Holiday Organizing Tips with Kathi Burns, CPO and Author KUSI News
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Announcer: You’re watching Good Morning San Diego.
Man: Ready or not, the holidays of course are here.
Woman: Yeah, right around the corner. We’ve got some tips so that you can enjoy them. Get a head start and get organized for the holiday season. Some great ideas coming up from Kathi Burns. She’ll help you master your muck and get it done.
Man: That’s right. Did you hear that Bells, we’re going to master your muck.
Woman: You don’t have any muck. You’re a cutie! You’re muckless.
Woman: Let’s face it, getting ready for those holidays takes a lot of effort, and today we’ve got the secret for mastering your holiday muck and how you can do it all and get it all done, believe it or not, by mid-December. Sharing the secret is professional organizer and image consultant, Kathi Burns. Good morning!
Kathi: Good morning!
Woman: I love your book, ‘Manage Your Muck,’ it’s awesome…or ‘Master Your Muck,’ it’s fantastic.
Kathi: Thank you.
Woman: You’ve got some special stuff for the holidays to tell us about.
Kathi: I do. The idea for the holidays is instead of get stressed, get organized.
Woman: Okay, so it starts with this.
Kathi: It starts with the calendar, of course. Planning and pre-planning. So figuring out what’s happening for you in December, it’s the perfect time right now to figure that out. As you see before you even get into it, I’d like you to plan a little bit. Figure out when your parties are, when you’re going to find the decorations, when you’re going to trim the tree. Get it all mapped out for yourself in advance. That really helps a lot.
Woman: Right, and you say the goal is really to get it done by the 15th.
Kathi: Yes. That way you can relax and enjoy the parties and not have to cook and not have to just have a lot of holiday angst around it.
Woman: And you have a wonderful organizer you’ve put together, tell us about your organizer.
Kathi: Yes, this has everything in one fell swoop. And if you pull it out every year, if you create it once and you pull it out every year, you have your thank you cards, you have cards lists so you can keep track of who you gave cards to last year, who you got cards from, so on and so forth. You can keep a place for your receipts, your travel itineraries, traditions, and the thing that I like the most is the guest list for the parties. You can see who came last year and who you want to invite this year. And then also the recipes that you only use once a year. So all of this is in one binder and it really allows you to keep track of what’s going on year to year to year.
Woman: That’s a great idea because things change and you know sometimes you lose touch with people and you want to make sure you’ve got everything figured out and you don’t have to get that all together every year again because here you are adding more time to an already very busy period, right?
Kathi: Right, keep it simple. Keep it simple.
Woman: Okay. Also for gift getting you have some great ideas.
Kathi: This is an idea of keeping it simple. So you can do a gift theme, I’ve been doing this for years. So this is a year for wine gifts. So depending on the person you can choose wine goblets, a bottle of wine, some trinkets, cork screws. So all year all you do is just shop for wine stuff.
Woman: That makes it so easy for you but yet you can get a personalized gift for everybody on your list.
Kathi: Exactly.
Woman: You can go to one location or two locations, you know exactly what you’re doing. Okay, you’ve got another theme.
Kathi: This is my year for a picture theme, pictures actually. So I’ve been acquiring frames and I’ll do customized gifts and frames and pictures this year, which could be very easy and very personalized. You could also have scents or candles perhaps as a theme. So if you have a theme, it just allows you to keep your shopping very basic and keep your eye on the prize when you walk into a store, and not be overwhelmed by all the things that are there for you. You just know okay, this is the theme for wine. Let’s go for that.
Woman: That is such a great idea. I love it. Also you have something for our viewers too if they want some help getting organized.
Kathi: Absolutely. For everyone who will email [email protected], write KUSI in the subject line. You’ll be enrolled to win a free personalized consultation from me for organizing for your holidays.
Woman: Oh, great! So if you’re a little overwhelmed right now, you’re going to be out there to help KUSI viewers with that right there. Thank you so much for coming in, great ideas. I love the theme gift, I think that’s my favorite, but once again it’s just getting started now, right? We don’t have much time.
Kathi: That’s right, pull out your calendar, cross it off, just like we’re going to do right now what’s happening in your life and that way nothing will be surprising for you.
Woman: Okay, we’ve got some information on the screen to give you as well and here it is. The information once again – you’ve got to create a list. For example, find your decorations, decorate the tree, purchase the gifts, you’ve got all that down and then all of your holiday parties, to list them out as well. And once again, if you’d like to have an opportunity to have Kathi help you it’s [email protected] is the website. Thanks so much for coming in.
Kathi: Thank you very much.
