Fitting it All in - Finding a System that Works

Given that I'm pretty insanely busy this week, I thought a post about prioritizing would be appropriate. I was pretty much feeling like a failure last night because I didn't get everything crossed off of my to-do list and I'm chronically behind with work and cleaning.

So I looked at my planner this morning - REALLY looked at it and I realized something: there's no way a single person can get all of this done. I actually would need 3 people to do everything on my list, so leaving 3 or 4 items undone at the end of the day isn't that bad.

Instead of focusing on getting it all done, I need to prioritize so I get the bigger, more important things done and can feel accomplished. I'm not the best at scanning through a list and picking out what's important every time I glance at it. The list itself seems to fluster me because it's so long and there's so many things unchecked on it.

So, I bought a package of highlighters in 3 colors. Yellow for priority work assignments, blue for priority volunteer work and pink for priority personal/home/cleaning tasks (this is how I divide my planner - work, home and volunteer).

I'll highlight 1 item per day and as long as that 1 item is done, I'll call it a win. If I have 2 priority items in 1 category, I will have to choose which one is the most important.

I tried this tactic today and... failed miserably. I didn't do the "priority" task first like I'd been planning. Mostly because the priority task for work will take me about 8 hours and requires my son to be napping so I can focus on it.

So I'm curious - how do you stay focused? How do you keep everything on track? I tried the household binder and found it was too bulky to be useful. I'd love something that I can hang in the hallway or carry with me. A 5x7 planner is the perfect size for portability, but doesn't have enough room each day for everything that needs to get done. I also hate having multiple lists... paper clutter irritates me. I have tried various planner apps (free ones, of course) and found them all lacking.

I'm open to anything - so let me know what works for you!

Sister-In-Law Update

I scanned my blog to see what I have written about in the past and I noticed a definite trend - my sister-in-law provides quite a bit of fodder. So, I thought it would be high time to offer an update on how the little tramp dear is impacting the family dynamics.

She's still nuts.

That about sums things up... I mean, I haven't talked to her in nearly a year. In January she blocked my phone, Facebook and anything else she could think of. I sent around a family newsletter and had no way of contacting her, so their family didn't get it. Her husband was ticked and I explained that I couldn't contact his wife and that I was sending it to the women.

Radio silence.

My mother-in-law jumped in at that point - baby boy can't get his feelings hurt after all. Bow down to his wife and kiss her ass like everyone else has for the past 7 years she said. No... no, that doesn't seem like fun at all. I've done that and it doesn't really help - it takes effort and quite frankly, she's not worth it. She has treated the whole family like shit (or at least those of us that don't have anything to give her, like land or money or whatever) and I've had enough of it.

So my husband and I finally decided we were done dealing with her. Done dealing with everyone that's enabling her. Just done in general. We opted out of birthdays, graduation parties and anything else she would be at. There's no point in going since we didn't want to watch the sickening display of everyone acting like she's a fucking saint while she's ignoring us for absolutely no reason.

I literally mean that. You can speak to this woman and she will turn her head the other way as if you simply aren't there. People witness this and continue to talk to her like she has done absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, because for her, that's not unordinary. If they address her behavior, she turns the crazy on them. Her degree of crazy can vary... she once slashed my mother-in-law's tires, but we're supposed to act like that never happened because she gave birth to someone's children and said they were my brother-in-law's.

Now, nobody gave a rats ass that this was going on until recently. My mother-in-law said it was between them and us and she was staying out of it. She had 900 reasons why she couldn't ask what their problem was. My husband tried reaching out to his brother early on and got nothing but silence. It was not in her best interest to ask, so she didn't.

Now it's the holidays and my mother-in-law wants to have a big happy family around her dining room table (which is like a 4-person table, but I digress) and she is suddenly upset that we aren't going to her events. She knew this is what was going to happen. She knew we couldn't get in touch with them and she refused to say anything to them. Like always, she refuses to address the behavior if it's them because (and this was her reasoning, not mine) if she says anything to them about the way they act, they keep her from seeing the grandkids.

It's disgusting. The way they act and the way she enables them. I am ashamed to be related to these people through marriage. It's really pushing me to find a way to move my family away from this jolly band of assholes. We don't go to events now and I figure 1,000 miles between us will at least keep the invitations from being issued so I don't have to decline and then listen to my mother-in-law rant and rave.

Shocked to See Visitors!

I posted a blog for the first time in a while on my other site - Mommas Madness - and randomly thought I'd log into Blogger to see if my blog here was still alive.

I was SHOCKED to see 18 page views today! SHOCKED!

So it got me thinking - which site has more visibility? I have more followers on Wordpress (because I have none on Blogger), so which site should I focus on? I don't have the time to create 2 separate blog posts a day. Does anyone maintain 2 blogs and post the same spiel to both? I thought about doing that to maximize exposure. :-)

Thoughts? Hope? Love for my blog? Leave a comment if you read this - I could use some encouragement!