Blog Changes—Organize!


Image at Saartje Knits

One of my main goals this year is to get my life a bit more organized…get all my ducks mittens in a row.  To keep me on task, I’m going to add a weekly feature on organizational changes and I would love to get your feedback on what organizational changes you have made or are working on.  Please share!

My life looks so organized and productive when I map it all out, but I’m not always so good at the follow-through.  I get distracted, tired, and busy with other projects and I have a tendency to leave things incomplete.  So, this year, I want to get organized enough that I’m actually efficient.  I am in the mapping-out stage right now, but instead of mapping out the day or week or even the month, I’m working on planning the entire year!  Here is my early-stage process:

Step 1:  Chose 10-12 life changes I want to make, qualities I want to develop… like Efficiency. 

Step 2:  Chose 7-10 categories of changes that will help me achieve my life changes…Efficiency in organizational changes, healthy changes, design changes, relationship changes

Step 3:  Listed 10-12 specific changes I wanted to make in each category…
Life Change (Quality) = Efficiency
     Category = Organizational Changes
          Specific Changes = paperwork system, menu planning, house cleaning schedule

Step 4:  Divided the specific changes into months, and combined similar items to focus on each month…

January’s Life Change:  Efficiency (mostly plans and schedules)
     Category = Organizational Changes
          Specific Changes = paperwork system, meal plans, cleaning schedule  
     Category = Healthy Changes
          Specific Changes = exercise schedule for running and gym
     Category = Design Changes
          Specific Changes = make a decorating plan for the year
     Category = Thing Changes
           Specific Changes = finish Halle’s bedroom projects
     Category = Mom Moments
          Specific Changes = Family Plan 2012:  chores, allowances, vacations

Step 5:  Break each month up into weekly and daily changes…still working on this.

It might seem a bit confusing to you, but somehow it works in my crazy mind.  I think the key for me is breaking a seemingly insurmountable goal into manageable pieces that I’ll work on throughout the year.  Planning for the year keeps me balanced and help me prioritize.  Planning for the month helps me establish new habits…psychologists have determined that it takes about 21 days to develop a new habit.  I’m giving myself an extra week to make sure it really sticks.

I’m still in the fine-tuning process, but I’m really excited to look at all of the things I’m going to work on this year.  I wasn’t even discouraged when I couldn’t add a few things to this year’s projects because I ran out of time…I can tile and wallpaper next year.  Somehow, making a yearly plan feels encouraging, and realistic, and possible.

*Efficient is kind of a boring word, but it is a synonym for powerful and valuable, words that are definitely exciting! 

1 comment:

  1. This seems like a good idea. I need to work on budgeting this year... lol. Let's see how that goes. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete