We have been in Pennsylvania for a week, and my first remotely productive day was yesterday. I did laundry, ran the dishwasher, packed for our weekend, read a bit. And it felt so good. I’m hoping to have some time to think about our life and family and future, but I don’t feel free to do that when there are messes to clean up or phone calls to make or laundry to do. Even with some improvement yesterday, things are still cluttered and unorganized here. I might just have to realize that I’m not going to be very organized while I am living out of a suitcase. Some people can pull that off. I’m not one of them.
I like thinking about how I want life to be: what I want my priorities to be, what I want to be teaching my children, the qualities I want to see grow in myself over the next year or so. I dream about what life will look like in five or ten years and ask myself what needs to be happening now in order for that to happen. What do I need to be doing now to prepare for what is ahead? And I’m not a type A personality, so I can set up all kinds of goals and steps and weekly schedules without being ruled by them to the point of exhaustion. (No offense to you type A’s. I love you and quite often wish I had more of your drive!)
I have learned (and it took me almost 30 years…) that my process is to set up a system, it will work for a while, I’ll stop using that system, things will ramble on for a bit until I feel the need to reorganize and pull things together, I’ll set up another system that points me toward my goals and the process starts again. By system I mean anything that I plan to use to help me work toward my goals. This can be anything from a weekly schedule to posting things up around the house, using a new calendar or task app on my phone to journaling more. I don’t let myself get bogged down about being without a system for a time or finding that a system no longer works. No guilt. Just move on and try something a little different. Or a lot different.
How do you refresh your life, meet your goals? Am I the only one who has this rotating system craziness? Do you make New Years resolutions or do you restart throughout the year or is this something you never do?
Alright, I need to go make a phone call to set up an appointment. Then maybe some dreaming and planning!
wherever you go 