SYL Challenge Week 17 & 18 - Decision making & Procrastinating

The week 17 challenge is looking at decision making. 


Deb from Home life Simplified writes that she believes much of time management and simplifying life comes down to 3 things: 


1. making decisions without over-thinking things
2. giving yourself permission to make the decisions
3. recognising that much of the clutter in your home and life is simply delayed decision


Usually I am not an over-thinker when it comes to decision making, nor do I have any trouble giving myself permission to make decisions. In fact usually my family and those close to me usually look to me to make decisions or take the lead. If anything I think make decisions a little too quickly. I act then wish I had thought about the decision a little longer. 


This is especially true when it comes to spending money. These days with the finances the way they are I have had to force my self to think about the decision to spend or not. This has been awful for a purse happy person like me! I am finding these days that if I carry the desired item around the store for a while, usually helps me come to the conclusion that I don't really need it! 


The third point is very very interesting. I didn't really recognise till now that much of the crap adorning benches and stuffed in cupboards is about MY delayed decision making and about procrastinating (Week 18's challenge). I am generally a very organised person and my house actually looks pretty tidy when you walk in, but behind those cupboard doors and in rooms 3 & 4, it is pretty scary. 


Now, I am certainly not to the point of being those eccentric hoarding people you might see on tv, found after an avalanche of shit falls on them, but I do have a lot of shit...old shit, new shit, useless shit, and other people's shit lying around the house. 


Now there definitely is good shit like old photos, negatives, memorabilia, teenage love letters, diaries, school stuff etc, but when I look around I also have a lot of useless stuff that I haven't looked at or used for years. 


You know the stuff that just seems to accumulate...power cords to things we don't have anymore, unrecognisable bits from things that you can't remember but you don't throw away in case you need them, paperwork, knick knacks, broken things you might fix one day, clothes you love but haven't fitted into for years but don't want to throw out in case you do one day...the list goes on. 


I can remember when mum and I had to clean out my Nan's stuff after she had passed away. There were all sorts of things in her cupboards...yes many precious things but also lots of clutter and things that she wouldn't have used for years. At the time I did think, "OMG, imagine someone having to do this with my stuff one day". I want them to find the precious things, the keepsakes and not have to deal with years and years of useless that just built up. 


What is fucking ironic is that not long ago, I wanted to start my own organising/home personal assistant business but I can't even organise my own shit. See exhibit A & B, snapshots of my clutter.

In one of Deb's recent post she suggested finding a permanent place for items that are just lying around. Before I can do that I need to clear out some stuff! 


I am not the only culprit around here, Michael is also one to hold on to things so it is just my stuff piled high behind closed doors. It was hilarious when we had to move house, as we have done twice now. He and I actually believed we were down-sizing our shit each time, but it somehow seems to appear all over again. 


Add to this the children and house dwellers who leave all sorts of stuff lying around...yesterday's bus ticket, icy pole sticks, toys, glasses, shoes, clothes, notes, empty packets of things...just crap left lying around.


So this leads nicely into procrastination for week 18. Now, my Michael is a self confessed procrastinator who made it his NYE resolution this year to stop procrastinating. He has been doing great. I on the other hand have never really thought of myself as a procrastinator, but I think when it comes to the clutter and organising my shit around the house, I am a bit of a procrastinator.


It is now time to stop procrastinating in this area and slowly but surely deal with my clutter and get a bit organised. I don't like sterile houses where you can't eat in the lounge or have all your mug handles facing in the same direction (that is a whole other past life of mine!) but I do like the way it feels when things are clutter free and tidy. 


So slowly but surely I intend to sort mine and Emilie's clutter...one box of shit at a time...clear a corner...sort a cupboard...throw out some stuff and get more organised. 


Just an update on earlier challenges and some of the changes I have tried to incorporate into my daily routine and that I am feeling good about. 


I tried my '15min a day' theory with particular household chores and it is working. I somehow seem to have freed up more time as a result. One was the washing and the other the dishes and kitchen. 


Boring I know but every evening I now do a load of washing and and fold the load from the day before. No more massive Mt Everest washing piles! Every night I do a complete pack, wash and unpack of the dishwasher and this is keeping the kitchen tidy and making house dwellers keep things more tidy too.


I have been slowing down and focusing more in all sorts of ways....less multi tasking, time with Em, scheduling date days or nights with Michael, more stopping and noticing the small things around me, taking more self time and not feeling guilty about it, going to bed earlier, and using 'Bloom' on my phone to remind me of the basics like having a glass of water, hand cream and eating fruit. 


Little changes all the time that are making a difference and I like the way that feels. 

SYL Challenge Week 16 - Slow down and Focus

It's funny, I have always been proud of my ability to multi-task and I am damn good at it. I would look at seemingly less productive people and think, how good am I for getting all this stuff done and being so organised. I now realise how fucking stupid I have been. 

While I rush around doing a million things at once, make lists I cannot possible achieve and stress about getting everything done, others seem to slowly focus on one thing at a time and seem to have lots of self time.

So it is time for ME to slow down and focus as much as possible and i have a feeling this is not going to be easy for me. The challenge for this week is:

1. Set yourself up for success and identify only 2 or 3 important things you must  do each day

This week instead of writing big lists of things to do that I had no possible way of finishing, and in turn setting myself up to fail, I identified 2 or 3 simple things that needed to be each day done. 

For example, on Monday I decided there were two things that I wanted to get done on that day. I wanted to fold the Mt Everest clean washing pile in my lounge room, and I needed to pick up Emilie's winter pinafore up from the alterations place so she wouldn't freeze her little arse off the next day. 

Done and done. 

While I did heaps of other things that day, I focused on achieving these 2 simple things and I didn't over commit myself like I usually do. 

2. Build in breathing room to your day and plan some down time everyday!

This is the difficult one for me but I tried. Usually my down time is playing a move in Words With Friends while I am standing watching dinner cook, or when I finally flop in a chair at 9.30pm to watch Prisoner with Michael, punctuated with "Mum, I'm hungry" or Mum, my finger hurts".

On my day off Friday, instead of rushing around doing housework, I met a friend at Peninsula Hot Springs and we chatted, walked, lunched and floated around in mineral springs in the sunshine for 4 hours. 

It was a perfect. 

I wasn't distracted by my phone or children or thoughts of other things I needed to do. I arrived home relaxed and happy having dedicated time to myself and time with a friend. 

I will be doing things like that much more often!

3. Focus

Focusing on anything for long is difficult around my place. For example, I have a rare moment of Emilie free time to type up my weekly challenges but as I am typing, the house dwellers are busy coming and going, rustling things and munching loudly on corn chips behind me so I am already distracted. My brother is unpacking a stereo he just bought with money he doesn't have and the TV is being switched between the racing and the footy. 

Anyway, I lost focus there. This week I tried not to multi-task as much as possible. I made a big effort to focus on completing the task I was doing. More importantly I tried to focus on who I was with without distraction. 

I heard a saying once about treating the person you are with right now as the most important one. We all know how annoying it is when you are talking to someone who is playing with their phone at the same time. I have a friend who asks a question then immediately starts playing with her phone while you answer her. I am not that bad but I am trying to deliberately not have my phone in front of me when spending time with a friend. 

I tried to focus this week on the time I spent with Emilie. I tried hard to not get distracted or multitask while she was talking. She is so funny. I asked her this morning what she was watching on TV and she said "don't worry, it's appropriate". 

I am going to make this week's challenge my new personal mantra...

slow down and focus

SYL Challenge Week 15 - Priorities

A quick and dirty blog this week... 

Challenge this week is to: Conduct a time audit. Look at what you currently have on your to do list, what is in your calendar, what activities you are involved in, commitments you have made. Do these reflect the values you identified in the goals you set? How much of your time is spent ‘above the line’? Think about what might need to go to make room for what you really want in life – to achieve the vision you have set for this year – or what changes can be made to your routines and activities to make room.

It feels like everyday I spend most of my time running around like a mad woman, multi-tasking, organising and trying to cram as much as possible into each day. And most of the time it feels like my time is spent doing things I have to do for the house and things for others, and finding 'my time' gets bumped down the list of priorities. If I spend a rare day doing not much, I feel guilty about it and feel like I will have to make up for it the next day. The more I do, the more I do. 

So, this little exercise really puts things into perspective once again. Using the time management matrix idea by Stephen Covey I have classified areas of my life that I spend time on as 'important or of value' that are both urgent and not urgent, and things that are 'not important', that are also urgent and not urgent. 

Time to start spending much more time above the line me thinks!

Time Management Quadrant

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important / of Value	·      My health- mentally & physically ·      Exercise ·      Care of and relationship with Emilie ·      Relationship with Michael ·      Relationships with house dwellers ·      Emergencies 1	·      Relationships with parents ·      Relationships with friends ·      Scrap booking & other creative things ·      Computer things (FB, Blog, games) ·      Television ·      Helping at school  2
Not Important	3 ·      Household chores and errands ·      Work ·      Finances	4 ·      Selfish & negative people ·      Other people’s problems

SYL Challenge Week 14 - Time Management Planning

Ok so the next 6 weeks of the SYL challenge is the part of the challenge I was most looking forward to....

"...we are going to tackle planning; obligations, commitments and choices; how to slow down and focus; decision making; procrastination and routines.  For many, this will be the biggest area for simplifying your life with the hope of gaining clarity, reducing stress and finding more time to move forward with your goals and things that bring joy to your life…"

I have always been an organiser and a planner. As early as I can remember I liked to organise my things and the people around me. I was probably considered bossy and pissed people off but I like things the way I like them, and I like to organise and plan so things go smoothly. As the eldest child of the family, and my mum not well, my organising personality came in very handy. I had to help organise the home and my sister and brother quite a bit and this still happens a bit now.  I always seem to be the event organiser for most family functions even now we are adults. 


Organising must be hereditary. My dad is extremely organised, I am positive I got it from him. Emilie is already a massive organiser and will probably be a CEO someday bossing everyone around!


Organising and planning is something that comes naturally to me and something I enjoy doing.  I love the way it feels when I organise something and it runs smoothly. I like to know I have covered all bases and anticipated most variations to a plan. 


Like another friend of mine, I too have been referred to as a 'control freak'. Funny how this seems to come from people who seem to have minimal organisation skills, or leave things to the last minute and then wonder why plans do not work out. Non-planners seem to like it when events run smoothly but how do they think this happens? Being disorganised can be stressful and embarrassing and I hate the way that feels. I would rather be called a control freak than be disorganised, and unproductive. 


One of my biggest lessons as a natural planner and organiser was realising that despite the best planning and organising, not everything will go to MY plan, and things can change very quickly. I used to get upset when things didn't go to plan and still do sometimes, but I think having a child was the main thing that taught the best laid plans can go whacky in an instant, and there is no point getting upset about it. Also sometimes it is good to just go with the flow, be spontaneous and not plan everything. 


As an adult I have always kept lists. I love lists. I find getting it out of my head and onto paper the only way for me to get everything done I need to. Crossing things off my 'to-do-list' is a very satisfying feeling! 


I am much less an obsessive diary keeper as I used to be. Prior to Emilie I took my diary everywhere, had a colour coded highlighting system, and wrote down everything I did or needed to do including when I had sex! It was way over the top when I look back at it now. While on maternity leave I got rid of my diary altogether. There was no point as babies do not run to plan. These days I use a work diary for work stuff, and at home i use a wall calendar and weekly planner. 


So the week 14 challenge is very interesting.  Though I already have lists, tried notebooks and consider myself a pretty good planner, there are some changes to my planning needed. 


Firstly I will make some changes to my list making. One of my mistakes is having only one 'to-do-list' rather than Deb's suggestion of several lists including perhaps a daily, weekly, monthly and master list. There are definitely things on my 'to-do' list that have been there for ages and would be more appropriate on a master project list. This will also assist with procrastination, which luckily I don't suffer from too often. Another suggestion I will try, is to plan or list my self time.  I will also start carrying a small notebook with me again so I can jot down any ideas and inspirations i come across. 


Off to 'brain dump' now and reorganise my lists! 

Meal Planning

About a month ago, I read one of Deb's blogs (HLS) about meal planning and thought that I would give it ago. We were going to the supermarket way too often, spending way too much and both Michael and I were sick and tried of trying to think of what to make cook for dinner each night...well he was sick and tired of me asking him what he felt like for dinner. 


The addition of extra kids living here also meant we were cooking for more people and of course everyone has their likes and dislikes. Emilie only eats 'white foods', Shannon (19) eats a similarly limited diet. Lucky the boys eat almost anything. Everyone work different shifts across the day and night so meals often need to be reheated late at night. Remember the old saying by your parents "this is not a restaurant".....well this is actually a frigging restaurant. Nightmare!


So, I started by making a list of all our regular meals, about 20 of our favourites. Some are cheaper than others, most are quick, some are meals just Michael and I eat on date nights, and most are suitable to reheat. 


Each week I now work out which meals we will have for the next 7 days, lunch supplies and back up meals like pasta bake and homemade fish and chips (fondly known as FnCs) I don't set in concrete the night we will have each meal because it is meant to be flexible, but I do work out what meals I need to have the ingredients available for. 


I make my shopping list based on the meal selections plus some basics and we do the shopping. I then decide according to our work schedules or other plans, what we will have for dinner each night. 


It is working a treat! So simple, why didn't I do it sooner! We still need to go to the supermarket for the basics like bread, milk and dunny paper, but not as often. It is great knowing what I am cooking ahead of time rather than having to think about it at the end of the day. My mum used to call dinner time 'arsenic hour' and I can now see why. Meal and shopping planning has definitely reduced stress in my day and helped us with our budgeting. 

SYL Challenge Week 12 & 13 - Changes and Check-in combined

12 weeks into the challenge and looking at my priority areas, I have made changes in the following areas...

• started looking after myself better in some ways...especially trying to get more sleep, backing off the stress and expectations I place on myself as much as possible, and trying to look after my sore hands and feet
• spending much more quality time with Em. I am doing this much more and it has made such a difference to us both....more tickle fights, more hide and seek, more hugs, more sitting on my lap watching TV, more going to the park, more watching a movie together in my bed and even some playing 'Draw Something' together. 
• asking for help with household chores and trying to be more organised with day to day 
• finding more time to be creative...this is kind of happening a little more. I have been making time to blog and time to do scrap booking and it makes me feel good.

The priority areas that still need lots of work are:

• health...I have not been exercising or watching my weight and I need to badly. And I have been smoking again. That is a massive backwards step for me after giving up for 2 years. It has been since the house-dwelling smokers moved in. I'm not blaming them but it makes it very difficult. I have been putting off a doctor visit / check up which I need to book to get a few things checked out.
• money...things are terrible for us in this area at the moment with no sign of a change, and I keep hoping for a miracle. I need to stop putting off doing what needs to be done and do it!

It is a good time to check in and see what progress there has been since the beginning of the challenge and to look at the areas I need to focus on more. 

When I look back at the list of goals I made for myself I am making baby steps most areas but of course others are much more difficult. I have done nothing to progress my business idea and this is definitely held back by no money or time to progress, and the fear of failure. I could be doing little things to progress this but most of them take money that we don't have. 

My 15 min housework is not working because I don't do it. I think the sooner I accept I will never feel it is under control the better. 

I am trying to contact a friend each week who I haven't seen for a while. We are definitely trying to have more family time like a beach trip and movie nights. Michael and I occasionally get a date day or night and cherish these small windows of opportunity to spend time together in what is usually a busy and chaotic little home. 

This check in on my goals and priorities has been a kick up the bum to put more focus on my health and money priorities over the coming months. 

SYL Challenge Week 11 - Kindness, Gratitude and Altruism

Now this is an interesting week...lets see if I can articulate this...

...balancing altruism and kindness, and gratitude. 

When I was little I had a save the snail club. On wet days I would dodge all snails and would insist that anyone with me do the same. Then I moved onto saving ants which needless to say was quite a challenge. I kind of set myself up to fail with that one. Once mum found a teddy bear left in the park next door. I felt so sorry for this bear losing it's owner, I made her wash it and I looked after him. 

Like my mother, stray animals would find me and they would be brought home and never leave. Mum's house was and still is, always filled with cats and dogs she and we kids have found. 

At school I was horrified to see a girl called Lily was regularly being picked on so I made friends with her and tried to stand up for her. Other kids would mash her sandwiches into the dirt and be really cruel. I would always think, "imagine how I would feel if that were me?". So I have always stood up for the underdog, I have always tried to do kind things for people and I certainly have always tried to 'save' people, usually to my own detriment. 

My sense of altruism it seems was alive and well from an early age before I even understood what it was!

Now I am older, I cannot fathom how some people seem to have no sense of altruism towards other people and other living creatures. What happens to these people? One would think altruism is innate in all, the very essence of character and relationships and love. So when people seem to have no altruism and do not extend kindness to others I cannot understand it. 

But, there needs to be a very careful balance because giving non-stop can be exhausting especially if you forget to look after yourself. Which is kind of why I am here doing this challenge. 

Nursing was a great outlet for my over-active altruistic feelings. I was able to give all day long which felt awesome, and naturally gravitated towards looking after the homeless. I loved it and of course wanted to bring homeless people home all the time (which I didn't actually do) 

Anyways, after a few significant events at work and home that left me pretty battered and bruised emotionally, and lets just say I became a bit compassion weary and I began to realise I needed a better balance of giving to others and giving to myself, and I tried to learn how to say 'no' more. Sadly I also realised that some people are just takers, and take advantage of people extending kindness.

So while I love Deb's challenge this week about extending more kindness, I think we need to be very mindful of having a balance in this area. I will continue to do what I can, but  over the last few years I have tried to keep my altruism and acts of kindness a bit more local. If people have continually abused my kindness, I have stop extending it. I always try to help my family, extended family and my friends and still to my own detriment sometimes, but not to the extent as I might have once before. I still do little random acts of kindness for people and will try to do more of this where I can. I love the way it feels to leave people feeling happy and positive. 

Some things don't change much though, the lost animals still seem to regularly find their way to my mum and I for saving and I still rescue little creatures....hence the mouse in our lounge room living it up on potato chips because I don't have the heart to harm it. 

While I have always felt grateful for what I have, gratitude is something an area I have been learning much more about over the last few months. I think it is an age thing as well as recent events prompting a deeper look at what I have to be grateful for. Thinking about my friend who is sick has certainly heightened this for me lately as well. 

As Deb from Home Life Simplified writes in her blog, "let go of the need to be right and choose happiness". I love this. I am trying to do this more. I am also trying to pick my battles better as some things are just not that important when it comes down to it. For example, Emilie wanting beef noodles for breakfast on a Saturday morning is not worth the argument that would ensue if I said no. Is it really important, as annoying as it is, which house dweller used the last of the toilet paper? It is not really worth getting upset about when others are facing much bigger issues in their life. It is ok to grumble and let off steam about life's little annoyances and inconveniences but taking minor things too seriously is a waste of energy in the bigger scheme of things. 

I am learning to take more careful note of the many things I have to be grateful for, and I will think about the ways of incorporating a daily gratitude ritual into my life. The recent photo a day challenge was great for focusing on the things I have around me to be grateful for. I know I am certainly becoming more in tune than ever for the people, things and simply pleasure in my life I have to be grateful for.