October is finally here and with it only more 90 days to accomplish any of those goals you set yourself to have completed by the end of 2012.
What was on your list at the start of the year, or even was put on the list since the start of the year, that you need to or want to have ticked off before the countdown to 2013 happens? Hopefully some items have been ticked off as completed already but what about those items that you either haven’t looked at yet or perhaps like me have suddenly decided need to be done fairly urgently so were only added to the list recently, what are you going to do with them?
I was in the middle of planning my day’s the other week when I read a Tweet about there being less than 100 day’s left of 2012 and it got me thinking – what should I have done before the end of the year and what do I really need to concentrate on doing before the end of the year so I have achieved something productive and meaningful? I have achieved several things as far as my teaching is concerned, despite the “get a new job” achievement turning into “get another job” at the end of my contract in the summer. Even in my personal list I can tick off several accomplishments but in my “home life” list I don’t really think I can tick of much at all. This area is where I need to put some focus (whilst I am hunting for my next teaching job obviously!) so that I can move into 2013 with a bit more organisation and comfort.
The Problem
Before working on the solution I need to define the problem – admitting what the issue is so I can acknowledge it and move forward. So, right here and now I will do that:
I am trying to live out of my bedroom and have enough in there for at least 3 rooms, this has been partly caused by moving back into my parents from my own flat after a term of my first teaching job having been away at university, 6 of these years in uni accommodation or student houses and then just over a year in my own flat whilst I was doing my teacher training. Moving all this back into a tiny 3 bedroom house was never going to happen so a lot of it went into storage until I was made redundant due to budget cuts a year ago. At that point my possessions were redistributed and “shoved” into anywhere they could fit. Therefore my room acquired some of this extra stuff along with any of the things that had been taken to my previous work and now was back in my room.
When I was at university I tended to buy a lot of “lotions and potions” as my mum refers to them, but since I started teaching it has again become stationery and books and technology. This gets very expensive and takes up a lot of space, space which I do not have. I now have “stacks” of things on my desk, all piled up in a giant tower, in boxes so they don’t just topple over (unlike the pile I move daily to sit on my chair…).
My latest Filofax and associated paraphernalia collecting has been fairly tame, although not as tame as it needs to be! But when I found Filofax I also found the FlyLady and a lot of the things I have read have made sense in my head so are becoming more natural than previous tendencies. I am generally a LOT more organised, so much so that people have commented positively, but my room is a trash hole and I hate it. It should be a sanctuary or whatever but it is so far from that right now. I need to do a LOT more FlyLady “Super Fling Boogies” and de-clutter like you wouldn’t believe, I also need to sort out the storage that’s available in my room so items I am keeping for the right reasons are housed sensibly.
The Solution?
If there is a solution that can even be achieved in 90 days only time will tell but for now what I am planning is to book time slots in my Filofax for sections of de-cluttering and setting myself some mini goals that together add up to the big over all goal of having a bedroom rather than mess again.
Note: By chucking out/throwing away/getting rid of I mean: put in the rubbish, put in the recycling, sold or sent to charity shops as appropriate, just so we are clear as my mum always corrects me.
Scrappy things need to be thrown out, old clothes need to be got rid of and I need to think if I actually need to hold on to things that are “good” or if I can in fact pass them on to others who will be grateful for them. Making a little bit of money here would also help until I get another job as well!
How am I going to do this?
By spending some time each day in short bursts to get things sorted. I’m going to use the FlyLady’s 15 minute timer suggestion here as it turns into a challenge to “beat the timer” and get the task done before it goes off! It makes it fun and as the challenge is not too much all at once, it means I have some thing I can be proud of having done and it should motivate me to keep going.
I am going to need to use my Filofax to help me coordinate this as well, I have a few ideas already but it would be great to have some other people’s in put here to keep things moving along. Maybe even challenge me to do certain things or do things in a certain way?
I will need to do things bit by bit but if you have some good ideas, suggestions, challenges or motivational messages then post me a message in the comments box and I will let you know how things are coming along and what has/is helping.
S 🙂
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