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!

Busy Busy!

Sorry that I've been slacking off on my posting. This is the end of the year, and as usual, it's my busy time. So, I've been around, but I've been working rather than updating my blog. On top of that, it has been crazy holiday party season around here, so I've had to cram all of my work into the week while we travel on the weekends. Chaos at its finest.

This weekend we're spending some time at home. It's the beginning of my husband's vacation time for the holidays and we don't have any commitments. It took a lot of finagling to get that to happen, but we did it! We're going to bake cookies and watch movies... but of course I'll have to work.

Actually, I took another assignment at the last minute, which is why I won't get to relax with my husband during his 2 weeks off. But this assignment was worth $300 and we have a lot of bills to pay, so I took it. No matter how much money I make, it seems like it's never enough. Story of my life, I guess.

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know where I've been lately and where I'll be the next couple of weeks.

If I'm not on here before the holidays, Merry Christmas!

Procrastination

It seems like I can't focus lately. I blame it on the whole being pregnant thing, but there's more to it than that. I was talking to my husband about it last night and he thinks it's my weird work schedule.

You see, with my job it seems that I get absolutely no work for the first two weeks of the month and then I get dumped on with impossible deadlines and a ton of work. That persists through the end of the month and then... back to nothing. So in the beginning I'm bored and looking for extra jobs. At the end of the month I'm out of my mind busy and basically fried.

It seems like spacing the work out better would help, but I have zero control over that. You see, I am a freelance writer. So, the way I imagine things going down, in the beginning of the month my editor is being told to save money. Avoid hiring out jobs. Do work yourself.

Which he doesn't do.

Then, at the end of the month he goes in with a panic saying oh no, if we don't hire out jobs we won't meet the deadlines. So then he starts dishing out work he has known about forever, but with ridiculously short deadlines.

It's really not that awesome. It leads to burn out... and I just have to get through another week before I can rest for 1-2 weeks and recuperate... I can do this. I will do this. Focus.