Prioritized Living

Touch It Once

What’s one of the best ways to waste your time?

Handling things repeatedly.

Here’s an example:

You grab the mail from your mailbox as you’re arriving home from work, and you dump it on your coffee table. Later, you open up the mail, scan it, and drop it back in the pile. Another time, you realize it’s time to pay some bills, so you sift through your pile to pull out the bills you need.

You return to the pile the next day to dig out your friend’s wedding invitation so that you can R.S.V.P. Finally, company is on its way over, so you grab everything off the table to tidy up and dust. Maybe you recycle the junk mail . . . or maybe you hide the papers under your bed until your guests leave.

(You might forget about them at that point.)

With this method of handling your family’s paperwork, here are just some of the problems you’ve inadvertently created for yourself:

You’ve had to refamiliarize yourself with the contents of your mail every time you touch it.
You’ve set yourself up to miss or forget about important communication.
You’ve started a moving pile of clutter that invites more clutter.

So what’s the solution? [Read more…]

How to Recover from Your Holiday Spending Hangover

It’s the new year! You’re stoked to get it started by making and forging ahead on this year’s financial resolutions.

Then you get hit with the mother of all December credit card bills.

Your holiday spending has caught up with you.

Mesmerized by the twinkle of Christmas lights and humming along to the peppy tunes piped over department store speakers, you liberally swiped your plastic. You splurged on shiny gifts for family, friends, pets, service providers, coworkers, acquaintances, and maybe even yourself.

Now Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express, and the whole gang are sending you post-holiday greetings in the form of hefty credit card bills.

Don’t give up on your financial resolutions right out of the gate. What you need are some quick tips to regain control of your finances and get back on track toward making this year your best money year yet.

If your holiday spending bill wound up being overwhelming, it’s too late to change the past. But you can make the best of the situation with three simple steps:
[Read more…]

Am I Saving Enough for My Child’s College Education?

In its Annual Survey of Colleges 2015-2016, The College Board estimated that a student living out-of-state at a public four-year college can expect to pay almost $15,000 for room, board, and other expenses, on top of an average $24,000 in tuition.

After adjusting for inflation, that’s an astounding 40 percent increase over the past 10 years, which leaves many parents to wonder — will I have saved enough to give my children the best education possible by the time they’re ready to go to college? [Read more…]

Reclaim Your Space & Ditch Those Crazy Christmas Gifts

It’s been a few weeks since Christmas has passed.

One by one, your neighbors have taken down their lights and chucked their trees to their curb. Inside your home, the shiny glow of the holiday season has worn off, and you’re looking at your pile of presents with sober eyes.

You’ve tried on new clothes, flipped through new books, tinkered with new gadgets, and played with new toys. And — in the midst of enjoying your Christmas haul — you’ve found a few duds. Gifts that just aren’t you or don’t fit in with your life.

It’s not that you don’t love the people who gave you those gifts or the thought they’ve put into them. Maybe your friends missed the mark with your tastes, or the gifts would have been perfect for you at a different time in your life.

It’s hard to think about getting rid of any gift. Besides, isn’t that horribly rude?

No.

You’re not throwing the gift back at the giftee or telling her that it’s not what you want. You’ve offered that person a heartfelt “Thank you!” for generously giving you something that she thought you’d love. Now that gift is 100% yours, and you’ve got the freedom to manage your worldly goods how you see fit.

Need more convincing? [Read more…]

Seize Control of Your Time With This One Skill

This post is part 3 in the series Sanity-Saving Skills Every Busy Person Needs.

In the last four months, have you been mastering these 9 essential skills for busy people? If so, you’re now able to . . .

Sketch out a plan for every day.
Automate components of your life.
Estimate the amount of time you need to accomplish a task.
Delete, diminish, delegate, and delay non-urgent and non-essential items on your list.
Motivate yourself by matching activities to goals.
Optimize your time by double-dipping in your goals.
Batch like tasks.
Work with your energy levels.
Adapt to intrusions.

If you still feel too busy, focus on this critical skill for seizing control of your time:
[Read more…]

One Project at a Time

One project at a time.

That’s what writer Jessie Kwak recommends. Just recently, Jessie penned an inspirational article on how you can achieve big results with laser focus on one single project at a time. [Read more…]

Your Perfect Planner for a Productive Year

It’s that time of year again! As this year wraps up, it’s time to start setting yourself up for success next year. Organizing your life with a physical planner can make all the difference. (Not convinced? Read this!)

There are so many incredible paper planners out on the market! How do you choose?

Start your search by checking out these popular planner options. There are some dramatic differences among these options, so see which one is a great fit for the way your brain and your life work! [Read more…]

7 Budget-Friendly Gift Picks for the Christmas Eve Shopper

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.

When I was growing up, one of our annual Christmas traditions was waving goodbye to Dad for a few hours on Christmas Eve. He was off to the mall for Christmas gift shopping!

Every year, we never knew what to expect from Dad under tree. In my case, I think that was primarily the result of having a kooky dad . . .

. . . but it’s slim pickings out there on Christmas Eve!

If you struggle to find great holiday gifts at the last minute, back away from the eye shadow collections and novelty socks.

Whether you’re a self-proclaimed procrastinator or the holidays have just snuck up on you this year, you absolutely can get your hands on gifts that people love.

And you can do it on a budget.
[Read more…]

Wrapping Paper Storage Solutions

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.

It’s that time of year again . . .

Once you’ve accomplished your mountain of holiday shopping, you steel yourself, open your wrapping paper closet, . . . and face the avalanche of wrapping paper tubes.

Your bows are squished and scattered. Your tissue paper is crumbled. Your gift bags and gift tags are . . . somewhere. And you realize as soon as you sit down to wrap that your tape and scissors are stashed in your junk drawer at the other end of your house.

Getting organized for gift-wrapping shouldn’t take more time than the actual gift-wrapping.

Before you settle in with your mug of cocoa for this year’s wrapping marathon, get the storage tools you need to go from wrapping supplies mayhem to bliss.

Here are a few ways to bring order to your wrapping chaos: [Read more…]

How to Conquer Your Move While Pregnant

On the day of our big move, the very first thing I did was throw up.

Nine weeks pregnant and overcome with morning sickness, I had the keys to our new place and a lease on the old one that told me it was time to get out. On that day, my husband handed me my Saltines and a barf bag, eased me into the car, drove us to our new home, and deposited me on the floor (since the furniture hadn’t yet arrived) of our new home with my trusty crackers.

Undertaking a move is a chore for anyone, but doing it while you’re pregnant is a special kind of challenge. It’s possible however to survive and even conquer the process by following a few rules . . .

[Read more…]