Don’t ever doubt that.

And your blog rocks.

I think we are SO hard on ourselves as women, right? Feeling like we need to be everything. To everyone. All the time?

Where we feel like if we aren’t doing it all, we aren’t doing anything. Maybe I’m the only one, but that’s how I feel at times.

I feel your pain as far as so desperately wanting to do 8,342 projects, who has time to dust the television? I’d rather be reupholstering those awesome chairs that will flank the credenza.

Here are a few tips that have saved my sanity. They haven’t made me or my home perfect, but they have saved my sanity some days:

1. Choose a day for each task and do them first thing in the morning:

Monday: Floors. All floors. Even the bathroom tile.

Tuesday: Dusting. Every surface.

Wednesday: Full on Laundry. Ironing and dry-cleaning.

Thursday: Bathrooms.

Friday: Organizing. And Vacuuming.

Saturday: Laundry. Or playing.

Each day: Never leave a room empty handed. There is always something that needs to be put away where you are going.

Start the morning with an empty dishwasher. And load as you go throughout your day.

“Blitz” the house at the end of the day by putting everything (toys, magazines, books, shoes) back in their home. Really. Blitz. In, like, 20 minutes.

There is nothing like greeting a picked up home first thing in the morning.

The only other suggestion (rambling) I have to offer is to start your day early. I know it sucks, but I have found it’s easier to hit the ground running.

Hope this helps.

I also hope we as women will realize we can’t do it all. Be it all. To everyone. All the time.

You’re fabulous.

Seriously.

This has helped me keep the chores in order, and gives me balance. It’s also given me the ability to have things like “Wash windows” and “Disinfect toys” on an occasional basis and not have it throw off my whole week.
That’s the chore stuff.

The rest of it? De-clutter (if you don’t use it, rethink it). Have a logical place for everything you own (and put it there). And prioritize the rest of the stuff (and don’t procrastinate the stuff you don’t want to do).
I like prioritizing stuff with the old Steven Covey method: Everything on our to do lists falls into one of four categories. Stuff is ‘important and urgent’, ‘important and not urgent’, ‘not important and urgent’, and ‘not important and not urgent’. Write down EVERYTHING in your to do list and categorize it using that list. Then, strive to live in the ‘important and not urgent’ category, and keep the ‘important and urgents’ at bay. Try to limit your time spent on the ‘not important and not urgent’, and ‘not important and urgent’ stuff.

…steven covey has his hand to his forehead in Bull Shannon fashion muttering something about the fact that I need to read his book again since I think I just butchered the idea, but you get the picture. 😉 What it all means is to spend your time wisely. You know… the rocks and the pebbles and the sand and the water in the jar thing!

holy smokes. long comment. i’ll close.

I hated feeling like I was always fourteen steps behind all the stuff I needed to do. This is what works for my family. It isn’t perfect, but it’s peaceful, pratical and productive. (Alliterative finish unintentional.)

When I finally put my bank statements and bills and whatever in a filing cabinet, I used some pretty broad categories. I’d never spend the time to file stuff by month and sub-sub-category. So I have a folder that says “Utilities 2012.” All utility info goes there. “Mortgage 2012”, “Retirement 2012”, etc. It means I went from 30 minutes to unearth what I need to just a minute or two to flip through the appropriate folder. Good enough.