Organizing Challenge, Weeks 3 & 4

For Week 3, Brenda gave us a printout to brainstorm all our tasks: daily, weekly, yearly etc. Ugh, I am nowhere on this list. Seriously, my page is blank except under weekly I've written "one bathroom" and "sort toys" (that means a real clean-up of the living room, where the toys go back into the armoire). I dream big, my friends! Yes, I have a long way to go, I will probably have to steal someone else's list. I'm creative like that. ;-)

For this week (Week 4), Brenda has challenged us to look at our work like pieces of a pie and prioritize. I think this is an excellent idea and certainly it goes along with my desire to improve my time-management. What's important and how should I divide up my time?

As an aside, I read this post at Amy's Finer Things, which is a nice post in and of itself (here's a totally-together mom admitting she struggles with time-management too, hallelujah), but what I noticed were some of the comments. Like from "Frenchy" who basically says "I hang out with my family, make dinner, and the rest I don't care about." Wow! Or "Gwen" says she keeps her eyes on the important stuff--time with God, with the kids, with her husband--and the rest falls into place. Bravo! Now clearly I've learned that I can't fly by the seat of my pants and expect everything to fall into place, if that works for you, that's awesome. But I'm hoping that examining my time and labeling my priorities will put me in the right direction.

Progress Report

Not making much progress. I'm even having trouble conquering my Bare Minimum. But I do like having that guide for what I'm supposed to be doing, and if I could just have a normal week, there might be some hope, but it's just been one thing after the other. (I know: excuses, excuses.) My one organizing bright point last week was that after I folded the kids' clean laundry, I went through each kid's basket {this is a post for another day, each kid has a laundry basket of clean clothes--it's my system and it works} and cleared out the stuff that shouldn't be there (such as out-of-season) so those are back to good working order. Also, I am way (like years) behind on cleaning the kids' humidifiers (one in each kid's room), because I have a pathological fear of bleach {another post for another day}... anyway, we were at a baby store the other day and they had a display of humidifiers and there were these bottles of humidifier cleaner. Brilliant! I thought the $7 (yes, way more than the cost of a jug of bleach) was worth it if it means I actually Get The Job Done. So I bought the overpriced cleaner and washed L's humidifier. Yea me! Then it turns out his humidifier isn't working and he'll need a new one anyway. Oh well. Next up: T's humidifier. And I wrote "humidifiers" on the calendar a month from now, so it should be a monthly date to stay on top of it.

How and How Often do you clean your humidifiers?

Also, on Sunday T woke up sick (she vomited twice) so I spent all morning in the living room with the kids (to keep an eye on her), mostly zoning out in the recliner. By lunchtime, I knew I had to get some stuff done and I did an interesting thing: I asked myself, what's the highest priority? First, it was give T a bath (duh, she'd been puking). Later it was make the grocery list, then run the dishwasher, etc. When I had a pocket of time to do a chore, I asked what's the priority. And it worked! Despite a "wasted" morning, I ended up having a pretty darn productive day (gave 2 baths, did laundry and dishes, even played a game with L, and of course spot cleaned the carpet). Not sure that's how I want to handle every day (I'd prefer some sort of plan, I think?), but it's a tool in my arsenal, right?

Week Ahead

I want to keep up with my Bare Minimum daily list. I want to work on last week's brainstorming chore list and this week's prioritizing assigment. And I want to continue reading the Tell Your Time e-book. My project for this week (if I can make the time) is to finally write Christmas thank you notes. (Hello, it's almost February!)

How are you doing on your organizing or other New Years Resolutions?

To read more about the One Year to a More Organized Life challenge and to participate yourself, go here.