It’s the weekend! And then it’s Thanksgiving, my favorite! But I’m not quite ready for it. We’re hosting Thanksgiving, and I just realized it was Thanksgiving next week like this past Tuesday, and the pie shop I called yesterday to order our pies is “No longer taking pie orders until after Thanksgiving…” So I’ll be working on figuring out pies today. #priorities
On another note, I’m back to share how I’m working on finding a rhythm for both myself and my family/household. I wrote earlier this week about how I do that with a new baby, but fitting in all that goes on in a family/home/personal career into a week sometimes feels pretty much impossible. However, discovering a routine that works is way easier for me when I’ve got it kind of mapped out.
With every transition there’s adaptation. Recently, I was listening to a podcast by a professional organizer talk about getting her home and systems in place and that she’s now in what she calls Phase 3, the “Maintenance Stage”. But it took a long time, like 5 years, of her constantly working on it to get her systems and processes in place. This idea of figuring out the process or system after many passes really stood out to me. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist in certain areas of my life and really, really hate failing. And I have a tendency to think if I can’t figure it out “just so” basically the first go-around, that I pretty much suck at that aspect of life. Like I’m a big failure and I can’t get it together and why does everyone else seem to have it figured out? However recently I’ve come to the realization (probably again) that it’s a process. Life is a process. Being organized is a process. Being good at time management is a process. At least it is for me. I have the characteristics to be very organized and pretty efficient, so I think I should have it all figured out because those are strengths and passions of mine. But life is continually changing, and this year has really proven that for me. I need to try things out, see what works for me and my family, tweak things, completely fail at others. And know that it’s ok.
In the last couple of years, I’ve really paid attention to what works in our family, what totally doesn’t work, and what could work if we just tweaked it a bit. We’ve even had “End of the Year” meetings that have helped immensely with seeing what was working and what wasn’t. So I decided it was time to do this again. I printed out a week from iCal and I filled it all out:
1.) Where do we have to be and have to get done?
2.) What are all the rest of the duties {household chores, etc.} and where’s there time to do those tasks?
3.) Where can the extras {hobbies, time with friends, etc.} fit?
I guess it’s a form of time blocking. Blocking out time with the things that need to get done and then filling in the “I would like to get done” tasks around that. {Don’t forget the drive times to do the must dos!} I’m in a season of life where there isn’t as much left over time for those extras! In the past, we’ve had to ask ourselves: “How can we get some outside help if we need it?” Right now we have no outside help, but in the past we’ve been fortunate enough to have help with housekeeping, babysitting, and landscaping. If there are tasks you can outsource to keep your valuable time {or sanity!} yours, and you can afford it, do it!!! I remember years ago reading an interview of Lara Deam, the founder of Dwell, say {I’m paraphrasing here…} Outsource tasks as much as you can afford to to leave time for the people and things that matter most to you.
This is our current must do calendar, and I’m working on paying attention to the rhythm of things around here and filling it in.
In the past, after I filled in those “Must Dos” I then went through and found blocks of time where I could plug in things like work, exercise, grocery shopping, etc. For example, at one point, it made sense that on Mondays, I worked on all admin stuff for my business-billing, emails, ordering, bank run, etc. It was a short school day for my kids then and I never had enough time to do the Monday morning tasks and meet with clients or go out sourcing product for a project, so that became my day when I did all my desk work. Jason dropped off and picked up for school on Mondays and I could just hunker down and work. As another example, Thursday mornings were my Costco run day. I would drop my oldest off at school, go to the YMCA to work out and then hit Costco right as they opened. I would split an ice cream or smoothie {yes at 10am…gotta get through Costco somehow!} between my two little ones and we would be in and out in about 45 minutes. In our current season, I’m doing a little work on Saturday mornings when we’re lazy anyway and my hubby can take over for an hour or two, and I’m finding grocery shopping on Mondays is necessary because we are usually totally out of food come Monday morning!
This schedule was actually hanging by my desk in San Diego and was pretty true to my weekly routine.
This doesn’t really have to do with design but it has to do with finding solutions to live our best life, or at least a better life. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed or having a hard time fitting everything you need to accomplish into your week, “time blocking” may be a good solution. It’s a visual way to actually see what you have to do and help find time and make priorities on what is most important. And maybe just pick one thing to focus on until you’ve kind of got the hang of it. At least that’s what I’m doing! Oh, and remember…you may need to say no to some things, free time won’t magically appear, and your week probably won’t go totally as planned!
But hopefully it will improve :)
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