Welcome to the first Professional Organizers Blog Carnival for 2010! We’ve had a record number of submissions this month, and I’m sure your reading time is limited, so I’ve decided to split this month’s Carnival over two days. As you read today, I hope you’ll get acquainted with your fellow organizers while picking up some great ideas for your clients or yourself.

Christmas may now be just a fond memory, but we know it will come again next year, so let’s start off with a couple of Christmas-related posts.

Terry (The Mommy Organizer) shares some tips for Christmas Storage, stating that:

Putting Christmas decorations away isn’t so difficult with a little planning and a few organizing tools.

Cari Pemberton tells us about a unique and clutter-free gift that will last long after the decorations are put away, in Giving vs. Getting.

Whether you think of it as New Year’s Resolutions or simply making plans for the year ahead, in January most people are focused on making positive changes in their lives, either personally or professionally.

Angela Esnouf describes a great goal-setting method in The most productive afternoon of my life, saying:

This technique has helped me and my clients time and again.  It’s a perfect way to kick off the year.

Ellen Delap identifies that most popular resolution and shares some ways to achieve it successfully in her post, Top New Year Resolution: Spend More Time with Your Family.

Sarah Welch recommends a similar approach in 2010: The Year of Baby Steps.

January represents not only a new calendar year but a new semester, and Jodi Granok tackles that subject in Students – Get Organized for the New Semester!

For many people, a new year presents a chance to implement new time management strategies, and that was a very popular topic this month.

Joan Kosmachuk shares an interesting approach to looking at how your time is spent in Organizing your Time – start with a pie chart, and Elaine Shannon helps you identify where you’re wasting time in Are you a victim of the “Time Hijackers”?.

Ramona Creel helps you to make the best use of your time in Learning To Delegate More Effectively. Ramona says,

Delegation can be a tricky business. You don’t want to simply “dump” distasteful work on someone else — but you need to make sure the job gets done, and it doesn’t need to be done by you. Delegating can become a particularly sensitive issue when it is lateral — asking a fellow colleague, freelance consultant, family member, or friend for help. But by approaching delegation in the right way, you can make the experience enjoyable for both parties.

For formal time management training, Anne Blumer is Introducing the GO System (no longer online).

That’s it for today! Be sure to come back later this week for Part 2 of the January Professional Organizers Blog Carnival, and to find out what’s in store for next month.