"Organize Now! A Week-By-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life" by Jennifer Ford Berry is one of those books that, once I stumbled across it, I couldn't resist buying. I am guilty of judging a book by it's cover... and this one is so cute. It also had me with the words "week-by-week guide". I'm a sucker for anything that promises a week-by-week plan. Love the idea of someone else planning all my time and guiding me through the week.
I'm not too far in, but yesterday it prompted an exercise to help prioritize your time and it's just so simple that it's quite possibly brilliant. For this week's goal, I'm to make a list of my top ten priorities. Simple, right? But once I numbered a piece of paper from 1 to 10 and began the exercise, it was a little more difficult than I expected. I scribbled out the first few rather quickly...
1) baking/cooking healthy, whole food meals for my family
2) involve my boys in creative & stimulating projects
3) create wonderful memories for my family
4) nurture my creative outlets
And then I drew a blank. Wow, ten is a lot! After a lot of thinking I came up with the rest:
5) organization & clutter control
6) gardening (creating a comfortable outdoor space for the family to enjoy)
7) sew my own wardrobe
8) a healthy & fit lifestyle - lead by example for my children
9) fix up this old house
10) dedicate time to a book idea
2) involve my boys in creative & stimulating projects
3) create wonderful memories for my family
4) nurture my creative outlets
And then I drew a blank. Wow, ten is a lot! After a lot of thinking I came up with the rest:
5) organization & clutter control
6) gardening (creating a comfortable outdoor space for the family to enjoy)
7) sew my own wardrobe
8) a healthy & fit lifestyle - lead by example for my children
9) fix up this old house
10) dedicate time to a book idea
I've never had a problem identifying what it is I enjoy doing with my time. But most of the time I find myself always feeling guilty for doing this and not that. Yesterday, I took the boys to the park and filled a bag with some crochet projects to do. On most occasions, I would find myself sitting at the park feeling guilty because I wasn't at home. Maybe because I left the breakfast dishes in the sink or I knew I should be on the computer working. But yesterday it occurred to me that I was knocking off two whole priorities by going to the park: creating memories for my family AND nurturing my creative outlet. No guilt! Done, that was all it took. This simple little exercise was nothing short of enlightening for me. Try it yourself. Especially if you're quite often riddled with guilt like I am!
2 comments:
This looks like a fun book. And even better -- it looks like it works! I need to write down priorities AND get organized. I know there are things that are priorities that aren't getting done -- maybe if I would write them down, it would help a little more!
Love your comments and glad you like the book. Your review popped up on my Google Alert (yes a very cool invention that lets me know when people around the world are blogging about my book! Thank you for the kind words and I look forward to hearing your opinion of the rest of it :)
BTW, congratulations on appearing on the Martha show!
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