Organization Update

Mystie posted on her blog yesterday: “I know Elly began before I dared to start but when the longing was on me (39 weeks), but I don\’c3\’a2\’e2\’82\’ac\’e2\’84\’a2t know what has come of that fit yet.”\par
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Ah, yes, well… ahem.. my 6:00 initiative has been sporadic at best – every evening meeting/party or out of town visitor has been allowed to throw off the routine. Fortunately, I’m still able to get to sleep fairly quickly at night when we go to bed at 9:00, and without being totally weary to the bone. But\’c3\’82\’c2\~I do miss\’c3\’82\’c2\~being up-and-at-em (bed made, dressed, bible read, hair done, etc.) before\’c3\’82\’c2\~the boys really start moving in the morning. I need to try to get back into that. This last week has been a complete failure, as I could’ve\’c3\’82\’c2\~ gotten up at 6:00 every\’c3\’82\’c2\~morning – but just plain haven’t. I didn’t even rationalize, I just refused. And next week I’m going to my parents’ while Michael’s out of town, so you can bet I won’t be getting up at 6:00 there!\par
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At the beginning of the year I started using a planner Michael got at a time-management class he attended. It’s one of the Franklin Covey ones. I even tried to do all of the thinking through your life/roles/goals stuff at the beginning, but gave it up as unneccesary. My roles are pretty well-defined, and my goals are either very nebulous (ex: “raise godly children”) or else very short-term (ex: clean off the bar counter today). I have benefited from the “Plan your week out at the beginning of the week (or before it starts)” idea. It has allowed me to plan my major projects for the week, and then try to fit everything else in around them. As a result, I’ve gotten more big things done lately than I used to like caulking, fixing the wallpaper, polishing my silver, finding a birthday present for Michael, organizing Judah’s room so that it’s not always a mess, etc. But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to take much in the way of an extra-normal project to throw off my normal functions, like laundry, dishes, light housecleaning, and the constant battle against untidiness. Sooooo… while I’ve gotten a lot of long-held goals accomplished, my house is still a mess. So you can determine if that’s a success or a failure!! I guess I’m thinking now, that major accomplishments count more than minor ones, because when I finally do catch up on the minor necessities of life, the major things will still have been done – as opposed to having had the minor necessities done regularly all of this time and the big projects being still unstarted. Also, I’m expecting a baby in May, and am thus not expecting to get much done (other than feeding and nourishing and caring for a tiny helpless human being) for a short period of time before, and a long period of time after the birth. So I’m trying to do things now that I won’t have the time or energy to do later, and if little stuff falls by the wayside… well, hopefully I’ll catch up on that too, before I completely run out of oomph. It’s also nice to have the past, present, future cohesiveness of one planner, rather than a bunch of unorganized lists and a largely unused calendar. \par
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In terms of a daily schedule, I still don’t have one (mostly because of my sporadic rising time). I do “school” with Judah in the morning after they’ve been fed and dressed, then I have a productive time in the morning, a long break in the afternoon, and another productive time in the late afternoon for about 3-4 hours before dinner. Then we scramble to eat dinner, clean up, do devotions, play with the boys, put them to bed, and get any other absolutely necessary things done: so we can go to bed. The evenings aren’t relaxing anymore, which is why I take a break in the afternoon during the boys quiet/nap time. All of the above assumes that we don’t go anywhere in the morning or afternoon to throw off the schedule, you understand – errand days work out differently.\par
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Well, I don’t know if anybody really cares about the details of my daily routine, and organizational attempts, but I thought Mystie’d like to know, so there it is. \par
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Better get back to work – blogging at 10:00 in the morning is NOT on my list of things to do!