Today, Sarah & Alicia discuss the importance of slowing down this summer and help you get organized in a way that enables you (& your family) to be more free-form for the next few months.

Studies have shown that unstructured, creative play is crucial for optimal child development. Play is so important to optimal child development that it has even been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child. Unfortunately, many children are being raised in an increasingly hurried and pressured style by well-intentioned parents that may limit the protective benefits they would gain from child-driven play. Listen in as the Get Buttoned Up co-hosts sit down with Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids. She’s dedicated to waking modern parents up to the importance of letting kids be, well, kids.

In addition, Alicia and Sarah share their own “worst summers ever” – summers where they didn’t slow down and regret it to this day – in the hopes that you don’t make the same mistakes they did.

Their challenge will have you clearing the decks and setting yourself up for a truly relaxing summer. The fact is, it does take some organization to ensure you have blocked off enough down time.

This show will get you ready to truly relax and make the most out of your summer. Don’t miss it.

Today, Sarah & Alicia are talking about how to get organized in a way that minimizes travel-related headaches.

Traveling, especially by air, with or without children can be stressful – and more expensive than it needs to be. Listen in as the Get Buttoned Up co-hosts sit down with Robert Jolles, author of The Way of the Road Warrior. As someone with over a million miles flow, he knows the tricks for traveling without hassle and for getting a head-start on other passengers whenever an inevitable delay pops up. In addition, Alicia and Sarah share their top tips for getting yourself organized to survive travel with toddlers and small children. Sarah and Alicia will cover the key factors of planning a successful trip – whether you’re traveling by plane, train or automobile.

In addition, they have put together a very important “Challenge” for you this week. With the summer months comes bad weather and an increase in the need for emergency preparedness. They’ll take you step-by-step through the process of organizing your important information and get you on your way to organizing your own binder.

This show will get you ready to hit the road and deal with any extreme weather this summer. Don’t miss it.

But this year is going to be different.

Today, Sarah & Alicia are talking about how to rescue your New Year’s resolutions.

Listen in as the Get Buttoned Up co-hosts sit down with three experts who will tell you how to get back on track to realizing the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year (fueled by champagne or not). Their first guest is Chris Coash from Jenny Craig, who shares tips and strategies for jump starting your diet and, more importantly, keeping the good work up over the long haul. Next up is Deb Allison Lee, a certified professional organizer in the Washington DC area and woman behind the website dallisonlee.com. She’s got great perspective on the biggest organizational pitfalls and how you can overcome them. And finally, they’ll speak with Amy Suardi, the woman behind the fabulous blog Frugal-Mama.com, and frequent contributor to GetButtonedUp.com on all things frugal.

Sarah and Alicia will summarize the three biggest secrets for getting your resolution mo-jo back and sticking to it. They’ll also push you to get back on the wagon in this week’s “Challenge.”

If you’ve ever had an intention to change but failed to follow through, this is a great podcast to listen to. Put the strategies they uncover in this episode to work for you and come December 31st, you’ll be able to count yourself as one of the elite few who actually stuck to their resolutions this year.

Today, Sarah & Alicia are talking about how to organize a staycation on a dime. One that’s actually memorable and packed full of fun!

Listen in as the Get Buttoned Up co-hosts sit down with not one, not two, but three guests who have some fantastic ideas on what you can do on the cheap to make your vacation amazing. Their first guest is Valerie Deneen, the creator of the Frugal Family Fun Blog, who shares ideas that will get your imagination turning. Next up is Eric V. Orange, the founder of the worldwide food & wine event website: LocalWineEvents.com. He’s got some great ideas on how to find free food and wine events going on in your town. And finally, they’ll speak with Jen O’Neal, the founder and CEO of Tripping.com, an online service that connects you with foreign travelers in your area.

Sarah and Alicia will cover the key factors of planning a successful staycation. They’ll also help you strengthen your own planning muscle in this week’s “Challenge.”

If you’re not going anywhere this summer, this is one show you won’t want to miss. And even if you’ve got a big vacation planned, you will still benefit from the excellent ideas covered here. You won’t be bored this summer if you put one or two tips into practice.

Today Alicia and Sarah discuss that elusive thing we ALL want more of: time – and specifically, how to get more of it.

Listen in as the Get Buttoned Up co-hosts sit down with two women who have a unique perspective on this issue. Their first guest is Laura Vandekam, the author of 168 Hours: you have more time than you think, who shares ideas you can use to find and reclaim pockets of “lost” time. Then a little later they check in with Leah Busque, founder and CEO of TaskRabbit.com, an online service that connects you with others in your community who can do tasks for you, like grocery shopping or taking that bag of clothes to Goodwill.

Since delegating is also a core principle of Buttoned Up, Sarah and Alicia will cover the key factors of enlisting the help of others effectively and highlight the mistakes to avoid. They’ll also help you strengthen your own delegating muscle in this week’s “Challenge.”

So, if you’ve recently wished you had more hours in the day, this is a show you won’t want to miss. It’s time to stop reacting to everything else and take control of your time so that you spend your time and energy on what you think is important, not what everyone else says is urgent.

In this episode, Sarah and Alicia subject themselves to Professor Steel’s procrastination survey—with intriguing results!  How bad a procrastinator are you?  Sarah and Alicia, with the help of Professor Steel, will help you find out how bad a procrastinator you actually are and “where your foibles might actually be.”

An alarming 95% of us admit to doing it (and is the other 5% of the population really not procrastinating, or are they simply lying about it?).  Are we biologically “hardwired” to procrastinate?  Who’s worse at procrastinating: Women or men?  When does procrastination become self-destructive (and can it ruin relationships?)?  Is disorganization in children helpful or harmful?  The Get Buttoned Up team examines all this and more!

In this mentally-stimulating interview, Professor Piers Steel elaborates on what got him interested in the subject of procrastination, and why our collective problem with procrastination has experienced a five-fold increase over the past twenty years.  Steel also examines the three leading causes of procrastination, and expertly defines what procrastination really is.

Most importantly, you’ll learn practical strategies for breaking the bad habit of putting things off.  You’ll learn how to know your own limitations (“Are you doing too much?”), which computer programs are the most helpful for the severe procrastinator, how to differentiate between “what matters and what doesn’t,” and how to get over “the Big But Syndrome.”  Stop putting off deadlines!  Listen to this interview and start taking measures to keep yourself focused today!