New Year Focus #1

Since I let my household chores slip so horribly over the holidays, I started my new year refocusing efforts last week on my home and family. I started out by getting this great new calendar:


It is called
Mom's Plan-it 2009 Engagement Calendar: A 17 Month Engagement Calendar. It is great- there is a page for each week like a normal datebook, but then for each week there is a tear out grocery list and a place to make a menu. So, that is what I used for my menu planning that I started last Monday. I plan to make a list for the whole week each Monday, and shop on Monday for the whole week. This is a big deal for both time and money management!

Also I entered all the paydays for the whole year into this book, and I plan to take the time to pay the bills within a day or two of each payday. Any issues we have had with money management have been much more about disorganization, and I need to try to overcome that.

I would love to get better at finding great bargains, but I need to take babysteps, so I will hopefully get back to that later. In the meantime I have been reading some great blogs written by some fabulous bargain hunters!

I was not feeling up to par last week, but I did attempt a few cleaning sessions on my timer, and I plan to do a couple of those a day at least. This will help me get the household chores back on track.

New Year, New Resolve

Ok, in my last post I promised some semblance of a list of New Year's resolutions:

There it is, you can read it, right? Ha ha. Alright, this was just me scribbling a few thoughts, let me try to organize myself and translate for you.

Rather than make a list of firm resolutions, I decided to instead make a list of areas I want to focus on, and make a rough schedule for my weekly chunks of time to work on them. This post will be about my focus areas.

Family/Household needs- The first thing I will do to address these is to block out time daily for cleaning, and try to get back to a good baseline of cleanliness and then be able to maintain it. Rather than promising to "have a spotless house", I am going for cleaning for a certain amount of time daily. Secondly, I need to work on finishing up some painting/decorating projects. I will block out some time weekly for this. Finally, we need a new focus on saving money and paying down our debts. One way I will be working on this is by planning out weekly what dinners I will make for the week, so we can avoid eating out too much, or just grabbing something easy from the store. The part of meal prep I hate the most is that "what are we having for dinner?" moment.

Business needs- I started my year end inventory today, and that process made it clear to me that I have a lot of stuff made, but not currently listed for sale anywhere. That needs to be remedied as quickly as possible, so I am going to commit to listing something daily. Hopefully I can get on a roll and get it done quickly. I want to reaffirm my commitment to doing something daily to further my craft business. I need to concentrate on getting my sites marketed effectively so my items can sell. I will block out time twice a week to focus only on the marketing aspects.

Personal improvement goals- OK, like probably 80% of the adult population of the US, I need to get serious about my diet and exercise. I will start visiting both the Weight Watchers website and the gym with more regularity. (I am intimidated by the teens at the gym, so will wait until they return to school.) Also, I want to really stretch myself creatively, both in areas of fiber arts and metalsmithing. I plan to take a metalsmithing class in the spring, so the beginning of the year will have a fiber art focus. I need to figure out how much time, but I feel like some time weekly should be dedicated to working on techniques with no thought of selling.

I have grand intentions, but I wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew??

I Can Do *Anything* For 20 Minutes

Confession time...I have let my housework slip and now I am in a pit! Not that it is ever perfect around here, but it has gotten particularly bad. So I need to catch up before the holidays.

I have had similar issues before. I don't know which comes first- the funky mood or the messy house, but they are definitely connected. Previous battles with this led me to find FlyLady.net, a site filled with advice for people like me. There is a treasure trove of information there for digging out from under your clutter and establishing routines.

One thing I found really useful before was to set my timer for doing tasks. For example, I look at my dining room table covered with piles o stuff, and if I just think "I have to clean off that table", I will become instantly overwhelmed at the thought and not even start. Somehow if I tell myself "work for 20 minutes on the table", I can make myself do it. I know the job is too huge to finish in 20 minutes, and often I get on a roll and just finish the job, but it is really nice to know I have an out in 20 minutes if I need it.

OH, and another confession before I go- I had to buy a new timer because my old one is under a pile here somewhere...