Shrink stress and save sanity by getting organized

Posted: 12/15/06

Shrink stress and save sanity by getting organized

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

’Tis the season for anxiety attacks as to-do lists grow longer while days before Christmas grow shorter. But families can reduce holiday stress by following a few simple organizing tips, Christian author Marcia Ramsland said.

“The holidays are as much a matter of organization as they are a matter of the heart,” said Ramsland, author of Simplify Your Life: Get Organized and Stay that Way. “If you do anything in life more than once, organize it and simplify it. That’s especially true at the holidays.”

By organizing, Christians can direct their attention to the meaning behind the holiday and to creating memories with their families rather than wasting time and energy on less-important matters, she insisted.

About 75 percent of holiday stress comes in three areas—buying and giving gifts, sending Christmas cards and decorating, Ramsland noted.

Reduce anxiety by keeping a holiday notebook—a loose-leaf binder with dividers— from one year to the next as a handy reference, she recommended. Create sections designated for gifts, cards, decorating and recipes—as a well as section labeled “successes.”

“In that section, put in pages recording the best thing that happened this Christmas, and keep it from year to year,” she said, suggesting as a recommended heading, “We honored God in our celebration by… .”

Most Christmastime stress centers on buying and giving presents, she noted.

In the gift-giving section of the notebook, list people who regularly receive gifts, gift ideas, a budget, presents purchased and where the wrapped gifts are hidden, she recommended. A downloadable form is available on her website, www.OrganizingPro.com.

To save time and improve efficiency in shopping, Ramsland offers several suggestions:

•Follow a theme.

Give everyone on the gift list a distinctive present from the same store, such as a sweater or a music CD that fits a particular person’s tastes or a book related to that person’s interests.

•Shop appropriately.

“Recognize if a person is practical or sentimental,” she said. As a clue, consider the kinds of gifts that person typically buys for others. For instance, if someone usually buys power tools or kitchen utensils for others, that person probably would like a practical gift.

•Stick with success.

Buyers should keep track of where they find most of their best-received gifts from year to year and shop there first, she said.

•Keep track.

“Save your gift lists from year to year and refer back to them,” she suggested.

•Calendar craft time.

For people who like to give handmade presents, reduce stress by planning a realistic schedule of how many can be made in the busy days before Christmas—and how many are big projects that need to be started much earlier in the year. If making gifts by hand is priority, put it on the calendar and treat crafting times as appointments to be honored.

•Shop for children last.

Children go through phases quickly, and they often change their minds about what toys they want for Christmas—particularly as they see holiday advertisements.

•Shop for Jesus first.

“I like for people to put Jesus at the top of their list,” she noted. “Whether it’s a gift of time or a financial gift, pray about it and make it priority.”

Looking ahead to next year, Ramsland recommended shoppers look at Halloween rather than the day after Thanksgiving as the starting date for the present-buying season. If most presents are bought and wrapped before Thanksgiving, that leaves more time for other activities during the weeks immediately before Christmas—and fewer stress-inducing trips to malls when they are the most crowded.

Beyond the narrow issue of shopping for presents, look for ways to simplify the crowded calendar by combining social events, she suggested.

“If you’re going to a Christmas play and church, but you also want to get together with a particular couple, invite them to go out to dinner with you before the program,” she said. “Do a couple of things in one night. By multi-tasking, you free up another night.”

Once the required activities are out of the way, families have time to creatively develop their own traditions. They could be as simple as asking everyone at the Christmas dinnertable to mention one or two things that happened in the last year for which they are thankful, she suggested.

Families can reduce stress considerably simply by not holding themselves up to an impossible standard, she added.

“Check your attitude,” she urged. “Make sure you’re not expecting too much—that you’re not aiming for perfection. It doesn’t have to match what your mother did.”