Organization – No Time For Wine

My Pinterest Worthy To Do List:

Kon-Marie my home.

Use a minimum of 10 beauty products before bed each night (Korean beauty routine).

Run successful “side-gig-” from home thru social media.

Be losing weight on the flavor of the day diet.

Make sure kids are in no less than 2 groups or organizations a week. Maybe even piano lessons for the 11 month old.

Wash the baseboards of my walls.

Read one book every two weeks.

Start selling on Amazon.

Join a Mommy Group.

Practice an hour of mindful meditation each morning. Follow up with an hour of yoga.

Exercise 1-2 hours a day

Blog.

Clip coupons. Hand make Halloween costumes. Bake and cook from scratch.

And so on……

At 2:44 in the morning, (or middle of the night?) after the fourth time the baby has woken up crying since 10 pm, this list is what rolls thru my brain.

It’s the highlights of everything I am “supposed” to be doing. And since I am not, it is the reminder of how I am failing at modern life.

There’s books and blogs and pins all over the internet explaining in great detail how I can have and do it all. Be all that I want to be.

Since when have I ever wanted to meditate? In the foggy brain stupor over my first cup of coffee in the morning- does that count toward the meditating?

I raise a toast to the Moms who see this list and do each and every one item on it with gusto and a smile.

For me, and my sanity, a new list, Minimized and customized to me:

Keep children fed, clean, and happy

Keep husband fed and happy. Clean if necessary.

Keep a pot of coffee on all day so I can stop this time wasting nonsense of brewing a cup at a time.

Mop the floors, and switch out the laundry.

Take a deep breath, baby will eventually nap and then I can paint. Or blog. Or, what the heck, take a nap myself.

Note to self: Throw out that first list I wrote.

I am in a prison made of sheets of 8 x 10 inch paper.

Despite my attempts to minimize my personal belongings, my biggest struggle is with paperwork. Not that I get massive amounts of paperwork in the mail, but every ‘system’ I have tried to organize, shred, or scan has failed.

I have a pile on the kitchen counter- mixed items, my son’s preschool notices, some coupons, and flyers I “may” need.

There’s a pile next to me at the kitchen table- a dual cd “Learn to Speak Spanish” my parents re-gifted to me. Church bulletin; healthy living magazine; and a folder from Berkshire Hathaway about selling homes.

In the dining room, three piles on the table- More preschool paperwork and crafts; medical bills; checks in and out.

Did I mention I do have an office? My excuse for not using it (although it stores several boxes of Avon business work)- I don’t have enough lighting and a chair. Simple fixes, right? But it keeps getting pushed to the back of my mind to get both items.

I have made the effort to digitize most of my monthly exp A5B00935-BC22-44ED-9C97-48269AA591C9 enses- automatic debit, and paperless billing. I won’t discuss the 22,000 emails sitting unopened in my Gmail account. That’s a fight for another day.

I feel that with paperwork, I have more of a hang-up on letting go than my physical belongings. The terror of “what if I need this?” is real- mostly drilled into my mind from my Mom (sorry!) who was constantly telling me not to throw out paperwork ‘in case’ there was an IRS audit. I am not sure they would need my rental agreement from 2002, but I still have it ‘in case’. Or documents on how I paid off my student loans- “What if they come back sometime in the future and say it’s not paid?” How will I prove it?

Irrational, believe me, I know. Those are the crazy thoughts I have while trying to sort paperwork. I try to apply the same principles that I use for objects, but I struggle. A vicious circle in my mind of overcoming the silly ideas, that panicked “what if?” that creeps in my chest when I dare to think of burning every scrap of paper I have.

The struggle is real, my friends. I won’t declare defeat, I will adjust the method of attack and fight on. Knowing there is a peace once the paper is gone keeps hope alive for me.