Saturday, January 26, 2013

To-Do or not To-Do

I'm a serious believer in To-Do lists.  Love them.  Live by them.  When I was working as an Architect, I literally had a list of To-Do lists.  It's so serious that if I get something done that wasn't on the list, I'll write it on the list, just for the satisfaction of marking it off.  After all, one rule of the T-Do list is that if it isn't on the list, it didn't happen.

Well,  about 7 weeks ago, a new little person introduced himself into my life:



Since then, I've noticed a serious decrease in what I'm able to get "done" every day.  Take today, for example: my two goals for the day were to balance the budget and fold at least some of the mountain of laundry.  So far, at 4:12 PM, none of that has happened.  None of it has even been started, actually.  I've thought about it - does that count?  That can make me feel rather down, since I (wrongly) tend to measure how good my day was by how much I got done.  Sometimes I tend to forget that feeding the baby and getting he, our older son and myself alive to the end of the day is a rather important accomplishment in and of itself.


 So, I've decided to create a new To-Do list for myself to help me stay focused on the important work I am getting done every day:

To-Do
Feed the baby
Eat breakfast
Get dressed
Start homeschool with Jonathan
Feed the baby, while doing school
Finish school with Jonathan
Feed the baby
Eat lunch
Pick one to attempt: take a nap, run an errand, clean something
Feed the baby
Eat supper
Feed the baby
Take a shower
Feed the baby
Sleep (optional)

Hmm...when I spell out my day that way, it's not much of a surprise that my house looks the way it does.  Maybe I should print out this list and put it up on the fridge (and the bathroom mirror, and over the dirty clothes hampers...).  Then perhaps I'll be a little less hard on myself for what doesn't get done every day!  Because honestly, these two aren't going to stay like this forever:



Gotta go...it's time to feed the baby!