You know, all that work yesterday was worth it. My brain was mush by the end of the day - not really sure why, but it was - and I was really tired. But when I walked into my office this morning, with my Active File waving it's little colour-coordinated tabs at me happily, and my surfaces cleared except for the statements I left in front of my keyboard because I wanted to deal with them right away this morning, it was a goooooooood feeling. :D
I've even cleared out my desk filing drawer so I have extra room in here! It's inspiring me to dust today, I tell ya. ;)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
What is this "FLY" you talk about???
Yeah, Ah dun bin bad. Not FLYing at all, not house-wise, anyway. So much for "Let's FLY together!", huh?
But the reason I write today, and I do have a reason, is that I've been FLYing my files again. This is not the proudest of accomplishments: it took me until bloody April to switch the years over and get rid of the "filing pile" in my "filing box". Good grief.
I've started a new business, however, and I seriously don't want to use a shoebox and then panic at the end of the year. So today I have used my FreedomFiler system and a nice little article by Jill Chongva at Helium.com and have managed to catch up on 3 months' worth of filing for my business and my home.
Not bad for a sunny Tuesday.
I have decided that my filing tray HAS TO GO. Out the door, good-bye, syanara, or, in the words made famous by ABBA, "So long! See ya honey!" Let's face it, filing trays are just piling trays. It's really, really, really bad for us "do it later" folks to keep too many piling trays around After all, this is why I created this system - so it's easy to use and I can just file the bleedin' things and not pile them!
The space created on my desk by getting rid of the piling tray will be used for my "active" files, which are now set up neatly in a desktop hanging folder frame. Because guess what? My active files are full of things to do! Know why? I put it inside a drawer. *hand smacks forehead* It would seem that whoever created the adage, "Out of sight, out of mind", was entirely right...
Thus, it will now stand proudly on my desktop, waving it's little folder tabs wildly at me all day, glinting sunlight from the window into my eyes - anything it can think of, really, to remind me to pick out a folder and DO SOMETHING!
I really am an odd bird. I cannot stand working in a cluttered, unorganized office. My house can fall to pieces around me, but heaven help the person that plops something on my desk in some random fashion (unless it's me, then I excuse it wholeheartedly). I'm finding that once or twice a week, I have acquired the habit of clearing off my desk (I don't know where I acquired it, I think it just jumped in the open window one night when the snow was really high). I get rid of meandering necklaces, tiny bowls I had my baby carrots in, various nail polish bottles, notes on scraps of paper that have long been accomplished, five thousand pens, pencils and highlighters - all that rot. And then I have a brand new surface to clutter up every few days and I stay happy.
Now if I could just "clear off" my house once or twice a week like I do my desk, life would be good.
But the reason I write today, and I do have a reason, is that I've been FLYing my files again. This is not the proudest of accomplishments: it took me until bloody April to switch the years over and get rid of the "filing pile" in my "filing box". Good grief.
I've started a new business, however, and I seriously don't want to use a shoebox and then panic at the end of the year. So today I have used my FreedomFiler system and a nice little article by Jill Chongva at Helium.com and have managed to catch up on 3 months' worth of filing for my business and my home.
Not bad for a sunny Tuesday.
I have decided that my filing tray HAS TO GO. Out the door, good-bye, syanara, or, in the words made famous by ABBA, "So long! See ya honey!" Let's face it, filing trays are just piling trays. It's really, really, really bad for us "do it later" folks to keep too many piling trays around After all, this is why I created this system - so it's easy to use and I can just file the bleedin' things and not pile them!
The space created on my desk by getting rid of the piling tray will be used for my "active" files, which are now set up neatly in a desktop hanging folder frame. Because guess what? My active files are full of things to do! Know why? I put it inside a drawer. *hand smacks forehead* It would seem that whoever created the adage, "Out of sight, out of mind", was entirely right...
Thus, it will now stand proudly on my desktop, waving it's little folder tabs wildly at me all day, glinting sunlight from the window into my eyes - anything it can think of, really, to remind me to pick out a folder and DO SOMETHING!
I really am an odd bird. I cannot stand working in a cluttered, unorganized office. My house can fall to pieces around me, but heaven help the person that plops something on my desk in some random fashion (unless it's me, then I excuse it wholeheartedly). I'm finding that once or twice a week, I have acquired the habit of clearing off my desk (I don't know where I acquired it, I think it just jumped in the open window one night when the snow was really high). I get rid of meandering necklaces, tiny bowls I had my baby carrots in, various nail polish bottles, notes on scraps of paper that have long been accomplished, five thousand pens, pencils and highlighters - all that rot. And then I have a brand new surface to clutter up every few days and I stay happy.
Now if I could just "clear off" my house once or twice a week like I do my desk, life would be good.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
I Love New Years
To me, New Year's Day is the mark of a new start and ever-present hope that I will conquer some great new habit or routine. I love 'em for that reason. Mondays are often the same kind of thing for me.
This year, I enjoyed our family time over Christmas and New Years and didn't get too serious about "making new plans", although I had a few in mind - namely, be diligent about getting back into shape by exercising, and the yearly "I must be better at house cleaning" thing. LOL This year, I was waiting until the 5th, when the kids would be back in school and I could have the entire house to myself, everything quiet again, to sit and plan and think and think and plan.
Well, two days before school began, our youngest (7yo) came down with a whacking cold. It ended up that he spent the entire first week at home still, trying to recouperate, drinking NeoCitran and coughing his poor head off. So much for my time alone.
Then the second week came, and the other three kids were getting the virus. I had one girl home for four mornings, but she went in the afternoons so as not to miss important classes. That meant three trips to the school and back each day. Not very restful, even if she did sleep all morning and the house was relatively quiet for that bit of time. I find I get scattered in the head when I'm in and out of the house all day like that.
Finally, yesterday everyone was back to school, my husband was busy for most of the day (although he and our partner popped in briefly as we needed to clarify stuff on an estimate), and I had a nice, quiet chunk of time to "do my thing."
It was lovely.
I got on the treadmill for the first time and walked my 30 minutes. Then I sat and had some breakfast and began making notes of all the stuff I'd thought about while on the treadmill. Then I went into my office, did up a very rough Control Journal (which for me is a miracle in itself, I usually have to fancy it up with clip art and print it out nicely from MS Publisher or something LOL), and popped it into a duotang.
I've decided to adjust my morning routine and leave out some of the daily stuff that FlyLady recommends, like the Swish and Swip and the myriad of Hot Spots and stuff like that. Instead, I've divided my weekly home blessing needs into 5 day's worth of jobs and I'm going to concentrate on one thing a day. For instance, Mondays are for Budget, Banking, and Bills. Tuesdays I'll make up meal and grocery plans and do some baking, as well as pop some water into my three plants. Wednesday, I'll just binge and clean all three bathrooms. That kind of thing.
I also have time each day set aside to tackle bigger projects, and I've listed them in order of importance and urgency so as to get the emergency stuff done first. And I realized that I need to delegate tasks, as well, so supposedly over morning coffee, I choose which tasks for that day to delegate to someone else. :D I'm not the only person in this household, after all!
So we'll see how it goes. I'm still using my timer, but most of my chunks of time are now 30 minutes long instead of 15. I think I'm a big enough girl to handle 30 minutes now, I've had plenty of practice with bite-sized pieces. :D 30 minutes is only a slightly larger bite. LOL
I'm feeling very "put together" at the moment. We've got our budget done, and I've got the Quicken program set up to track our progress. I have a daily/weekly plan that is easily tweaked and feeling usable. I've got easily-reached goals for fitness, and, for once in my life, the actual desire to do it! That might have been because I looked at pictures taken of me on my birthday and thought, "Col, it's TIME." LOL
Wish me luck. ;)
This year, I enjoyed our family time over Christmas and New Years and didn't get too serious about "making new plans", although I had a few in mind - namely, be diligent about getting back into shape by exercising, and the yearly "I must be better at house cleaning" thing. LOL This year, I was waiting until the 5th, when the kids would be back in school and I could have the entire house to myself, everything quiet again, to sit and plan and think and think and plan.
Well, two days before school began, our youngest (7yo) came down with a whacking cold. It ended up that he spent the entire first week at home still, trying to recouperate, drinking NeoCitran and coughing his poor head off. So much for my time alone.
Then the second week came, and the other three kids were getting the virus. I had one girl home for four mornings, but she went in the afternoons so as not to miss important classes. That meant three trips to the school and back each day. Not very restful, even if she did sleep all morning and the house was relatively quiet for that bit of time. I find I get scattered in the head when I'm in and out of the house all day like that.
Finally, yesterday everyone was back to school, my husband was busy for most of the day (although he and our partner popped in briefly as we needed to clarify stuff on an estimate), and I had a nice, quiet chunk of time to "do my thing."
It was lovely.
I got on the treadmill for the first time and walked my 30 minutes. Then I sat and had some breakfast and began making notes of all the stuff I'd thought about while on the treadmill. Then I went into my office, did up a very rough Control Journal (which for me is a miracle in itself, I usually have to fancy it up with clip art and print it out nicely from MS Publisher or something LOL), and popped it into a duotang.
I've decided to adjust my morning routine and leave out some of the daily stuff that FlyLady recommends, like the Swish and Swip and the myriad of Hot Spots and stuff like that. Instead, I've divided my weekly home blessing needs into 5 day's worth of jobs and I'm going to concentrate on one thing a day. For instance, Mondays are for Budget, Banking, and Bills. Tuesdays I'll make up meal and grocery plans and do some baking, as well as pop some water into my three plants. Wednesday, I'll just binge and clean all three bathrooms. That kind of thing.
I also have time each day set aside to tackle bigger projects, and I've listed them in order of importance and urgency so as to get the emergency stuff done first. And I realized that I need to delegate tasks, as well, so supposedly over morning coffee, I choose which tasks for that day to delegate to someone else. :D I'm not the only person in this household, after all!
So we'll see how it goes. I'm still using my timer, but most of my chunks of time are now 30 minutes long instead of 15. I think I'm a big enough girl to handle 30 minutes now, I've had plenty of practice with bite-sized pieces. :D 30 minutes is only a slightly larger bite. LOL
I'm feeling very "put together" at the moment. We've got our budget done, and I've got the Quicken program set up to track our progress. I have a daily/weekly plan that is easily tweaked and feeling usable. I've got easily-reached goals for fitness, and, for once in my life, the actual desire to do it! That might have been because I looked at pictures taken of me on my birthday and thought, "Col, it's TIME." LOL
Wish me luck. ;)
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