Hey there. If you're still trying to figure out what you're going to get your loved ones for the holidays, may I suggest my book and the gift of organization right now You can head over and get the sale prices on Amazon through the month of December. So check out. I've got you girlfriend. Why getting organized and living this mom life is not a solo.
And you can get your copy and maybe a couple of extras for your friends today for a discounted price and get excited for the new audio book release. I will make sure that you know when it comes out. In the meantime, happy holidays.
Hi, I'm Paige Killian and I'm passionate about helping busy moms of littles organize and style their life in three simple steps. Living this mom life is incredible and sometimes completely overwhelming. Is stressing about overstuffed drawers, never-ending mail piles a mountain of Legos and our kids' artwork.
Really what got intended? No way. Getting organized has been a game changer for me and also my clients, but it has to be simple or it just won't get done. So let's simplify the process and clear the clutter to see the blessings God has for us. I know your time is. So thanks for joining me each week for a healthy dose of organization and a whole lot of motivation.
Be there. Thank you so much for listening in today. Happy holidays if you are listening in real time. This is such a special time of year and I wanted to just come on today and really talk to you about how we can make the most of that holiday time. Of course, using three simple steps, uh, with eliminating the holiday overwhelm because I feel like overwhelm is kind of a thing throughout the entire year, but around the holidays there are just so many moving parts, and also sometimes there can be that lack of structure, which your kids and even you might really thrive.
So sometimes there's blessings in that, which I will get to, but also a lot of times there can be that anxiety because we don't totally know how things are gonna play out. There are definitely some things, whether it's weather changes or maybe someone gets sick or perhaps. You know, things just don't really go according to plan.
So I wanted to just offer three simple steps today, uh, that maybe will help you in really eliminating some of that holiday overwhelm. I think that it still could be there, just as I said, because of the unknown, but the goal is to try. To put some things in place ahead of time that will actually allow for you to really just soak in all of those fun moments that are happening during this off time from school and perhaps work for you.
So the first thing I wanna say is plan ahead now. I did an episode recently, episode one 30. Get organized for the holidays, and I did that earlier in the season because I wanted you to start thinking about things like maybe your holiday decor, maybe booking those travel events, whether it was going to be, uh, through a plane or car ride or wherever.
Maybe just going down the street, but either way. Planning ahead is so important, and the reason that you want to attempt to plan ahead as much as you possibly can is to really set yourself up for certain expectations you have. Now, again, these things may not go exactly according to plan, but you can certainly as far in advance as you possibly can, plan the flights and know that when you expect the unexpected.
You're a little more prepared. So if you are flying and you're heading back after your trip, perhaps if you're listening to this episode a little bit beyond the holidays, uh, just know that having things like extra changes of clothes, whether it's car or flying, Uh, making sure that you are packing plenty of snacks.
There's always food issues with the kids. You know, make sure that perhaps this is the time that you wanna be a little more lenient on screen time and say, let's make sure that our technology is charged ready to go. It is okay to allow for that. During this time, don't feel like you have to sort of uphold maybe some of the boundaries that you've set around technology and screen time during the week, during the school year, maybe it's okay to get a little bit more relaxed.
And certainly around the holidays, sometimes you have those gifts that are going to be coming in your space. So one of the things I really like to do with planning ahead is doing a good purge because inevitably you are gonna have some new stuff come into your. And you don't want that to be cluttered, so absolutely.
Doing a good purge before that is a great idea. I can tell you I'm recording this a few weeks before Christmas, which is what we celebrate, and we just did a big purge. We do them, we do smaller ones throughout the year often. And then we do a bigger one right around the holiday season, just because, like I said, we know some things are gonna be coming in, but also it's because the kids, my kids have fall birthdays, so they start school, they immediately both have birthdays and then it's practically Christmas.
And so at that time, I really wanna assess what has made its way into our home if it's not being used right now. We say goodbye to it and ultimately try to find a good home for it through donation or to actually get a little r o a and try to sell it. So whatever you need to do, make sure you're doing that good purge to get it out of your home.
I always like to remind you, don't put it in the trunk of your car if you are getting it out of your home, because sometimes you can forget. Out of sight, out of mind. Put it in the front seat of your car and immediately take it to drop off to donation. Making sure you go ahead and grab one of those receipts for attacks.
Write off if you need to do that, or perhaps you put it in your front seat so you can go mail it to your besties and their kids for hammy downs. Either way, get that clutter out of your. Before the holiday season is upon you, if you feel like gifts are going to be coming in, I do want you to go back and listen to that episode if you haven't already, because I also mentioned in there how important it is to talk to your family about not really inundating you with tons of stuff that's gonna turn into clutter.
If perhaps right now it makes more sense for you to. Combine your efforts and do experiences. Maybe you wanna get together with friends and family and go look at Christmas lights together in cute Christmas pajamas or Hanukkah pajamas. If Christmas isn't what you celebrate, or any of these holidays that you guys are celebrating, perhaps it's an opportunity for you guys to do something that's not super expensive where you just jump in the car together, enjoy that special time, run around looking at holiday lights that are up in your neighborhood.
Um, sometimes there's even. Specific places that will actually create something magical that you can drive through and see. Or maybe you wanna go look at a beautiful nativity scene at a nearby, uh, church or community center that they've set up. Any of those fun things. Planning ahead could mean that this is a really fun opportunity for you guys to get together.
Not necessarily spending a ton of money, but just that quality time together. So I also really love to communicate your desires for that holiday season ahead of time with your family members. This may just be your kids and your spouse, or this may be your greater family or friends. Perhaps you're celebrating the holidays with friends who are like family and just making sure that.
Communicating ahead of time to say, this is what I'd really like to see happen. Maybe you guys have a certain itinerary because maybe you like to do like, um, Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day at separate places. Maybe you guys wanna communicate about what. Food people are preparing. Maybe you just wanna say, this year let's all prepare it together, or maybe it's a potluck situation.
Just jumping ahead and trying to communicate those expectations sooner than later will add to eliminating a little bit of that holiday overwhelm so you don't feel like you're doing everything last minute, or you don't feel like you're doing everything all by yourself. Okay? Let the kids. Let your friends and your family members help do it all together.
That really makes for some special moments too. All right, so if we're following those three E's, I love going back to those tried and true three E's in my three E's philosophy. That to me, feels like an essential. Plan ahead, definitely essential to really eliminating that holiday overwhelm. All right, number two, this is your enhancement.
What's gonna add style or value to doing those things and planning ahead? Well, I say tidy as you go, so don't let. Everything. Get overrun with chaos and craziness. If you're hosting in your home, don't let it get so out of hand that nobody wants to help clean up and it's miserable. Just do a little bit here and there.
Now, I am not saying that you need to be the mom. Perhaps that just is on her feet constantly doing dishes, grabbing, wrapping paper if gifts have been open and putting those away, and you never can sit down and like truly be in the moment. I'm not saying that at all, so hear me out on this. Tidying as you go doesn't just have to be a solo mission, okay?
That really can be accomplished in that first essential step of planning ahead and communicating effectively with your people who are going to be joining you of what you need. So tidying as you go could be making sure dad or an uncle or an aunt or a cousin who's joining you, or even one of the kids, goes and grabs perhaps some garbage bags or something, and you can have one person on bawling up all of the wrapping paper.
And launching it that I have the best memories of my dad and my brothers. Us growing up all being little throughout the ages, it always seemed to be the thing that my dad would break out the garbage bag, my brothers and I would be like bawling up the trash and then my brothers would launch it into the garbage bag from across the room.
It made it fun so it wasn't miserable to clean up after things were like completely chaotic. Also, I tended to be the person, I mean, leave it to my O C D organizer tendencies to grab any of the gift bags that we could reuse. Again, fold those up neatly, and then mom and I would carefully take the bows off and we would set those aside so that way you would have another little pile of your neatly folded things that you could reuse for the coming holiday season or any of your seasons that you need.
Gift wrapping. So that's something that you could actually sort of assign somebody. And I don't mean like, Hey, here's your job. You do this, you do this. No, no, no, no, no. Not annoying, right? We're not, we're not, we're not attempting to be a nag here. We just wanna make sure that, again, we're setting those expectations.
To eliminate that overwhelm because if you leave it till the very end, it can kind of be frustrating and annoying. And then there's like a little bit of resentment that can trickle in because you start feeling like, ah, it's me again doing this all by myself. Everybody else gets to have fun. Everybody else has all the cute, you know, photos with the kids opening, and then I'm the one that stuck cleaning.
Does anybody ever feel like that? Does that resonate at all with you? Well, listen, this year it stops. Okay? Because you're gonna be planning ahead and then you're gonna be tidying as you go. But you're gonna do it in a fun way. It doesn't have to be stressful. So you don't get overwhelmed. Do just little bits at a time.
Okay? This also, by the way, has to do with like after eating meals instead of leaving it out. And I, I understand if perhaps what you wanna do is leave some things out in case you're kind of grazing. No problem. Find a way to consolidate it on smaller plates and listen, if this is the time of the year that you just really don't want to have to do a ton of dishes and you wanna bring in paper products, do it.
Have a separate bag for recycling and making sure you're getting rid rid of that. Food waste and the trash waste in the proper way, if that makes you feel better about it. But like don't beat yourself up about like, oh, we need to have the perfect China out. We need to get out all of our Christmas stuff and only eat on that if that actually creates overwhelm and stress and frustration around the holidays.
Eliminate it. You don't have to do that. You could do it some years and then don't do it other years. Don't feel pressure. Now if that brings you joy to get out all of your fun holiday platters and place mats and tablecloths and all of that, great. But again, stick with that planning ahead. Essential where you're saying, guys, I really wanna do this cuz I love it.
I get really excited about putting these pretty special things out and having these memories. Perhaps they've been handed down year after year, and those are really special things to have on your. Holiday eating table, right? But say, but I don't wanna get stuck having to clean everything up. Could everybody just lend a quick helping hand?
We can even set a timer for five minutes if we need to just do what we can. And then you guys can go off and play with all of your gifts and you know, the parents can sit around and have a little, you know, after dinner treat or. Perhaps adding cocktails to after dinner is what you wanna do this year.
Whatever you need to avoid and eliminate that holiday overwhelm. Please add that in to what you're doing this year. So I've said plan ahead. I've said tidy as you go. Now the third step, this is your extra, and this some argue might be the most important thing. Which is to truly pause and enjoy the blessings that are happening all around you.
Now, that could totally be your essential. Don't forget that when you're thinking of your three E's that are going to simplify the organization process, don't forget that you may actually choose to make something that I might do as an extra. You might choose to put that as you're essential. That might be your number one most important thing.
Maybe you aren't typically the person who sits down on the floor with your kids and opens stuff up and plays with stuff and gets in all of the pictures for them. And so maybe that is your essential this year. Okay. Maybe you're like Paige. I always plan ahead. That's just like old hat. I do that all the time.
I'm not even trying to put that on my to-do list cuz it just. Maybe your essential is actually this year being the person who's in front of all of those photos, the camera that somebody else is taking. Maybe you say, Hey, will you take a photo with me in it? So it actually looks like I was here. Will you do video with mom opening the presence in case dad has been the one that's done it in the past, or only the kids are the ones who are opening?
Just decide what's most important to. Hey there. Quick reminder that now there are four ways to get my book. If you head over to Amazon, you can search up. I've Got You Girlfriend. Why Getting organized and living this mom life is not a solo mission. You can now get it on the Kendall app, paperback hard cover, and the audiobook is finally here.
So if you've been enjoying this podcast episode, I have a feeling you might love the audiobook. Thanks so much for making it a best seller. And now back to the show.
For me, I know that it is very important to make sure that I remind myself to pause throughout this whole. and really enjoy each step of the process to not start feeling overwhelmed about like, I need to go clean up the kitchen. I need to get the dirty dishes done. I need to still be doing laundry. I need to be doing this or that to make everyone else's experience amazing.
Maybe what's most important for you this year is you actually sit down in the floor and you play with your kids, and you are launching the Christmas wrapping paper into the big old garbage. . Okay. So whatever you normally do decide, how's that working for you? in the, in the word, the Dr. Phil. I remember coming home from school sometimes and watching Dr.
Phil. Is that still on by the way? I don't know, but he would always be like, how's that working for you? You know, in his Texas accent. How is what you've been doing in the past working for. If it's not awesome, you can change it. If you do love some of the things you've done in the past, you wanna make sure those happen this year, make sure they're a part of your three E's and you're communicating that to your family so you can all be on the same page.
All right, so what are the blessings that are happening all around you? Even if somebody spilled something on your brand new carpet that you just got for the holidays, even if you know flights are delayed, or the trip that you were trying to take because you wanted to go and be with loved ones, got derailed for whatever reason.
there are still blessings happening all around you. Maybe this year you're very thankful for your health and you need to pause to look at your kids and say, thank you, God, for this opportunity to spend with my kids who are healthy right now. Maybe health is really tricky for you right now, and you need to say thank you for something else so that you can still be in prayer about health and making sure that your loved ones and your friends are getting that extra prayer that they.
For health. Maybe it's you, maybe you're going through a health journey right now and you need to be in prayer about that. Focus on some of the things that are going on around you that are going well and going right so that you aren't struggling with that so much. That you're missing that gratitude piece, that you're missing the blessings that are happening all around you.
And sometimes they're really hard to find. I mean, sometimes you need to be like, Lord, dear Jesus, I am so thankful for this coffee that's in my hand right now. You know, like maybe it's that. Maybe it's, thank you, God, for allowing me to get a shower today or last night because I felt kind of gross for the last few days and felt like I've just been moving along on autopilot and I haven't stopped to say, whoa, mom needs to get in the shower because there's not enough dry shampoo to, to save this hairstyle on the Christmas morning video.
Okay, so just like figure out what it is that you need and make that happen. Um, put that on your priority list, communicate it with your family. Um, also making sure that you're tidying as you go so you don't feel like it's a solo mission to pull it all together and then really do truly look for the blessings that are all around you.
They are. , even if sometimes it's really hard to see them. If your kids or some of your family members are fighting for whatever reason, maybe just find a quiet space to go decompress for a moment. Like, I don't know, take some holiday pie or three hour old coffee that's cold that you could like throw some ice in and be like, yeah, I wanted ice coffee today.
Sure. And just sneak away and have a quiet moment. And maybe that's your. A quiet moment away from the chaos. Whatever it is that you need, make it obvious to people this year. Don't let that feel like a selfish thing. Let that feel like something that you're setting the tone so that you don't let that overwhelm creep in for the holidays.
All right. I do have to say my mom taught me really, really well many years ago that sometimes we put a lot of pressure on ourselves for specific days and holidays and events to have these huge. Moments of, you know, memories and joy and happiness, and sometimes wanting that can actually backfire because if it doesn't go according to plan, it can really leave us feeling frustrated and angry and hurt and depressed.
Holidays can be something totally different to everyone. You know, this could be the time of year that's really sensitive for you. I have friends who have lost loved ones around this time, and that's really hard. You guys know how much I loved Grand Mommy. I'm gonna miss her again this year. I'm gonna miss all my grandparents who are up in heaven right now.
I will miss them, but I also know that the last thing that they would want is for me to be stressed out and frustrated and sad because they're not. They're gonna want me to look around and see the blessings that are happening, and they are not gonna want me to withhold my laughter and making memories and my joy because maybe you think I should be mourning the loss of them.
I should probably be sad right now. You don't want that. . So what is it that you need to be thinking about right now if maybe those struggles are part of your reality so that you can really actually enjoy the blessings that are happening all around you? I'm saying some prayers for you. I hope your holidays are amazing.
Continue to hang with me here on the podcast because we're gonna be talking as we move into the new year, all about setting more organization realistic expectations of what we want our life to look like. When we make organization an option, how we can do this as a family, how we can truly make our home a welcoming, wonderful environment that we love going into, or honestly might not wanna leave because it's so nice because you've put in some effort and energy on the home front and you really like being.
Are you like having people there and hosting because you have found ways to not feel so overwhelmed and stressed out by organization, but you actually have the motivation to get it done in, of course, three simple steps and it's serving all of you. It's serving you, it's serving your family, and it's serving people who are guests in your home.
So continue to stay with me. I appreciate you being here. I totally love you so much, and I am beyond grateful for you and thankful for you this holiday season. I hope that you will head over and do a review for me. It's always an awkward ask when I say that, but um, you can do that. I always talk about it in the outro.
You can hear me say, That you can go do that on, um, apple Podcasts. And also if you have had an opportunity to check out my book in any form, whether it's Kendall, which is an e-reader, the paperback, the hard cover now, or the audio book. Thank you so, so much. Hopefully you guys have snagged a couple of those as gifts for your loved ones that would make me so, so happy.
Just take an opportunity if you could. Head over to Amazon and write a review for me. Let me know what it is you're liking about something you heard. If you're listening to the audio book or, uh, read in the book, that just means the absolute world to me. I was thinking about it the other day and I was like, you know, Sometimes we can go into restaurants and we might say, oh, I really appreciated what this server did.
Thank you so much. You might reach out to their manager and say, oh my gosh, they were amazing. They made my kids feel so good, or We got everything we needed, or, the food was delicious. Please let the, the chefs know in the back that it was so good. and sometimes they'll say, actually, it would be amazing if you could take the receipt and at the bottom of the receipt it shows you where to go and you could actually write a review for us.
That is so, so helpful to them, and I, I now really realize how helpful that can be. Um, now that I have the book, now that I have the podcast and people will come to those, Just when you go to a restaurant or when you go to an event or someplace and and you wanna look up and find out, is it worth your time?
You're gonna read the reviews. You're gonna see if somebody gave it four or five stars because that's where you wanna be, or that's what you're wanting to listen to. . So make sure that you are extending that not just to me, but anybody that you could do that for, especially over the holiday season. You know, I love that, like extra giving spirit, do that for someone.
It's so helpful if you are going to those sites and you're actually looking to see what's going well and what maybe somebody needs to be warned about. Take the time to write those reviews for people. It is, it is so very much appreciated and I'm certainly saying that, uh, for myself as well. So if you have not had a chance yet, you can check out Amazon.
You can look at up my book, it's called I've Got You Girlfriend. Why getting organized and living this mom life is not a solo mission. So if that is something that sounds like it might resonate with you, check that out now in four different forms, the ebook, the paperback, the hard cover, and the audiobook.
So I am thrilled and a special thank you to all of the people who made that happen over at the podcast boutique over at Landon Haile Press. So excited now to have my book officially published with them. So thank you to. The beautiful, amazing book team. I call them and podcast team, but I'm so grateful to be working with you are certainly a blessing and I never take what you do for granted.
Thank you so, so, so much. All right, you guys have a wonderful holiday season and I will talk to you next week for some more organization motivation. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Mom's Organization Motivation Podcast. For more resources to organize and style your busy life, head over to everything with style.com and connect with me on Instagram at Everything with Style.
Mom, if this episode was helpful for you, please share it with your friends rate and review it on it. That's Apple Podcast now and let me know what you'd like to hear about next. Thanks again for listening and happy organizing.