Simple Ways to Keep Your New Year Resolutions

By: Terry Neff
UNITS Mobile Storage of Eastern PA

This month we talked about how busy and stressful the holidays can be and showed you ways to take care of yourself through the craziness. With the holiday season now coming to an end, we are looking to the New Year and all it brings. What is the first thing that comes to mind? New Year’s resolutions! Chances are, you’ve made at least one New Year‘s resolution in your lifetime, and if you’re like most people, you’ve had trouble keeping it. When you make a resolution, it is usually with the intent to better yourself in some way; like losing weight, saving more money or taking more time for yourself or your family. The problem is that although you’ve made the resolution, you haven’t given yourself enough of a plan or support to get you back on track when you find yourself losing sight of your goal. Here are some helpful tips to organize and prioritize your resolutions this year so you won’t have the same ones next year!

Resolutions for your home

Clutter in your home can lead to clutter in your mind. Think about it, how can you feel organized when your surroundings are in such disarray? Keeping your home organized can keep you on track to not only setting goals, but achieving them as well. Here are some examples:

1. Limit “stuff” – limit items that you bring into your living space. You could be surprised what you can actually live without.
2. Simplify - you don’t need five different shampoos, three different sets of dishes and four sets of sheets. Decide what you really need and give away the rest.
3. Throw it away - if you’re holding onto something from ten years ago, chances are you won’t be using it again or fitting into it again. Get rid of it!
4. Designate places - have a place for everything; bills, statements, junk mail, magazines, etc. This makes finding that item much easier.
5. Say “No!” - If someone is offering you items or hand me downs that you have no use for don’t take them! They will just take up more space that you probably need!

Resolutions for yourself

Making a New Year’s resolution with the intent to better yourself is a great idea, but if you make that resolution without a plan to help you stay on track, you’re setting yourself up for failure. This is the continuous cycle we all face year after year. Here are some tips to give you a real chance and break that cycle:

1. Be realistic – Strive for a goal that is attainable. For example, giving up a favorite food altogether could be very difficult, instead limit the amount that you will eat.
2. Outline a plan – this will keep your goals on track. For example, schedule days for exercising and have ways to deal with the temptation of not going.
3. Tell people about your resolution - This keeps you accountable to yourself, and to them. They can also be a great support system if you need encouragement to stay on track.
4. Reward yourself - enjoy the success of sticking with your goal by giving yourself rewards that won’t contradict your goal.
5. Track your progress - Keep track of how well you are doing in a journal or day planner. Seeing your daily efforts can keep you motivated to stay on track!

The New Year is upon us! Break the cycle of broken resolutions this year by having a plan to keep your goals attainable and realistic. And if you do fall off the wagon—that’s ok! Just get back on, forgive yourself and get back to your plan!

Terry Neff is the owner of UNITS Mobile Storage of Eastern PA. He is an expert on relocation and the ins and out of this tough life change. To contact Terry, call 610-997-8648 or visit www.unitsstorage.com.

Holiday Decorating Made Easy

By: Terry Neff
UNITS Mobile Storage of Eastern PA

What better way to capture the holiday season than with decorations? Remember the feeling of driving down the road and looking at the bright lights and decorations adorning the houses during the holidays? You couldn’t help but to stop and stare at the glorious sight! Being a kid admiring the decorations is one thing—being an adult and having to do the decorating is another! Here are some ways to keep you organized and make decorating fun and easy. Hopefully you followed some kind of organizational tips last year so that this year you don’t spend your time untangling lights and picking up broken pieces —but if not; here are some tips to organize you this year, so that next year will be a tangle-free year!

A. Group together items in designated boxes that you will need at the same time. This helps to keep items that you decorate in certain rooms or areas of your home together. Here are some examples of how you can keep like items organized:

1. Box #1- Cards, calendars and holiday music
2. Box #2-Candles, table-runners and window lighting
3. Box #3-Holiday decorations, ornaments and tree toppers
4. Box #4-Baking supplies and holiday dishes

B. Store items efficiently and safely to keep them protected and organized when they are packaged and stored away all year long. Here are some ways to keep your decorations intact:

1. Use large plastic bins with ornament dividers to keep ornaments organized and prevent them from getting damaged or broken.
2. Use small plastic bags for small items that are easily lost such as; nails, screws and hooks.
3. Use small plastic bins for storing those items in the plastic bags to keep them together and organized.
4. Use wreath boxes specially designed for wreaths to avoid damaging and flattening them.

Don’t forget to label, label, label! Even with plastic bins that you can see through, labeling the container with a list of the contents inside will ensure that you don’t drive yourself crazy looking through every bin for just one item—because it’s always in the last place you look!

Terry Neff is the owner of UNITS Mobile Storage of Eastern PA. He is an expert on relocation and the ins and out of this tough life change. To contact Terry, call 610-997-8648 or visit www.unitsstorage.com.

Holiday Parties – A Guide to Stress-Free Entertaining

By: Terry Neff
UNITS Mobile Storage of Eastern PA

What kind of holiday season would this be without the assortment of all the holiday fixings? Turkey, ham, pumpkin rolls, cookies, egg nog, pies… this list is endless. If you’re the one preparing everything, it can also be overwhelming. Preparing the food is one thing, but once everyone has eaten all the wonderful array of food, you realize that someone now has to clean up everything! How much fun is that? If this happens to be your responsibility this holiday season, here are some ways to ease the stress of cooking for many people and ease the burden of that awful task of the clean-up afterwards.

Cooking:

• Prepare as much food as possible ahead of time by cooking and baking dishes that can be made ahead of time and freezing them for later.
• Buy liquor and beverages early to avoid waiting in the long lines that are common at this time of the year.
• On the actual day that you’re celebrating the holiday—create a schedule and stick to it to ensure enough time to cook everything and set up your placements.
• Let people help you!—If someone offers to bring a side dish or dessert—Let them!

Clean-up:

• Use food containers for leftovers, they’re easy to use, stackable, and cheap enough to let guests take home with them.
• If you have a dishwasher, use it! If not, designate helpers to dry and put dishes away immediately after you wash them.
• If you have extra money and don’t want to be bothered with the clean-up, splurge on a cleaning service or rent dishes. Weigh out the cost of the service to the amount of headache and stress the clean-up causes you. It could be money well spent!

If you’re in charge of cooking, baking and cleaning up this holiday season, don’t let the task overwhelm you. Use these tips to keep yourself organized and stress free. You’ll have enough stress worrying about how to burn off all those calories you will consume this holiday so enjoy them while you can!

Terry Neff is the owner of UNITS Mobile Storage of Eastern PA. He is an expert on relocation and the ins and out of this tough life change. To contact Terry, call 610-997-8648 or visit www.unitsstorage.com.

Getting Through Holiday Shopping – Stress Free!

By: Terry Neff
UNITS Mobile Storage of Eastern PA

It’s December – you know what that means! The countdown of the holiday season is on! This is supposed to be a joyous time but for many people it ends up becoming a stressful one. Remember last year when you told yourself, “next year will be different. I’ll plan ahead so I can enjoy the holidays instead of getting so frazzled.” Well, guess what? That time is here… are you prepared? Over the next four weeks we’ll offer some advice on how to stay organized throughout this holiday season, so you can actually enjoy it! One of the major stressors of the holidays is gift giving. Who do you have to buy for? What is their size? What don’t they already have? The search for the perfect gift can be a daunting and overwhelming task. Here are some great tips to ease the chaos and stay focused.

Shopping for gifts:

• Shop early in the season at the off peak hours and online if possible. This eliminates the pain of looking for parking spaces, standing in long lines and dealing with grumpy sales people.
• Organize your lists of who you have to buy for by person or group and carry a notebook with names, sizes and ideas for those people.
• Carry a receipt envelope with you when you shop and write down the name of the person on the receipt. This is helpful to keep track of who has a gift and helps you to be organized if you have to return any items.
• Keep a basket in your car to hold your packages—it keeps them from falling out and makes it easier to carry them from your car to your house.

Wrapping gifts:

• Create a “wrapping station” in your home—a place where you will only do your gift wrapping.
• Stock your station with all the essentials; wrapping paper, scissors, boxes, tape, bows, ribbons, gift tags, and cards.
• As an alternate to gift tags, or to minimize using many different gift tags, designate one kind of wrapping paper per person and wrap all their gifts in that same paper.
• Play soft music, holiday or not, and make yourself your favorite drink to enjoy this “quiet time” that you have all to yourself.

The countdown is on! There are a million things you need to do to prepare for this season, with gift giving being at the top of that list. Follow these tips and ideas to keep this task, fun, easy and stress-free. You owe it to yourself to keep your promise from last year to have more fun and less stress!

Terry Neff is the owner of UNITS Mobile Storage of Eastern PA. He is an expert on relocation and the ins and out of this tough life change. To contact Terry, call 610-997-8648 or visit www.unitsstorage.com.