Thursday, October 02, 2008

This Week on the Home Front Part 3

On Wednesday, I visited Home Sanctuary, as I do every day, and I saw a picture of a pocket! The title of the post was "What's in Your Pockets?" Inside I cringed and said to myself, "Oh, no! How does she know?" You see, I had just washed my son's jeans without checking the pockets - with his cell phone! Again! (For the second time.) I ruined another cell phone. How did Rachel Anne know?

But that's not what she wrote about. Instead, it was "pockets of time," those times where you only have 5, 10, maybe 15 minutes, which is not enough time to delve into a major project, but is plenty of time to do small tasks. She challenged us to make a list (and keep it handy daily-that's good time management!) and to do some of the things on our lists.

My list consists of things I can do at home, at work, or at both places. I'm going to put an asterisk beside the ones I actually did during my pockets of time Wednesday and Thursday. Some of these go right along with my committment to declutter along with the Organising Queen.


*Pay online bills
*File papers (home and work)
*Clean a bathroom
*Fold a load of laundry
*Make copies (at work)
Grade papers (for work)
*Dust a room
Declutter a drawer or cabinet (home and work)
Read a magazine article
Write a thank you note
Schedule dentist and doctor appointments
Write a to-do list
Clean the glass table tops
Shave my legs
Pluck my eyebrows (since I can't afford a wax right now)
Read with one of my children
Gather plastic and/or aluminum cans to recycle
*Make my bed
*Load the dishwasher
*Fill up a box of outgrown clothes or miscellaneous items to donate

I could go on. I thought that was a very clever way to remind us to utilize our time to accomplish things that will bring peace and order to our homes and our places of business. At work, I have been deleting email like a crazy person! I didn't realize how much junk I had sitting there in my inbox. At home, I made folders for some of my email, and deleted about 30 more above what I did last week.

I wrote my home mission statement on January 4, 2008. Rachel Anne asked us to review it.

I want my home to be neat, clean, and inviting, one that offers warmth and acceptance to all who enter. Chores are shared by family members, and we have a feeling of peace at the end of a long work or school day. My family and I will prioritize home improvements and work toward reaching those goals, one small step at a time.

Mine needs some tweaking, with our different schedules, six people in the home, and repairs from the hurricane, so I am constantly revising my approach to achieving my goals. For example, this school year, the twins are involved in fewer activities outside of school. That greatly reduces stress and allows us to accomplish things that bring about a feeling of peace. Now, it doesn't work like that every day. We all have bad days, but, as long as we continue to focus on our family goals, we will get there.

Thanks to both our Home Sanctuary guru and our Organising Queen for helping us to create order, peace, and beauty in our lives.

6 comments:

  1. I need to make a list like that. When you break it down, it makes it all LOOK so much more do-able. Although I think my list would be 10 pages long! lol!

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  2. I'm Italian, eye brow plucking and shaving takes me a hell of a lot longer than 15 minutes.

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  3. Well done on your list - I did a couple of posts a few months ago on 10-minute tasks. If you search for "10-minute" on my blog, they should all display.

    That's exactly it - you can't always wait for a block of time to get things done, otherwise you'll wait forever!

    Can't wait for you to participate again next week!

    Marcia from Organising Queen

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  4. Wonderful! Love your list! I use www.Toodledo.com for my list and one of the features I really like is the "Scheduler." You can tell it how much time you have and it will sort through all your tasks to find ones that can be done (acc. to your own entry) in that time frame. I use it when I'm feeling totally unmotivated to do much of anything.

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  5. I love your mission statement...I think it sums it up so well! I think I need to revise mine as I go along, because life changes from one year to the next. Above all, I just want a place where my family feels loved...getting there is the challenge!

    Thanks for the coffee! sorry it took me until Sunday to stop over, but I've been on a retreat. Now....to take a nap!

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  6. I think it helps when you list it out! It helps me from sitting down on my butt when I have nothing to do because I really do have something to do because I wrote it on the list *BREATH* lol =)

    Great tip!!!!

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