Ringing in the New Year ... in early Spring

So after months of hibernation, I'm back to posting. At least I hope. I logged in this morning only to discover an incomplete blog that I started in, um, January. Yes, you read correctly. January. It was all about how I love the New Year, almost as much as I love the first day of school, and my goals yada yada yada. Seems slightly inappropriate now that it's mid-March but since it is driving my focus right now I should touch on it. So here's the slightly adapted version for the Spring.

Spring has sprung peeps. Pollen is in the air and my allergies are going haywire. I feel like my head is going to explode and I sound like Gilbert Godfrey. Not a pretty picture. Nonetheless, I'm excited. I love the Spring. It's a time of new beginnings, of refocusing and reorganizing and with that comes office supplies. Yes, office supplies. One can not reorganize without organizational tools and office supplies. It's a fact.

I know I'm a dork but being organized is almost a religious experience for me. When I'm unorganized I feel like my days get off to a false start. I sort of stumble my way through the day waiting for the synapses in my brain to start working so I can remember what in the Lord's name was I supposed to do today? Maybe I should take this as a clue that I need to jump on the coffee band wagon. Organization offers me clarity and a clear vision of my plan and as I have said before I'm a girl that likes to have a plan. It really does renew my spirit to know that I can start over fresh with the purchase of a new calendar and planner.  Just buying office supplies makes me feel good, productive and excited about what I can accomplish. 

I'm a little slow to get my organizing started this year but I'm cutting myself some slack since I've got a newborn in the house. I used to have a "To Do" list as long as my arm and would routinely cross multiple items off my list each day. Now, it's challenging having two babes in the house so I pick a max of 3 items and try my hardest to get to those. If I do, it is a successful day. If not, oh well, there's always tomorrow. It seems that I can't get them to nap at the same time or long enough for me to accomplish any one task. In fact, as I write this I'm chicken pecking the key board because I'm cradling the littlest while my oldest is driving a toy truck up my leg. Ah, motherhood.

I have taken (3 months ago) the same approach with my New Year's Goals as I do my daily "To Do" list--pick 3 things to focus on. I've got 3 items in mind--reorganization, reestablish and renew. We are about to reestablish ourselves again with another move but before we do that we are tackling the reorganization issue because another unorganized move might send me over the edge.

My biggest problem starting out 2012 is that we ended 2011 with two chaotic months with multiple hospitalizations for my Gramma and myself, the holidays, the birth of my youngest son and a challenging breast feeding experience that literally had me planted on the sofa with either T. or a breast pump attached to my breast. As a result, we've had little time to do much of anything so I'm back logged on just about everything--bill paying, filing, housework, laundry, shopping, etc. This is problematic because a cluttered space equates to a cluttered mind for me and I have a hard time identifying what needs to be done let alone focusing on (or finishing) one task. So, Goal One is to clean up and figure out what needs to be resolved and then stay on top of it. This is a daunting task and has resulted in a massive "To Do" list which was being written on the white board in the office so the hubs can help cross some things off. However, that proved too difficult since we moved our office downstairs and no longer have a constant visual reminder of the whiteboard that is still hanging in the old space. Simple fix is to move the whiteboard but we just haven't gotten around to it. Instead, I have spent hours scouring Pinterest for clever solutions to this problem and in the meantime have concreted my addiction to the Internet. No, really people, I need a support group. Yes, I do understand that I might have spent my time more productively actually DOING things instead of reading about HOW TO DO things but while my addiction can be distracting it has proved to help out tremendously with Goal ONE since I have come across so many tips and tricks to help keep me sane. I have discovered a system that I have put into play and it is working beautifully for my family. It also makes me happy because I got to buy office supplies.

I spent the better part of a day compiling my cleaning list and transferring the tasks onto 3x5 cards. I labeled the tasks that were appropriate for the kids to help out with and then sorted them into and labeled them in categories: daily, every other day, weekly, every other week, monthly, seasonally or quarterly. I purchased a note card holder and a set numbered of tabs so I could file each card into an appropriate day. Each day we pull out the cards under the day, complete those tasks then refile them in the appropriate spot. It's still a work in progress as I plan to add refiling directions on the bottom so the kids can refile without asking "where does this go now?"

Reasons I like this:

1. I have one place for all my tasks and it's not on a notepad that is going to get thrown into the pile of papers that has taken up residence on my counter and forgotten. 
2. The cards make it easy to delegate tasks without having to write another list. I can just put them on a clip on the fridge and remind the kids to check their cards.
3. I can write all the clever, why-didn't-I-think-of-that cleaning tips on the cards so whomever is doing that task knows how to take care of it. 

So far, it's working and I'm kinda excited about it. In the last week, this system has focused me/us enough that I can keep up on my housework and tackle the Spring clean out one task at a time. We've already gone through every room in the house to put things back where they belong (in preparation for the packing set to commence next week) and to purge unnecessary or unwanted items. We've also  done a few of the cleaning items, which is leaps and bounds better than last year when I didn't do ANY of them. We're scheduled to have a garage sale which I hope will fund my reestablishment/renew efforts in the new place. I normally am not a fan of garage sales but I'm really looking forward to it.

I guess I'm spring cleaning out life right now and not just my house. It feels good.