. Don’t wait the goal to be finally completed;
Focus your thinking on new behaviors and thought patterns. You have to create new neural pathways in your brain to change habits;
Focus on the present. What’s the one thing you can do today, right now, towards your goal?
Be mindful. Become physically, emotionally and mentally aware of your inner state as each external event happens, moment-by-moment, rather than living in the past or future.

Happy Valentine’s Day Joy and Kelly

Joy and Kelly enclosed in a paper cut out heart

Permalink

Clean Out Your Computer in 4 Easy Steps

Everyone has a different threshold for what it takes to go from manageable to maniacally crazed. In honor of National Clean Out Your Computer Day, celebrated the second Monday in February, I offer advice on the four hot spots for digital clutter:

email
your desktop
photos
documents

My advice: focus your efforts on one of the four electronic clutter hotspots OR do a little purging in each category to get yourself calm and collected — literally.

When you approach winnowing your documents, photos, desktop or email, get ready for a trip down memory lane. You will be reminded of things you’ve completely forgotten — and some should remain forever forgotten, but some should be resurrected…or completed. It’s helpful to have a notepad next to you to jot down the name of a particular file that you want to compare to others and select the best version. You may want to start a to-do list for future decluttering projects. Clearing out your computer can get addictive…

EMAIL: Without getting into specifics about which apps work best on which platforms, the principles of email management are consistent:
• notice what’s important
• respond in a timely fashion to actionable requests
• remove obsolete info, either from your field of vision, or permanently

YOUR DESKTOP: Go for Zen on your desktop and completely clear it! Apart from straining your computer to refresh icons continually, desktops are there to provide the calm visual space your brain craves while processing data. While your desktop may seem like an infinite holding basket for what’s important at the moment, or a safe place to store what might get lost, left unchecked it will become a graveyard of expired photos, files, and reminders. A final caution: desktop items are typically not included in routine back-ups.

PHOTOS: When there is no monetary cost involved in taking photos there is little motivation to weed out bad shots and duplicates: except photos take up a LOT of memory. So rather than pay for upgrades, take a look at your stockpile of digital pics and decide on your keepers. Trash the rest. Do not attempt to manage your photos in a day; a few hours a week is a good goal until you have controlled your collection to date, and then a half-hour a week to maintain going forward. If that seems too daunting…just deal with the photos from January 1, 2015 and tackle your larger collection with a pro.

DOCUMENTS: The two biggest categories to tackle are:
• multiple or draft versions of the same project
• OLD files…irrelevant info that you have no reason to save, and no reason to refer back to. They have lived-out their usefulness and now need to be deleted.

YOU have to decide what maintenance schedule will work for your lifestyle…but National Clean Out Your Computer Day aside, once a year is not enough.

This blog first appeared on the NAPO-Greater Philadelphia Chapter blogsite.

Permalink

The Real Estate of Your Stuff

If you want to keep something (because you love it, it fits your life, and you can afford to maintain it) the best follow up questions highlight how often you use something.

Knowing how frequently you need an item or reach for a tool is the first step in deciding what kind of ‘real-estate’ something deserves:

beach-front property for daily use
prime real estate for weekly use
out of sight or remote for monthly, seasonal, or annual

Beach-front property is your most precious space: out on your desk, on top of your kitchen counter, and hanging on a hook inside your closet. When you use something on a daily basis you want it in well lit areas, within easy reach, and without visual or physical barriers.

Prime real estate is your next level of valuable space: eye-level shelving, top desk drawers, the easiest-to-reach section of your closet rod. You need access to these items on a weekly basis; if you have to stack, make sure anything in front of or on top of a “prime” item gets more use since it’s taking up more valuable space.

Out of sight or remote are typically the lowest (or highest cabinets), the darkest corners of your closet, and the deepest shelves in your linen closet. Remote storage can be file cabinets in your basement or bins in your attic: think previous year’s taxes, off season clothes, camp duffles, and holiday decorations. You won’t mind having to go up or down steps for these items because they’re rarely needed.

Permalink

Make January Your Joy Month

Affirm your new year’s resolutions with MORE in mind:

• MORE time
• MORE space
• MORE joy in your life!

Successfully reach your goals:
1. Know that the best affirmations are made with concrete goals in mind.
2. Spend time developing the actual steps to accomplish your goals.
3. Set ‘deadlines’ by which certain steps should be completed, or habits changed.

Share your long term goals with us: the ones you’re actively working toward with intention and determination.

If the mere thought of tackling your goals is overwhelming…then maybe you do need some Joy Effron in your life! Call 610-745-1236 to schedule your free half hour phone consultation followed by a one hour walk through for $75.

Permalink

Here’s To Your Success!

This year:

discover new opportunities for growth
face your challenges with creativity
surround yourself with good people and just enough stuff

Wishing you success in every endeavor this 2015!

Joy and Kelly

Permalink

Merry Christmas

We made a gift in honor of our 2014 clients to The Joy of Sox — could they have chosen their name any better?

As the lights of the Christmas season twinkle we are adding warmth, a touch of dignity, and better health to 58 homeless individuals – with the donation of new, thick, warm, crew socks.

Merry Christmas from Joy and Kelly

Permalink

Our Clutter-Free Hanukkah Gift

In celebration of clutter-free holiday gifts and following in the footsteps of our previous Soles4Souls give-back program, we’re spreading holiday warmth this season with thick new, crew socks to the homeless.

Joy and Kelly hold socks and hanukkah gift bag filled with socks for the homeless. In honor of each client helped this year, we’re helping local homeless people stay warm, regain better health, and more dignity with a new pair of socks through The Joy of Sox. The Joy of Sox distributes to people in need through homeless shelters. While the organization is national, our socks will be gifted locally among shelters in the city and surrounding area of Philadelphia.