Thoughts :: Organizing Life

Thank you for all who responded to my organizational bleg the other day. Apparently, it was a standard yearly freak-out that arrived right on schedule, but for some reason, caught me unawares. I should learn to read my archives more often.

A sweet in-town friend has agreed to get together later this month to see if we can put our heads together trying to figure out this whole "organizational crisis". But first, a few thoughts....

I've done this before. I've got schedules, and calendars and notebooks galore sitting on my shelves collecting dust. When I realize this, I usually tend to mentally flog myself with condemnations of laziness and sloth and why-can't-I-just-figure-out-the-Right-Way-to-keep-house already? While I know I'm far from perfect, I've come to realize the temptation behind those thoughts. I've had plenty enough people over to my house and I've been to enough friends' houses to know where mine stands in the realm of cleanliness. I know where my successes lie and where I desire to improve. But when I see those lists and schedules sitting there ignored all I see is failure.

As I pondered all of your great suggestions, I realized that historically, the lists that work best for me are the ones that I make up myself to fit my family, my schedule and my standards. Isn't that the way it always is? Sure, it would be easy to pick up someone else's program and find it perfectly molded to our life? And if life stayed the same, so would my homemaking tasks, but that is not the case. Life is ever changing. The seasons change. Our health changes. Our priorities change. But I still expect one schedule to be a one-size-fits all remedy. Kind of sounds like the definition of insanity, huh? (I know Einstein is falsely attributed that quote, but my choice was to either falsely quote him or send you to a Narcotics Anonymous website.)

Still I strive for order, I need order. But one stop remedies don't work; however, I don't think they need to be chucked altogether. I just think they need to be tempered with regular reflection. I think I'm going to spend a little more time reflecting on this, but for now, those thoughts of deficiency have been banished and replaced with my new mantra ~ It's not failure, it's just adapting to change. And that's life!