I scheduled today's post back in August. At that time, I was religiously using my daily checklist and thought it would be good to check in on my organizing system every few months - to see how it developed and to see which things continued to work.
So, here we are. I seriously thought about pushing back the publish date because I don't feel like I have any awesome organizing "systems" working in my favor just now. But, in the name of keeping things real, I decided to share how I'm keeping life organized right now.
I have used my daily checklist only once in the last two weeks. Instead, I have been mentally sorting everything that comes my way into two categories: priority and non-priority. I've been focusing on getting the most important (or sometimes urgent) things done and managing to do so. Everything else? Well, life isn't falling apart, but it is slowly moving in the direction of chaos.
I've deemed Christmas and documenting personal priorities. These things are important to me and to our family. I want to do them well. I have a spreadsheet to keep track of our holiday shopping lists and money spent on gifts. I created our Advent calendar and have a plan for how we will recognize each day as we count down to Christmas. Our family Project Life album is up to date and I have the basic bones of my December Daily album in place, so that I don't have to do a lot to stay caught up with that project.
Anything and everything that I accomplish on the blogging and business fronts is done when I am off mama-duty. We allow Sam about an hour of computer time after breakfast. He wakes up early, so I can often get about 45 minutes of work done while he is occupied and Eli (who sleeps a bit later) is still sleeping. A few times each week, their nap times overlap and I can squeeze in a bit more work. Otherwise, I have to wait until they are in bed.
I have big lists of ideas and things to accomplish scattered throughout several notebooks, draft posts, random scraps of paper and too many Evernote notes. Honestly, it's kind of a mess. When I find some time to work, I just do a little shuffling and searching through my files and try to determine which items are of utmost priority.
This part of my life is currently in a hamster-on-a-wheel cycle and I feel like I can't run fast enough to every catch up with myself. I am in a constant state of working to just keep up with the next urgent task (which is often the next blog post).
I've been thinking a lot about the difference between urgency and importance. I want things of importance to take priority over things of urgency. This is where being intentional comes into play. There is never going to be enough time to do all the things that I want to do, but I do get to choose which things take up my time.
I need to get back to using my daily checklist to help me accomplish more and feel like I am keeping up with more than just a few areas of my personal life. But, at this point, at least I feel like my personal priorities are pretty well aligned with my values.
My work life, on the other hand, needs help all around. I keep thinking that a magical day is in my near future where I will have several hours to get things sorted and organized and get myself back on track. No such day, however, is on the calendar, so I think I just need to spend a few of my "work hours" doing some strategic planning and organizing to help myself sort out and prioritize the business side of my life.
So, that is what organizing looks like in my world right now. Not a disaster, but in need of help.
What about you? Are you working on what's important? Do you have any magic secrets to help me with my urgency problem?
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