Monday, June 04, 2007

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

Funny how life gives you what you need if you are open to it. This morning I was over at In a Minute Ago, and read this perfect quote for today:

"A dream is a dream
A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline."

Sharon was writing about how she plans, manages her time, and gets things done. She is writing from her perspective as a fiber artist, but I think her suggestions work for whatever it is we are trying to accomplish. For example, I think she hits the nail on the head (for me, anyhow) with this paragraph. It really spoke to me- I really struggle with focus these days.

"Women are particularly good a multitasking and often during the child rearing stage of life they have trained themselves to be so good at it that they forget is how to focus. There are times to multi task and times to focus on getting what ever it is you want to achieve done. Some things are easy to multi task such as putting a load of washing in and letting it run while I attend to mail but other things are single task activities such as designing something. This sort of task requires me to focus on the task at hand, in a sustained manner in order to actually get it done."

Why this blog post struck a cord with me on this particular morning is that the kids and I are planning out the next three weeks of our lives today. We each made a list (thanks, Amy) of everything we needed to do around the house, in categories of chores, school, and self (self-care,bedroom maintenance, and personal goals). Then we made a schedule page, and penciled it all in. So at the moment, our days are scheduled from 7 am to 10 pm. Sounds drastic, but we need this focus right now. We have a lot of work to do this summer, but still want to have some fun- planning our lives seemed the easiest way to go about it.

Another quote from Sharon's blog:

"Mile by mile, life’s a trial.
Yard by yard, life is hard.
Inch by inch, life’s a cinch."

Gotta go, I am determined to be a mom, a housewife, a teacher, and an artist today. I will try to post a photo of the day later.
LB

2 comments:

sharonb said...

Oh let me know how you go - I think claiming time to focus on an activity is really difficult while raising children - I am at a different stage in life but I remember!!!

Anonymous said...

Yae for all! Great use of "tools". Prince Charming and I have had great success preparing for events, and managing life, using lists. One of us prepares the list, we go over it together, reprioritize and editing as needed, often utilizing those precious negotiation skills :) I've noticed this works well for us as you get "buy in" from all parties. We agree where we're going, and if one or both of us gets off track, we can lovingly correct, or shall we say restake the tomatoes? We have a lot less upset over what "we think" the other one should be doing. When it’s on the list, and we've communicated, there is a much larger chance that stuff will happen. When it’s in one of our heads, the other has a much smaller chance of catching a clue! Especially if they are busy working on the list. How can they catch my sighs and eye rolling, let alone read my busy cluttered mind?!

What a journey ~ aren't human's fun! It seems so obvious when it’s written down, but oy, in practice, it’s a challenge, eh?

Looking forward to hearing about the wonderful success you are all creating!

Hey there and hugs to all,

P :)