getting things done

I haven't blogged in a while. I've felt a little overwhelmed by life. But for some reason, today Emma decided to take a second nap, so I found myself with a little extra time and wanted to turn to my blog.

I know I had a post that mentioned Power of Moms, and especially their book Motherhood Realized. I now own a copy, and have read it for a second time. It's really struck a chord with me. I've listened to probably 20 of their podcasts (Power of Moms Radio) and read several articles from their website. Yesterday I attended one of their free online webinars entitled "How to Make HUGE Projects Feel Easy." After this one hour webinar I felt empowered. I felt like I learned some great skills that I immediately started applying to my life. I started by making a huge long list of all of the "projects" I am working on or wanting to work on. Then I picked the few that I want to focus on right now. Then I made a list of every single thing I could think of that I would need to do to finish that project, and I even tried to list them in the order that they need to occur.

One of my problems is that by the time I could get Emma down for a nap I was just so overwhelmed by all of the things I needed to do that I couldn't figure out where to start. The word they used to describe it was paralyzed. I did, I felt so paralyzed by my never-ending to-do-list. Now I have a list of what the next step is for each of my projects. I can pick a project, and know immediately what needs to be done next. This morning Emma went down for a nap and I pulled my paper out and was able to make some good headway on a project. It felt great realizing that I could really accomplish so much during a 1 hour nap, simply because yesterday I took the time to make some really good lists.

I'm still working on establishing good routines -- I have one load of laundry that I do each day Monday-Friday, but I need to figure out how to organize the rest of my regular cleaning. As I get into better routines I am hoping that I can carve out a little more time to be able to get my projects done.

Yesterday I felt like I could really do it. I can make the time to really get my house organized (that's a huge project that I broke down room by room and exactly what I wanted to get done in each room) and clean. I can get some books read without feeling guilty. I can finally get around to making a scrapbook (probably online, or maybe a Project Life album) of Emma's 1st year. And hopefully I'll get that done before I need to do her 2nd year book.

My house won't always be clean all the time, but on any given day there will be at least one area that's in pretty decent shape. My projects list may never shrink down to zero (because lets face it, I'll come up with more projects I want to do), but the projects that are on my list right now will get knocked off it!

I'm excited to see how I can get things done now. And once I complete some projects I'll actually have more things to show you guys! I felt like blogging was pointless if I didn't have much to share, but if I'm able to get things done, and finish the projects I've started I can't wait to show them to you!