[Girlfriends can play a key part in helping you get organized! Here's part two of professional organizer Julie Bestry's post about having organization-themed girls nights. Enjoy, and leave some comments to let her know what you think! Also, don't miss our SimplySarah giveaway to help you organize your closet!] By Julie Bestry In my last post, we talked about some great Girls Night In options for organizing your closet and the other items in your space. But organizing fun doesn’t have to stop there!  When we talk about getting organized, we tend to think about all our “stuff” that crowds us, costs us and slows us down.  But the tangible goodies aren’t the only things we can organize with our girlfriends. Here are some other ways you can organize. Plan a girls night (or afternoon) around any one of them! Photo via flickr

No Time to Lose

Temporal organizing (that’s just “time management” dressed up in haute couture) can be a challenge even for people with incredibly organized spaces. Managing our time gets harder every year, thanks to information and activity overload, economic troubles in the workplace (forcing fewer employees to accomplish more of the workload) and high pace expectations.

What does this mean for you and your girlfriends? Stress!  You’re facing lots of incoming information, and feel (or the people communicating with you feel) everything needs to be handled immediately.  So, take a break to manage that time. Consider getting your girlfriends together (especially early in the year) for an afternoon armed with calendars/planners/digital whosywhatsits and cell phones and planning out your whole year:

• Girls’ Nights Out (and In)—who, where, when?
• Doctor, Dentist, Orthodontist Appointments
• Medical Tests
• Exercise Classes
• Auto maintenance
• Conferences

Make sure that every recurring thing on last year’s calendar (or everything you wish had made it onto last year’s calendar) gets a “home” in the schedule.  See how much you can schedule to do together—Group Mammogram Day?  Why not?  Go ahead and make phone calls and set up appointments.  Get everything scheduled for the year so you know you’ll have time (and sanity) to spend with your girlfriends. But don’t stop there.  Talk out loud with your friends about these obligations.  Your girlfriends probably know what you want to get out of your life, and they’ll give you the 411 on what they think is eject-able task clutter.  Take their advice, and boot the tasks that keep you from spending time doing the things you love with the people you care about.

Free Your Mind

Intellectual organizing is another perfect option for girlfriend celebrations. (Because, let’s face it, if your head is still cluttered with thoughts about “how he did you wrong”, you’ll never find space on that mental shelf for “Ooh, this new guy is a real find!”)  In fact, if you’ve all “accidentally” dumped your resolutions by mid-January, it’s the perfect opportunity to share your goal-setting and goal-getting ideas with your friends. If you’re having trouble getting and keeping your space and time organized, maybe organizing everyone’s thoughts can help you with your other goals.

Girlfriends provide the reality check we all need—let them give you the permission you’re seeking to drop “Read Anna Karenina” or “learn French” from your list of goals once and for all.  (Oh, and persuade one another to add “find a great guy/hairstyle/accountant” worthy of each of you to the new list).

Many of us have heard that we’re supposed to create S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-specific) goals, but help each gal be a S.M.A.R.T.Y. goal-setter, where the Y stands for “your” goals.  If you girlfriends’ goals represent what their significant others, kids, bosses or parents want, they’ll never truly be inspired to achieve them.  Channel your inner Dr. Phil and help one another organize meaningful, personal goals…and then give one another accountability by checking in with each other at and between girlfriend celebrations.

Shop and Learn

And, of course, if you’re not a Girls Night In kind of group, there are still lots of fun, organizing-themed activities for you.  Consider the following:

Contact the Container Store to see if their staff will give you a walking tour of the store and find solutions to solve your organizing issues. We professional organizers tend to think of The Container Store as the “mother ship”, but we’ve also seen our clients’ eyes go wide with excitement and glee when we’ve set up tours. Call your nearest location to arrange a tour. If they can’t arrange something formal, you can always just show up (or find a professional organizer to join your girlfriend celebration—we’re always ready for a field trip to the Container Store).

If you’re too far to road trip to the Container Store, consider a venture to Ikea. While this Swedish charmer is not designed specifically for organizing, Ikea’s product lines (from office and household furniture to gadgets to their “PS” design marvels ) are sure to delight…and there’s even an in-store restaurant of yummy delicacies for when the excitement of shopping makes you peckish.

Call in a Professional

Girls Nights (and Days) Out can also involve professional advice on getting organized. The National Association of Professional Organizers has members all over the country.  Contact your local NAPO chapter to learn what’s going on for Get Organized Month or National Preparedness Month, for how to help your kids get organized in school and more. Check in with the professional organizers to get the inside dirt (no pun intended) on decluttering, from interactive workshops and presentations to special events like neighborhood shred-a-thons. (Because you just know your girlfriends aren’t going to sit for hours on end, shredding old bank statements…and you WANT your girlfriends to help you get those tear-stained letters from the ex banished, once and for all!)

Finally, turn the tables on that technology that’s keeping you so busy.  You’re probably already sharing computer and gadget tips with your girlfriends, but why not make it an event? Get up to date by learning music, photo and productivity software tips at an Apple Store or local community college, or invite a new girlfriend, who happens to be a digital photographer, computer expert, blogger extraordinaire or professional organizer, to join in a night of girlfriend celebrations and the spilling of time-saving technology secrets.

OK, you know what to do.  Get organized, Girlfriend!

Julie Bestry is a Certified Professional Organizer, speaker and author, who helps individuals and businesses save time and money, reduce stress and increase productivity through new organizational skills and systems. For information on how Julie can turn your chaos into serenity, check out Julie’s blog, Paper Doll or visit Best Results Organizing at www.juliebestry.com. Click here to sign up for Julie’s newsletter “Best Results For Busy People: Organizing Your Modern World”—and get a bonus gift, “Organize Your Way With A Pretend Career Day”!