I’m jingle-jangling, and cookie baking, and gift wrapping! Woot! I love this season!
And yes, I always bite off more than I can chew, but I also accomplish more than I plan. It all comes down to getting organized, having a curated to-do list, and blocking off the hours in which I have to do all of the to-doing. S’all good!
Now’s the time to prepare my calendar for 2023. In addition to the new year’s calendar, I’m wrapping up my old journal. At the beginning and end of every new journal, I start by making a list of the big projects I want to complete, if not by calendar’s end, then by journal’s end. By looking back at what I hoped to accomplish in 2022, and ticking off those things that I managed to do, taking a good hard look at the things I did not complete, and acknowledging the things I didn’t mean to do, but did, I get a real sense of what I’ve accomplished over the past year. Yes, it’s time well spent to take time and credit for having accomplished all of those tasks. All important schtuff.
Here’s my stack of journals. They are, essentially, bullet journals, but I keep my journaling to a low roar with composition notebooks. Do they all fall in chronological order by year? Nope. In the past I have had the occasional slip up when I have misplaced my journal. I just pick up another empty journal and start journaling on page one as if it’s a continuation, then when I find the lost journal, I may or may not slip back into that one. So while this stack of journals does represent my years of journal keeping, they are not all full, not all representative of the tasks of a single year, nor even a single quarter. Some of them are half-full, others are full with time skips, etc. What’s important is the here and now… and planning for the future journaling as if I won’t lose the notebook.
If you’re interested in a means of organizing your tasks, you may want to visit www.bulletjournal.com for their beginner’s tutorial in journaling. If you look at youtube and search bullet journal inspiration, you’ll be inundated with folks who keep beautiful, artistic journals. I’m artsy, but I ain’t got no time for that. 😊 I’m a straight-up list keeper. I’ll maybe note a particularly special day with a homemade emoji or snowflake or dots and dashes, but I’m pretty much just keeping a tab of what I have to do and checking off what I’ve done. My journals are not pretty. They’re a hot mess that helps keep the hot mess out of my brain.
Without applying too much pressure to myself, I do like to list to-do projects for the week or month out. For example, this week, the week before Christmas, I’ll be finishing up a painting/home renovation job in my bathroom. I’ve allotted a full day to finish that. I’ve allotted a separate day for each room that needs deep cleaning. I’ll be starting another painting/renovation project in the basement/game room. That will take the rest of the week. I’ve also allotted the preparation of different food dishes for different days. The meats will be prepared the day before Christmas but leading up to Christmas Eve, I know which days are set aside for the preparation of which dishes – based on those that can store in the freezer before Christmas.
It sounds stressful, but having the to-do list written out clears my brain and I can relax. Ahhh.
Here’s wishing you a happy and relaxing holiday season! Feeling stressed? Make some art, read a book, or maybe put down in the form of a to-do list connected to a time frame. I’ll be preparing my 2023 journal to free up some brain space. I’m taking off the next two weeks, but I’ll be back to blogging in 2023. Maybe I’ll share my process for tracking business expense. It’s a thing of organizational beauty!
