Type A Organising Tip #1

My head might be a right mess, but my life is organised within an inch of itself. I have spreadsheets, Task Lists, project schedules and meal plans. Some of you will find these tips (of which this is the first) pure genius. The rest of you will think I am a serious fuck up. To the first group - keep reading; these tips will save you loads of time and make your life much more efficient. To the second group - piss off back to the Land of Chaos.

Tip #1

Do you find yourself running to the shops every week to get birthday gifts, mother's day presents, gift vouchers, gift wrap, cards and gift bags? It's a pain, right? Half the time, you're too late to get to the shops and then not only are you late to give the gift, you also have this nagging item on your To Do list. And if you hit the shops every week instead of monthly, you spend more money and waste a huge amount of time that you just don't have. Yes?

Soooo...what I do is I start the year with a monthly schedule of birthdays and occasions. The schedule for a year takes about an hour to do...and guaranteed, it will save you about 4 hours a month. That's 48 hours a year. Two full days of your life! It's a no brainer.

For example, in May, I have 14 occasions that require gifts. If I had to go to the shops 14 times and gift wrap on 14 separate occasions, I would throttle myself with gingham ribbon. At the end of April, I take 10 minutes to make a list of names and gift ideas and I do ONE shop for all of them. I giftwrap them all in one foul swoop in front of the TV (God forbid I should sit still for a minute) with giftwrap and ribbons I buy in bulk from Wrap It at the top of Corlett Drive, write the cards and pack them away in a cupboard specifically for gifts.

Granted, if you have kids, you will always have ad hoc kid's parties each month. Just in case, I have some beautiful kids' books from Exclusive Books that I can wrap at the last minute if I need to.

Two days of your life for one hour of input. Fucking GREAT ROI. Seriously, you will ask yourself why you hadn't done this sooner.

Kisses