Saturday, September 10, 2011

Natalie: Streamlining (25 of 72)

Streamline your life. Many times we live with unplanned, complex systems in our lives because we haven’t given them much thought. Instead, focus on one system at a time (your laundry system, your errands system, your paperwork system, your email system, etc.) and try to make it simplified, efficient, and written. Then stick to it.

I will be perfectly honest - this task scares the crap out of me! I am legitimately behind on posts because of the whole computer glitch a few days ago but there is something about "streamlining my life" and "putting systems" in place that just makes me groan like a resistant teenager.

I know that I'm not the most organized person. I have been wondering if I live too much in the present. I'm not necessarily impulsive but I do enjoy spontaneity. The idea of having certain systems on certain days just sounds too much like work but I also realize that some organized system would be helpful to me. As I write my post there are towels in the dryer that need to be folded as well as piles of clean, folded clothes on the couch behind me. By the way, the desk that I am sitting at looks like Staples and a toy store had a collision. There are papers, writing utensils, toys and various other odds and ends strewn everywhere. It's a miracle I have room to type at the keyboard!

So I see the benefits of systems yet I feel that I would be angry at myself for not following through with them. For instance, if it was laundry night and I decided to take my son to the playground because it was nice out or mad that I was missing out on a beautiful evening with my son at the playground because it was laundry night.

I read the articles on creating systems and I am going to give it a shot. Here is an excerpt from one of them:

I’ll lay out the steps of creating a system and then do a simple example. My goal is to share the problem-solving mindset that you can apply to creating needed systems in your specific situation.

  1. Identify the need
  2. Identify the essential components
  3. Find useful tools/technology
  4. Assemble/create accompanying documentation
  5. Determine the where new system lives
  6. Document the system so that someone else could easily follow it
  7. Use your system, and improve upon it
So here are a few areas of my life where I need better systems. The thought of implementing systems for everything is overwhelming to me so I am going to outline a few where a system would help me feel more at ease. Maybe that is part of my problem: I tend to think I need to streamline everything instead of starting with 1 thing.

  • Paperwork system: I need to go clean out my file cabinets and then go through the piles of bills and miscellaneous papers I seem to have all over the house and get those in order. This way when new bills come in they are easy to file away. It's a pretty big job but I know that it is time to streamline this area. My husband takes care of paying the bills online but we still receive some via snail mail. I also have a paper shredder (a decent one too) that I never really use maybe I should move it into the dining room where we sort the mail so I could easily dispose of junk instead of letting it accumulate.
  • My son's toys: He definitely has too many and it leaves us with multiple levels of clutter. I have been wanting to do this for awhile and I have made some progress in other de-cluttering projects that all eventually lead up to the toys. While I'm happy to throw out broken ones there are a couple of opportunities in the next few weeks to donate or consign toys and I have been holding off on this project to time it with drop-offs.
  • Laundry system: I do feel like I am always doing laundry or in some stage of doing laundry. I can never seem to put my son's clothes away because I usually fold and put things away while he naps and I cannot risk waking him up to put his clothes away and then when he's awake its either playtime, snack time, lunch time, tubby time, etc. that I forget to put his clothes away and his stuff just piles up.
As I write this post, I also feel good about certain systems such as daycare/work system which I recently changed from 2 days of daycare to 3 days so that I can work less hours in a day and have more time to work on my other systems like running errands or prepping for the class I teach, or just pick my son up earlier for more quality time especially now that the days are getting shorter and shorter. I have also implemented an exercise system. It's been a while since I have had a workout routine and now I signed up for 3 days of boot camp, 1 yoga class, and hopefully 1 spin class a week. I also feel good about my meals system because I enjoy cooking and my grocery shopping visits are getting shorter. I belong to a farm co-op so I pick up my share once a week and then I try to combine visits to farms with outings with my son. From a past post, you know this is not always successful but today it worked out great! Fun visit to the farm and I was able to get some more produce and milk and bread for the week. If I hit the grocery store at all in the next few days it will be to get the cat his food.

This week I am going to make an effort to work on paperwork, toys, and laundry. I know that these tie in with the next few tasks as well as my own deadlines for an upcoming community yard sale and children's consignment sale. So I will keep you posted on my progress.

1 comment:

  1. MY laundry system mainly involves this kind of thinking: If there are clean clothes for all of us, screw the rest. I am usually very anti clutter, but there are clothes currently folded but not put away on P.'s dresser. And so on. I don't know what it is other than hating the cyclical nature of laundry - I have to fold, again?! - that makes me so resistant to doing it right. Hasn't been a big problem, though, so I'm okay with it.

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