Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / Holiday Bonus Episode 4: Decorating Tips for Procrastinators

Transcript

Holiday Bonus Episode 4: Decorating Tips for Procrastinators · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Joy Loving Home Podcast. We are on day four of a special holiday
• 0:05
  bonus series I am doing, which I'm calling the five golden rings.
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  These are the essentials to get us through the holidays if we are procrastinators
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  and start out a little late and feel a little scattered.
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  Today we're going to talk about decorating, but we're going to keep this short
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  and sweet because I want you to be able to get busy and you don't need me to
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  tell you how you like to decorate your house. I am just going to share a few
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  thoughts that I think will be great to have in your head while you're decorating.
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  And I have a great tip to share at the end that is not my own,
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  but I want to pass it along from everyone.
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  Someone I follow and enjoy. So I just wanted to jump in and say,
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  if you are short on time and short on energy, I want you to just focus on what's most important first.
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  I believe, again, I'm focused Christmas heavy because that's the holiday I celebrate,
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  but the most important would be the tree and the stockings.
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  And if you get that going and that gets the energy and the excitement up and
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  you are loving and you want to keep going, then start pulling those things out
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  that bring you the most joy.
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  Every Christmas, anything that's
• 1:14
  nostalgic or meaningful or just Christmas wouldn't feel right without it.
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  And try and instead of, you know, hauling it out and thinking,
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  okay, I have to do this room now, I have to do this room.
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  Actually just let the decorations lead you in a way that feels fun.
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  I have discovered if you have one of those Alexa machines, and I'm going to
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  try and not say her name again so I don't start yours up,
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  but I discovered if I ask her to play instrumental Christmas music,
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  it's actually quite lovely to have on the background.
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  It's not so over-distracting, but it's just a really lovely background while you're working.
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  So quick tip there if that's something you'd like to try.
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  Anyway, I want you to have these things in mind.
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  Move through it as if it's not a chore.
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  Just an exciting part of like holiday cheer that you want to feel like you're participating in.
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  At the point it switched to a chore, wrap it up.
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  It's okay. You don't have to do everything every year. I also want you to know
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  that you don't have to do everything in the same way every year.
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  You might get some crumbles and some crumps from people who like things the
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  same, but they really will get over it.
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  It's a great way to introduce the fact that life changes all the time and that
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  we have to learn how to be adaptable.
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  So that being said, if you have a nativity scene that you really want to put
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  up, but the place where you usually display it is covered with stuff or became
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  the work office or suddenly is, you know.
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  Covered with something else and you just don't have the energy to move it,
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  look around and put it somewhere new.
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  That's really okay. Sometimes when
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  we do everything the same all the time it loses
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  its excitement because it sort
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  of blends into of course that's how we always do it maybe it
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  needs to be shaken up a little bit this year so don't feel like everything always
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  has to be decorated in the same way now that being said let's say you try something
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  new and you absolutely love it and you're like oh i think this would be so fun
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  to do again next year i'll remember it let's face it we never remember it so
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  feel free to snap a picture.
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  Pictures are kind of easy to find in a search anymore. You can scroll back to
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  the month of December, find where you snapped pictures of decorating last year.
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  You can create a folder on your phone and dump Christmas decorating into it.
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  Whatever you want to do, snap yourself a picture so that you can remember.
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  Then, just so you know, there are no like Christmas police coming in and criticizing what you're doing.
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  This is all fun and not supposed to be stressful. If you start messing with
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  a string of lights and they don't work and you remember that they didn't work
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  last year and here you are fussing with that same string of lights,
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  I give you permission to throw that away this year. Just just be done with it.
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  If you only discover you have two strings of lights, then put them in two places and move on.
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  Just make yourself a note that next year you're going to buy,
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  or maybe while you're out at the end of season sales, if there's anything left,
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  you could buy it while it's steeply discounted.
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  Anyway, I just want you to feel like you have permission to do this in any way you want to.
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  There are no rules about how you're going to decorate your own space.
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  So here's the thing.
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  If you are anything like me, you will have a bin or two or three that has stuff
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  that you keep meaning to donate that you haven't been using,
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  that you get to the end of the season and you're just tired and you're packing
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  up and you're like, I don't want to sort this out.
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  I don't know. I just need this gone, or I don't have the time to sort it out
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  and drop it at donations this year, like I can't bear to deal with this,
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  this is where my tip comes from.
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  So I follow a lady named Michalyn Smith, and she has written several books on cozy minimalism,
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  but she is on Instagram as The Nester, and she always recommends that you write
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  yourself a note that you drop into your Christmas bins because you need to remember where your head was.
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  A year ago when you go to open them again.
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  So what I would love us to do with those bins that have been nagging us,
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  if you don't have the energy this year to do anything about them,
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  grab the paper, write Christmas 2025.
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  Didn't use anything in this box, and drop the note on the top and shut it.
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  That way next year when you open it, you don't have to start digging through,
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  you don't have to question which bin is what, you can literally look at it and go,
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  oh yeah I started writing
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  myself notes last year but this is probably year three
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  or four that I have not used anything in this bin maybe
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  I just need to walk it straight out to the car or maybe I'm going to force myself
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  to actually sort through it and see if any of this is super sentimental and
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  shame on me for not putting it out because it would really make me have some
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  joy to look at this ornament that was passed down from great granny,
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  whatever your story is, or maybe it's just.
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  Really not all that special and you just haven't had the energy around Christmas to donate it.
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  The best time to donate these things is before Christmas.
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  Doesn't mean you can't donate them after.
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  I don't know the rules around your donation centers, but if you're like at the
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  end of every single Christmas, packing it away because it's just not the good time to donate,
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  giving yourself this note gives you permission to be like, I'm not even thinking
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  about it. I'm going to take it to the Donate Center immediately.
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  If you write yourself notes like that, if you even want to say,
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  you know what, right now I have these three bins. I am going to.
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  Dump them all out, and I'm going to drop in sentimental, don't care,
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  don't care, sentimental, don't care, don't care.
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  Try and keep yourself on that one to two ratio, and go ahead and drop those
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  donations, and leave the sentimental ones with the paper on top that says all
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  sentimental, right that you didn't put them out.
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  And maybe next year you can dig through and find that. The other cool thing
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  about these notes that she suggests you leave is when you go to put them away
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  and you have an empty bin and you walk into the dining room,
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  you could put everything that you used in the dining room and drop it down in
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  and you could write yourself a note.
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  All these were used in the dining room. Loved it. See photo.
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  Something to yourself where you're like, oh yeah, yeah, I forgot that I had
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  done that last year because we think we're going to remember and we just don't.
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  So if that is a little tip I can give yourself, one, don't overthink this year,
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  you may write a note on a bin that says, didn't use any of this.
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  And it just happens to be that this year was an off year.
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  And you see that note next year, and you're like, wonder what was wrong with
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  me last year? I love this stuff. And I'm going to go put it out because I have more energy this year.
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  It gives you a chance to not feel guilty about hauling away stuff that you're
• 8:28
  afraid you're going to regret.
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  But it immediately puts you in the right mindset next year when you open the bin to be like oh yeah.
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  Yeah, this is that stuff that I just keep feeling guilty about.
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  And I'm kind of done with that.
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  I'm done with feeling guilty about this stuff. I'm just going to,
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  because once we release this stuff into the world, somebody else will love it, I promise.
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  And once it's gone, our brain doesn't ruminate on that guilt.
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  It's just gone. We won't even remember what was in that box in future years.
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  But if you need that extra year to buffer yourself against that feeling,
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  I give you permission to do that.
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  I hope, I feel like I was a little rambly today.
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  I'm on a single cup of coffee and trying to dash out to a client's house to go get busy.
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  So I just, I wanted to make sure I got this out and I hope that tip is helpful
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  and I hope that you can enjoy decorating this year.
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  I am about to go live in my Facebook group and talk about the visual of this.
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  If you want to tune in and see yesterday, I shared a little tip on a Christmas
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  morning basket that I do.
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  If you want to go back and see that the recordings stay for 30 days.
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  So you get to my community by going to bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity.
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  So it's bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity.
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  And you can see the videos from the last three days there.
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  And hopefully you can enjoy them because podcasting is not a visual.
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  This is my solution for becoming a little more visual.
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  So anyway, yeah, that's it. Until tomorrow where I wrap up this little series,
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  I hope you continue to choose joy.