My intentions are always good enough when I get up at five in the morning to make sure that my child is ready for the bus on time. Her days are filled with learning during the week (unless she is sick or on vacation from school. The time before we walk out the door to wait for the bus is simple to fill. I merely get dressed, drink my coffee, take my medications, pick out clothes for her and wake her up. I make sure that she gets dressed, even when a struggle is involved. What comes next? Ideally I'll have breakfast, not normal for me but ideal so that I don't get hungry at an inconvenient time. I'll do some work, and some cleaning up around here. The problem is to finish something that I start which is not work related without losing track of what I am doing. When it comes to working from home, I remember what I'm doing but I tend to do several things at once. Actually I switch back and forth between things until I get something finished. When it comes to cleaning the house I am behind since the Thanksgiving holiday with another holiday coming up. Now there isn't anyone else to "help" out because they are "overwhelmed" or need someone to do something they don't have time to do. The last few years have been filled with a long hiatus from working because of personal issues and other things that had a tendency to come up. Now it's time for the hiatus to end. Scheduling No More I used to schedule my day out hour by hour using pen and paper, now all my of my appointments are in my Google calendar which syncs to my phone. No more losing calendars or appointment books. I make a list of things to do, or at least I used to when it came to cleaning the house so I'd know what I was focusing on day after day in order to see what I had accomplished through the day. My mind still wanders just as much as it did when I first began this blog back in 2010. No longer do I have the day etched out into blocks of time with what has to be done filling the hours and the list of things to do beside it. No longer do I use the pages to track what I am doing day by day. No longer is there a record of what I did because I tired of doing it, and tired still of throwing things out because there were memories I would rather not have on the page. The deck is stacked against my memory, I have to take my medicine which I am bad about forgetting. I have the feeling I am going to have to make a chart for myself just like I used to have for Theresa when she was on several supplements per day. I take six of them every day, one once a week and then I have an emergency inhaler that I forget to take with me. Fortunately I've only needed the inhaler once. I'll be glad when some of those prescriptions are eliminated. Meanwhile, I'll see if I can't get better about taking my medications on a daily basis without forgetting them. Lists Are Inevitable I have to make lists, there isn't any way around it. The problem is I need them on paper. I also need a desk to sit them on so that I can see them and remember to do the things on them. I've tried an electronic list, and it is not something that I can actually keep track of and manage to finish because it's not in front of my face. What do you do to keep yourself on track? Do you schedule out every hour or do you manage to leave large chunks of free time? Do you keep a list of chores that you have to complete each day or do you just do what you see needs doing and forget the things that are out of sight? |