9.02.2009

Organizing to be Organized

With the start of the new school year I have noticed that a lot of bloggers are posting their plans to get their household in order. I love the ideas about household management binders, duties/chore boards, online personal assistants, etc, etc. I had a "mommy planner" that I maintained for about....a week (or two maybe). Don't laugh until you try it :)

I have also purchased calendars in the past with the intention of having a family calendar. As I read all the details about what these moms were putting into these projects I started to ask myself...am I just creating more work?

I have my calendar at work in which I keep a lot on. Things like meetings, deadlines, appointments (even personal ones like doctor's, etc) are all kept on this calendar. I set reminders for myself and rely heavily on it to know what my day will entail.

However I find myself writing reminders to myself on random scraps of paper at home. I have my grocery list on the back of a bill envelope and the menu for the week on a sticky note at work. The phone number for Emily's new piano teacher is somewhere and luckily I have her soccer info in an email. Since Palmer is still pretty new to the "activity" world I am lucky to just have Emily. Bret's call and stay late schedule is on the fridge and most of our bills are paid online (although the paper ones are on the desk, in my car, in my purse, etc). As I write this I realize that it would be nice if I had some sort of system or at least something that kept everything in one place.

I have recognized a big weakness in myself. I put things off. It's not that I like the feeling of panic and rush. I don't. It's more that there are always barriers that keep me from wanting to accomplish a certain task. For example I hate putting laundry away. Not because I just don't like doing laundry (b/c I don't) because I hate putting it away MUCH more than washing, drying, hanging it out to dry, or folding. I hate putting it away because there is never enough space to get it all to fit. Our closets are tiny, the drawers in the dressers are packed. I think about where is it all going to go and then I realize that this barrier is keeping me from wanting to tackle the laundry. I tend to fold and keep it in the hampers forever before putting it all way. The kids have plenty of room so their laundry is always put away. Weird huh?

So the boundaries for me to get an organization system in place is 1) the time to do it and 2) the commitment to keep at it. After the first rush of getting everything written into my mommy planner the hassle of trying to keep everything written down was no longer fun...just another chore for mommy. The time it takes me to do this at the time feels better spent somewhere else. So instead I just sigh. I longingly think about the fun it would be to pick out the supplies to use and how handy it would be after the fact but in reality I am not sure that at least for the time being I am ready to be give up my "unorganized" way of getting things done...yet.

So tell me what works and doesn't work for you. Am I alone in my desire to be more organized but faced with the reality of noncommitment?

2 comments:

Kim said...

I am committed to non-commitment. And I won't budge.

Anonymous said...

I keep all of my appointments, activities, etc on my Outlook calendar at work. It's absolutely fabulous, especially if you have a job like mine where you sit in front of a computer all day. You can look at the whole thing all at once, day by day, etc. And it does little reminders, which is oh-so-wonderful. Ok, screen pops up, Dr. Love has a dentist appointment tomorrow at 1:00 p.m....and then I remind him and it just works out great. As far as bills, I do everything paperless and pay everything online. That way, I can just go online to look at my bill and get online reminders about when something is due, even though things get directly sucked out of my account.