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January 06, 2011

It's a New Year and I need a New Life!

I am really barely keeping my head above water when it comes to everyday living.  Olivia, who I adore, takes up alot of my time, especially in the hours that are supposed to be for sleeping!  And I work full-time.  Combine the two and there is very little leftover for housekeeping tasks, spending quality time with my husband or anything else for that matter.  I have completely forgotten what it is like to do something for fun like read a book (I sooo miss reading) and forget having "quiet time"....I haven't opened my Bible in months.  So, what to do, what to do?

Let's go back a few months first.  After returning to work from maternity leave mid-September I began to work on routines to help me keep the house clean.  I used FLYlady techniques and talked about that HERE and HERE.  Well, try as I might those were not working for me because there was just too little time in my day for all the routines and such.  Meanwhile the house was about to implode so we decided to hire someone to clean our house twice a monoth which has been fabulous!  Around that same time I also found the Life As Mom ebook which helped me to develop my first Household Notebook which I talk about HERE and have begun using now. 

So, I was feeling a bit more organized but with the dawn of the New Year things have been more chaotic than ever.  Looking around the blogosphere I found numerous goal setting worksheets and the like so I've been thinking I should set goals for the year and then just thinking about that has made me have heart palpitations because I just can't put anymore on my plate!  Fast forward to this week.....

I found Brenda's year-long organizational challenge called One Year to a {more} Organized Life.  She says her goal is to be more organized at the end of this year than she was at the end of last year.  Now that is a goal that I might be able to handle! 

Her Week One  post challenges the reader to determine their personal reason for wanting to become more organized.  She says that this will be what instills the stick-to-it-ness required for a year-long focus.  So last night I filled in the worksheet she created to help with this and discovered that I have a bigger problem with organization than I thought - LOL!  I'll give a few (embarrassing) examples that came to mind when I was doing my worksheet:

-This week I haven't had a shower since Sunday (it's currently Thursday)
-I am having MAJOR problems focusing at work to the point that I am starting to miss some deadlines and forget about random but important things.  Let me tell you that this is not.normal.for.me! 
-I regularly re-buy because I cannot find the same item I know I already bought
-At least weekly something important gets lost - this week we found our video camera after looking for it several weeks...in one of our cars.  I guess blindness is setting in as well... 
-Last week a set of keys was lost.  It was found after much searching - where you ask- oh, you know, just out on the lawn.  Really? 

So, you can see we are talking about some serious disorganization, not just a little messiness! 

So, what is my reason for wanting to be better organized?  Well, to be perfectly honest it's because I feel completely out of control and I hate that feeling.  Last night I tripped over baskets of clean clothes in the hallway.  This morning I tripped over piles of dirty clothes in the hallway.  That was right before I found myself frantically making three meals of solids for Olivia - one for breakfast and two to go with her to daycare - because I hadn't gotten them ready ahead of time.  I haven't had a shower in days but didn't have enough time to take one this morning and was too tired last night to do it before bed.  I could go on and on.  But why do I want to feel "in control"?  Because I know that this kind of living is not God's best for me or my family.  So, my organization mission statement is:

I want to organize my life so I can be a better steward of all that God has so graciously given to me.

Want to join me?

2 comments:

  1. Wow. Your reason pretty much boils it down to the most important reason there is, doesn't it?

    Thanks for joining me in my journey this year. I'm really hoping having this accountability will help me stick to it.

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  2. I'm planning to join this challenge as well. Nice to meet you. I totally agree, I think my mission statement will be something like "the clutter is keeping me from living the life I want"--cuz it just gets in the way of EVERYTHING.

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