January Challenge: Prioritizing & Scheduling

I am so excited to begin our year long journey through monthly challenges to get organized in 2012. I need this just as much as everyone else does.

Over the past few months, I have received tons of emails and comments asking me for advice on where to start with organization, how to keep up, and where to find the time. Going through a change in my life right now, I need to re-prioritize my life so that I can continue to keep my home clean and organized so I feel at peace.

This month's challenge will focus on the following topics:

• Where does your time go? We'll track our time for a week, seeing where it all goes.
• What is important to you, and how would you like to spend your time? After tracking our time, we'll prioritize what we're doing and decide what we'd like to add or do more of.
• Creating schedules and routines. We'll figure it out so you can "get it all done" once and for all.
  
• Planning out tasks and projects with lists and by delegating.
• List making 101. I'll give you ideas on how to create your to-do lists so they get conquered rather than making you feel overwhelmed.
• Anything else I decide to add as we tread through the challenge.

Sound good?

If you'd rather not participate in this challenge because it's not a specific home organization task oriented challenge, that's okay. But you may just like what I have up my sleeve. =]

Week 1: Tracking Our Time

Okay, seriously...I just had 2 weeks off and feel like I accomplished very little. My home is still a mess, my curriculum is still unplanned, and I'm feeling anxious with school starting again on Tuesday. Anyone else have a similar feeling?

I know where my time went - to the internet. Teaching blogs, home blogs, Pinterest, Facebook, etc. I wish I would have started this challenge 2 weeks ago so I could have logged and seen how much time I wasted each day on these things. I know exactly how I would have liked to have spent my time - planning, cleaning my home, organizing, creating printables for my Etsy store, and purging junk to donate or sell.


Starting today, I'm going to track my time for one week. I'm not going to be super picky and write down every single thing I'm doing. I really just want to know how I'm spending the majority of my time. I'm sure Pinterest will show up more than I'd like to admit.

I challenge YOU to join me. I have created two free printables for you to track your time. The first one is for tracking your time with a weekly calendar (this is the one I'll use). The second one is for tracking your time with an hourly calendar for each day of the week. (I would use this one if I was at home during the day, and probably will use it for Saturday and Sunday.) To download, click the link in the caption of each picture.

track your time with a weekly calendar

track your time with an hourly calendar

And while you're completing week 1's task, think about how you'd like to be spending your time. Would you like more "me" time? More time with your family? More time cleaning or organizing your home? I know I often find myself thinking these things when I'm feeling like I don't have enough time in the day/week to complete things.

Believe it or not, time is one of the biggest reasons people won't organize or clean their home. They feel overwhelmed by everything that is going on in their life and don't realize they're "wasting time" doing things they could care less about.

Being an organized person is a personality trait. Not everyone has it in them to innately to keep their home organized and spotless. That's okay. So many people have asked me for advice on how to become a more organized person. You have to want it. If it's something you're truly not interested in, it's probably something you won't keep up with over time. Sure, you could organize a room and feel good about it - but if you're not interested in keeping up with it, it's going to fall apart.

So, if you want to organize your home, great! That can be added to your list of things you'd like to spend time doing.

Actually, I'm going to give you one of next week's printables now so that you can start your list of things you'd like to be doing on a daily/weekly basis. Go ahead and make your list if you'd like, just don't worry about the second column labeled "priority" - we'll get to that next week!

how I'd like to spend my time

Good luck! I'll be back next Monday with Week 2's task. If you have any questions, please comment or email! (Make sure your email is linked to your profile or leave it in the comment if you'd like a response!)