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Christmas Decoration Storage

Okay, I know, Christmas hasn’t even happened and I am already talking about storage

for your Christmas decorations, wrapping paper, lights, and ornaments. But this is the time when you’re buying those things and the storage options to contain them are plentiful, in the stores, and you are too.

If you consider your gift-wrap and decorations necessities, consider this a necessity too. If you’re going to spend the money for these things, they will last years longer if you pack them up easily and effortlessly in protective containers. The other financial bonus is they are usually on sale. Jo-Ann’s Fabric and Crafts have their 60% off holiday sale going on. This includes holiday storage containers too. Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, Target all have good assortments as well.

Originally I used to think this is one more way to get my money at holiday time. Yes, the cutesy colors to match the holidays (orange and black for Halloween, red and green for Christmas) made me want to hurl. But you know what? When I needed to get them out year after year, it was so easy to spot which holiday I needed. Most of the clients I’ve had decorate for Christmas the week after Thanksgiving. Everyone knows the bins come out, the handyman is scheduled to come, and everything is clearly marked. The Thanksgiving decorations go back into their bins and the Christmas ones are rotated out. Doing this for your clients is one more way to impress them with your organization skills. It is one small tool from my core basic system to “idiot proof everything.” This system saves you expensive man-hours of explaining where things are and which boxes to pull year-after-year. Packing and unpacking is a breeze because everything has a place.

As for the containers themselves, I recommend staying away from the bags, as they don’t offer much protection when your kids are tossing them around in the attic. However, they are great for under bed storage if you do not have space for the large plastic bins. Here are a few links to some of my favorite containers.

Wreath Storage

http://www.homzproducts.com/Scripts/Wreath-Storage-2-Prodview.html

Christmas Wrapping Paper Storage

http://www.homzproducts.com/Scripts/Wrap-Storage-2-Prodview.html

Outdoor light storage

http://www.homzproducts.com/Scripts/Holiday-Snaplock-light-wrap-box-Prodview.html

Ornament or Gift Decoration Box

http://www.snapware.com/products/home-storage-ornament-box-1098785

Love Snapware Snap “N Stack. Not just for holidays and it keeps like items together.

Make sure to store areas you decorate together. Keep all the tree lights with the tree items. Extension cords, power surge plugs, lights, ornaments and tree topper, should all go together in one bin. Patriots of organization be fearless! Mix it up. You can take the bins for the tree lights and put it inside of a larger plastic bin that holds everything for the tree.

One last note on buying and packing up your Christmas decorations, mark your bins with a large paper with large print on the short and long side of your bins; “tree,” “outdoor decorations,” “mantel decorations,” etc.  Tape them on or better yet, slip them in a fed ex label holder (these have the best peel and stick adhesive) and viola!

You’ll thank me next year.

 

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The Season of Lists, Lists and More Lists

‘Tis the season my friends for all those constantly updated annual lists to come into play. Frankly, by now you should be at least halfway through the gift buying cycle for everyone on your employer’s gift list, holidays cards should be at the printer, and final lists approved. And if you’re not yet kicked into high gear just wait until Monday! Right after the Thanksgiving holiday is when everyone gets the wake up call that they better get busy.

Back around September all these lists were dusted off, given to the employer for approval and gift decisions. Additions and deletions were made and depending on your employer, you may have made the gift buying suggestions, be the buyer yourself and some of you may have a gift buyer or personal shopper make a presentation and the gifts will be handled by them. (You lucky ducks!)  I used to be personally responsible for 300 personal gifts and another 200 corporate gifts in addition to my regular monthly responsibilities. I hated the holidays. And now, to the utter dismay of my teenage daughter, I can honestly say I loathe the mall, and see shopping in Beverly Hills as a sentence worst than the plague. But I digress.

Here are the lists I keep which I do update throughout the year.

Suggested Additions List

           This is the list we start out with of who has come into my employers life the past year that may go onto any of the lists below. Maybe the past year they were in construction and have a contractor or subcontractor to add, have a new employee, someone in the family has a new baby, or if they are in the movie industry, they have a new movie family depending on which project(s) they are working on at that time.

 Christmas Gift List

This is a database that lists the names, relationships (vendor, family, friend), level of gift designated (small, med, large), card message, method of delivery (local or shipping, hand deliver or runner), what was given the years prior and who is handling the purchase.

Christmas Gift List for the Gift Buyer

The same as above but additions are updated (in red) with the date of the change, has addresses and phone numbers (for deliveries), and the method of delivery is important so they know if they are gift wrapping for shipping or hand delivery, shows the date I want the gifts received, and after the holidays lists the final costs of each gift including delivery (for tax purposes later).

 Christmas Card List (Personal)

This database contains the name, address, relationship and if they will also receive a gift or donation to a charity on the recipient’s behalf. Usually everyone on the Christmas gift list is on one of the holiday card lists. (Note on card lists: if your printer is busy to get to the fancy 4-color card you’re printing, try to get the envelopes printed in advance so you can start addressing. Usually they always have a press running black ink. Back in the day a calligrapher had to have them weeks in advance. Now we label or laser print them but the sooner the better. Stuffing is the easy part.)

 Christmas Card List (Business)

This database contains the name, address, relationship and each will usually receive a gift card inserted in their holiday card letting them know a donation has been made to a charity on their behalf.

Employee Bonus Lists (coordinate getting the checks w/the gifts and cards)

This lists the employee, relationship and amount they will receive as a bonus (at least amount equal to one weeks salary), and what they received years prior.

So you can see, the gift season is ongoing and really begins long before September. For example, the charity has to be picked, charity cards designed and printed, monetary amount designated to donate, photos taken for personal holiday cards, addresses accurate, calls made to find out who is in town and who isn’t, corporate and office gifts that are perishable coordinated for delivery a week before their holiday closure, and we aren’t even talking about the personal gift buying yet!

The most important gifts you will buy will be for your employer’s immediate family and the people your employer works for. I recommend paying attention to the gifts your employer gives for birthdays (the monthly birthday list will be discussed in a later blog) as well as honing a taste for what the individuals close to them like. If you don’t know them personally, they have an assistant who can clue you into if they collect anything, have a favorite artist, author, wine, etc. Successful gift buying is your ability to pay attention to what people like and not what you want to give. (Gift buying blog to come.)

One thing I can recommend now that I have a little distance between myself and being on the exhausting front lines of the season is to enjoy the ambiance. As much as I don’t like Beverly Hills, even I must admit, there is such beautiful scenery and spirit in Beverly Hills and in all the shopping outlets that is not there at any other time of the year–trust me it isn’t! The holiday music is playing, the air is crisp, the retail people seem nicer, and the decorations are bright, sparkling and inviting.  Like everything else in life, stop, take a breath and appreciate it.

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Systems to Keep You Sane

Let’s face it, being a personal assistant is not for the weak of heart or the thin-skinned or the meek. With some employers you may need to appear the calm, quiet, efficient, working machine but in reality you must be in full control and three steps ahead of every situation no matter how quickly curve balls are being hurled at you. And as humans we will and do make mistakes. It’s how you handle them that will determine if you keep your job or not.

My best advice to any assistant is although you can switch gears in a nano-second and focus on the latest task at hand, you must be as consistent as possible with your procedures and systems. This will save you restless nights wondering if you remembered to do something or not.

For example, at one client’s home we didn’t have enough parking spaces and would routinely move cars around. If you needed to move a car, you would find the keys on a rack by the door and return it there immediately after. One of the employees woke up one night realizing she did not put our employer’s Porsche keys back on the hook. Of course, this was the car her employer was going to drive the following morning to his appointment in Santa Monica, a beautiful drive from his Malibu home. We all knew how he loved to take this car, top down, on beachside drives. Can you blame him?

Had the employee just followed the procedure of hanging the keys on the rack, she could’ve rested easy. But she deviated from procedure because as she pulled into the garage she was called outside to discuss a problem with the gardener and easily got distracted and put the keys in her pocket so she could write down a note. If you are distracted and are given other priorities at the moment, jot down a note “keys” so that there is a reminder to finish your task. Then before you leave to go home, check over your notes. If you wake up worrying if you did something or not, you can rest assured you did it because there is a procedure in place and you are confident you would’ve followed it.

This brings me, in a rather roundabout manner, to my most important system as a personal assistant…NEVER be without pen and paper. I keep a journal like book with me at all times. I date it on the front of when I start a new book and when I finish with that book I write down the end date. Everything I am asked to do, or things I know I need to do, go into that book, dated and crossed off when the task is complete. I write it all down, even if I am taking the most cryptic of notes. (They will make sense to you later when you can add all the details of the topic discussed.) Never ever be without a pen and paper! Oh, and did I mention, never be without pen and paper?

I have systems for everything and will discuss them in later blogs. But whatever your systems are, they are useless unless you adhere to them.

So while some would argue that there are worst things than driving down Pacific Coast Highway with the sprawling blue ocean on one side and the majestic hills on the other, most will agree that the experience loses something when jolted from sleep and your warm bed to rush out and deliver keys 15 miles away at five a.m.—ask my friend.