New Goal: Get Stuff Done

November 3, 2011

The pile that sits inches from my left arm as I type this at my computer.  I should be ashamed.
I am a procrastinator.  Any of you in that same boat?  I have piles all over my house of things to take care of later.  Paper that needs to be filed, clothes that need to be mended or altered, broken toys that need to be glued back together (or tossed), clean laundry to fold and put away, things to return to friends, and the list goes on.  I am also a bit of a hoarder and feel incapable of dealing with clutter, so this can be a bit of a problem for me.  I find that I waste a ton of time organizing my piles, or thinking about how to tackle them, instead of actually taking care of the problems.

So I have a new goal; Get Stuff Done.  And more specifically (because I really do get quite a bit of 'stuff' done everyday), I am working at taking care of problems when they happen.  Today I feel like I made progress.  When we moved to New England (two years ago) we had to open new bank accounts.  Then our old bank merged with our new bank, and our accounts have been a bit of a mess.  Today I finally went into the bank (with both kids mind you) and got everything sorted out.  I took an hour.  Not my favourite hour, but now I can stop feeling worried about mystery fees on accounts I don't use, or accidentally paying my bills from the wrong one.  Progress, right?

And then I felt so good about myself, that I fixed something else.  A few days ago Kid 2 broke a piece of Kid 1's tea set.  I know you might think it's my own fault for having a breakable tea set, but the admirer of Montessori in me, likes the idea of teaching kids to handle items that are fragile.  Kid 2 is two years old, so he is still learning to be careful, and a piece fell on the floor and broke.  And what did I do?  I put it on my crowded kitchen counter out of reach and pledged to 'fix it later'.  



So today, I took 5 minutes, and just fixed it.

 

As an aside, I'm a big fan of this craft glue from Martha Stewart.  I've used it for lots of projects, including glueing this particular tea set back together again, and it works really well.


Easy, right?  Now if I could just keep up the momentum and tackle some of the other piles I have in my house (and the mental lists in my head).

3 comments:

Alexis Guenther said...

I recently came across the phrase "touch it once" and it has really helped me out. When you get a bill in the mail, open it, pay it, and file it then and there. Although this kind of process is not always practical (groceries need to be put away, diapers need to be changed etc..)it has been a really helpful reminder to me. I recently checked off a bunch of things from my to do list and it feels so good to not have all that mental clutter. So good for you!

Emily said...

I like this goal too. I think I'm still working on that balance in my life between being relaxed and just playing with my kids, and teaching and showing them that we need to work to.

Katie and Van said...

That makes me feel better--I have that as a new goal too! My sister often mocks me for my organized clutter. Instead of cleaning things up completely, I used to always organize the piles so they looked nice. I'm feeling a deep desire these days to get out of that habit and setting new goals to change. Knowing that you're doing it too helps :) thanks for sharing.

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