It wasn’t great when I left to visit family, and then the mail and other detritus crawled on top and died right there. It was an avalanche waiting to happen, and I’m pretty sure if it fell it would take us 3 days to dig out.

So I cleared it off. Everything. Yes, everything. No, seriously. It filled up a big reusable Ikea bag. Have you seen how huge those things are? Yeah. To the brim. Now, admittedly I did also clear out a shelf that hangs over my desk, and I left a few small items. But I just wanted to see my desk top again.

And I do! Yay!

Here comes the hard part. What do I do with all of that stuff?

I’m tempted to leave it in the bag for a week and see what I really need out of it. Things that I need will get dug out and placed back on the desk. And after a week, the other stuff gets stored or tossed.

I already went through the bag once, throwing out any junk, old flyers, expired coupons, unnecessary receipts. But there’s still a lot in there.

I’ve decided that I’ll only keep a couple of current projects handy. An art journal, a couple of books I’m planning to read and review. Everything else can go… elsewhere. I don’t need 10 books on my desk when I’m only currently looking at two of them. It just adds clutter.

I still have some receipts and paperwork to file. Others to shred.

It feels so nice. I’m really going to see if I can get by like this. I look around at it and go “Ahhhhhh.” It’s so much more serene. I highly recommend this. Take everything you possibly can off of your desk and only put back the essentials. Not what’s convenient — just essentials. See if it can work for you.

I bet you won’t even miss most of it. I probably won’t either. I’ll let you know what I discovered that I needed most.

image credit: morgueFile

We’ve been trying to cook and eat at home more. Not only is it more healthy, but it’s better for our budget. Of course, the natural result of all that cooking is? Lots of dishes. And we have no dishwasher.

Right after the evening meal it’s time for baby’s bath, book, and bedtime. That makes it hard to immediately clean up the kitchen. After I’m done with his nightly routine, I have other work to do. Writing. Other paying work. It’s easy to put off the kitchen cleaning.

But I’m trying to take it in bites. I went in for 20 minutes just to get done what I could. I washed a sink’s worth of dishes. And I tried some new cleaner on the stove. It’s not a lot, really. But part of the sink is clear and stove is shining. When you walk in, you’re greeted with the stove. So although it’s not completely done, seeing that clean stove sure does make it easier to tackle the rest of the kitchen.

So when a room is just too big to deal with all at once, take it in bites. What’s the one thing that bugs you the most about that room? For me, it was seeing a dirty stove piled high. Maybe it’s a dirty bathroom sink or toilet. Or the living room carpet. Start there. Time yourself and see how much you can get done in 10, 15, or 20 minutes. Choose something that you’ll notice. Something you can make a dent in so you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished something.

Then do another task the next night. And the next. Keep plugging away in short bursts and you’ll soon have the entire thing tackled. One bite at a time.

[image: morgueFile]

If you don’t schedule in the time to do your most important tasks of the day, you might not get them done. Without that specific time slot when I need to be doing “X” it is easy to get distracted with little things. Like e-mail. Or laundry. (Not to mention Twitter and Plurk!)

Why you should calendar
The whole point of calendaring your day is to make sure you actually make time for the things you say are important (and to remember things).

Write down that phone call you need to make at 10am, that play date at 1pm, that doctor’s appointment next week. But don’t forget that project that’s coming due very soon, that you haven’t even started yet. Break it down into manageable pieces and it won’t seem so overwhelming. Make steady progress and before you know it, it’s done!

A two week experiment
Try this for the next two weeks: each day, figure out the five most important things that you need to accomplish that day. Then schedule time for them on your calendar. Schedule it around childcare and e-mail and errands. Actually block out time where you concentrate on that task.

And when that time comes, work on the task. If you only have a 1/2 hour, then see how much you can get done in a 1/2 hour. Don’t answer e-mail. Don’t pick up the phone. Just stick to your calendar.

Didn’t get your task done in the allotted time? That’s okay. Did you make progress? That’s the important part.

A new way of thinking
You don’t have to calendar yourself to death, scheduling every minute of your day. Just think of your day in chunks of time and do what you can in those chunks. If you’re not used to it, it may take some time. Allow yourself some leeway in learning a new way of doing things. And keep some flexibility. We all know how things can change on the fly when there are kids involved!

Are you the type that hates to have your day scheduled? Try just jotting down your most important tasks and refer back to it throughout the day to make sure you’re making progress.

We want you to find things that work for you – and not everything will. But you won’t know until you try it! So how do you use your calendar? Do you only list kid activities and appointments? Do you block time for projects? Is your calendar working for you? Why or why not?