This may come as a shock, coming from someone who blogs (I don’t brag about it either) about being a bad housekeeper (blogs – not brags), but I am not naturally organized. Staying organized always seemed like a juggling act that required advanced skills. I pick my battles, but the need to organize my day is forcing me to pick a new fight with my life.
There are certain balls I can always keep in the air. Apparently having kids endows you with some hormone that keeps you from letting their priorities slip through the cracks (thank goodness), and the desire to eat regularly keeps me signed in at work on a daily basis. But the house, writing and fitness are a few things that tend to hit the ground more often than I’d like.
The house has always been the lower priority, but almost a solid week of intense cleaning and vacuuming dictated by a sudden flea infestation put it at the top of the list. With kid not yet in school, I’ve been able to juggle a few things, but fitness and writing have become casualties more than I wanted them to. A few days ago, out of desperation, I pulled out my organizer and created a weekly schedule.
The plan was to get up early and write, then exercise and then clean before the kids got up or had to go to school. The morning writing is relatively new – the morning thing is new. I’ve traditionally been a night owl, but last winter decided to try and change my body clock. It worked – sort of.
At the time, I was a serious caffeine addict. Over the summer, a change in my diet helped me mostly kick that habit. At first, I keenly felt the absence of my old stimulant, but better nutrition and fitness helped to compensate during the day. The one time of day I still notice the dearth is in the early morning, and I finally realized that maybe even moms need more than 4.5 hours of sleep a night.
Last night my body, intensely aware of that need was not able to convince my brain that it was time to shut down. Minute after minute passed as I watched my planned six hours of sleep dissolve into five and then four. In the past, I’ve gotten up and written, but the last few days worry has inspired my insomnia, and I did what I do best – worried. About braces for Jack, about the lemon I call a car sitting the driveway, and – naturally – about every flea (phantom or in-the-flesh) that might still be crawling toward our beds.
Finally, I picked up my alarm/organizer and, surrendering the idea of writing or doing yoga this morning, I set the alarm to go off an hour later. Then I scrolled over to the organizer trying to find another hour in the day. It took an inordinate amount of time to remember that once I would have used this kvetching time for creating, but when I did remember, it was an ‘A ha’ moment (the nearby slumbering Big Guy just incorporated it into a dream). Fortunately, I hadn’t scheduled worrying into my night yet, so the slot was free. Suddenly there was time in the morning to walk the dog, clean, get exercise out of the way, eat, get the kids out of the house, and get to work. And there was time to sleep.
This morning the alarm went off an hour later. There was an actual to-do list (something that’s only existed in my imagination until recently). Another hour later, the must-do’s were done. The worry was gone, and there was an unscheduled hour, so I sat down to do what I love to do best – write – and what could only have happened when I started to what I hate to do most – organize.