Tag: kids schedules

  • Procrastination is a Useful Tool

    As I was sitting in my office practicing the fine art of procrastination, I began thinking about why people (me included) procrastinate. I came up with two basic reasons:

    1. It is something that you just don’t like to do (or there is something you would rather be doing)

    2. It is something someone else told you to do

    I can DEFINITELY think of examples of these from my life! In fact, I have left this blog post several times to send emails and make myself a cup of hot chocolate. What I began realizing during this thinking session is that procrastination can actually be a really useful tool, if examined. Sounds crazy, but stay with me for a minute. First, make a list (or just look at your current to do list) of all the things you procrastinate about. Next, break them into two categories: things you don’t like to do OR things someone else told you to do.

    Now, let’s look at the second list first. If it is something that someone else told you to do then it probably means that a boss or co-worker (or husband/wife/partner) is involved. This could mean it is a really important item and it really needs to get done, but you have been putting it off because you don’t like being told what to do. Well, that is just your ego talking, so let’s move it to the first list. If it is not really important or someone was just dumping their unwanted stuff on your plate, then you need to decide if you want to fight this battle or not. Maybe you have been a doormat and allowed them to dump tasks on you for awhile and you need to stand up for yourself and have a sit down with them to work it out. Or maybe, it is something small and not worth the fight which means you need to move it to the first list. This list should now be empty because everything was either given back to the giver to deal with or moved to the first list.

    The fist list is now full of things that we just don’t like to do or just seem to always find something more interesting to do. We are now down to a problem of motivation, not living by your priorities or time management. There will always be things that we don’t want to do but since they are important to us so we need to find a way to motivate ourselves to get them done. I like to set a timer and say to myself that I will sit down for 30 minutes and work on X. After my 30 minutes, I can leave it alone until tomorrow and that makes the task less painful. I also use my favorite shows as rewards for completing dreadful tasks. If I finish X, then I get to watch Survivor or Top Chef.

    Some items on this list may be there because you said ‘yes’ to something that you really shouldn’t have. You weren’t living by your priorities and being real with yourself about the time you could devote to another task or activity. My advice is to ‘suck it up’, finish the task and put it down as a lesson learned. If you are a ‘yes’ person by nature, I HIGHLY recommend that you never say yes on the spot. Create a patent line that you use when asked to commit to something like, “I don’t have my calendar with me, so let me check my availability when I get home and get back to you”. If you are at work and your calendar is right in front of you try, “I have several projects working right now, but let me take a look at things and see if I can fit it in. I will get back to you later today”. This will give you time to really think about whether you WANT to put this on your to do list.

    These last few items on your procrastination list may still be sitting there due to poor time management. My excuse for leaving this blog post several times before its completion was that I “needed” to send a quick email (that turned into 4 emails). I was “really” thirsty and wanted something to drink. That it would only take a second to answer the phone, check my facebook, see if I got any new emails, etc. If I had just sat down and only opened my blog and written this post in one sitting, it would have been done in 15 minutes (or so, with editing). Instead, it took me an hour and 15 minutes. I know I am probably not the only person around that has suffered from this time management affliction, but if I had just done it, then I would have already moved on to a more enjoyable task and I would have stopped moaning and groaning over an hour ago.

    So, the moral of the story is that you can learn a lot about what you enjoy doing and what you are really passionate about from looking at your procrastination patterns. Next time you are saying ‘yes’ or signing up for something, take a good hard look about where they are going to end up on your list. Are they going to be at the top of your to do list? Or are they going to be at the bottom of your to do list for the next 3 months?

    If you liked today’s article, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com . Photo is courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

  • Microsoft Outlook Saved My Marriage

    Any of you out there in a relationship or married have probably had the following conversation.

    Person 1 – “I have a long work day today and I won’t be home until late because I have a meeting with the bossman at 5:30 p.m.”
    Person 2 – “What do you mean you won’t be home until late? Johnny has his school play (or insert other event) tonight and we were going to that and then out for pizza with the Johnsons.”

    Person 1 – “Johnny’s play is tonight? You never told me that! It’s not on my calendar. I can’t cancel my meeting with my boss!

    Person 2 – “Don’t you remember we talked about it last week?”

    Fight continues and yelling begins…if it hasn’t already.

    After spending several months having these ‘discussions’ with my husband, I was sick of it! I began searching for solutions. I was already using Microsoft Outlook for my email and contact management and discovered that for each calendar event I could ‘invite attendees’. This meant that the calendar event was emailed to hubby and he could either accept, tentative or decline the event and I would receive a response back. Easy, peasy.

    If he accepted, it was automatically put on his Outlook calendar. If declined, he could put a response in the email back to me so we could discuss the scheduling problem. The other great feature here is that if one of us changes the times on an event or deletes it off our calendar, it requires that you send an update to the other ‘attendees’. This has been a MARRIAGE-SAVER!! No more fights about scheduling. No excuses for not know what is going on and when. I LOVE IT!

    If you don’t use Outlook, but want to have similar features, check out Google Calendar. You can set up multiple calendars, so you can have one for your personal stuff and set up one for ‘Family’ events or set up one for each of the kids schedules and they can be shared with others. You can also set up the notifications so it would have similar features to what I mentioned above in Outlook.

    If you are not a computer person, you can use the pen and paper method. Just make sure that a family calendar is posted in a high-traffic area of the house like the kitchen where it will be easily seen. That it is big enough to easily see events.

    No matter which type of system you use there are a few things you will need to do for it to be successful.

    1. Always put events on your calendar! The system only works if you are diligent about entering events on it.
    2. Every week you need to have a quick family meeting to make sure that everyone has their events on the calendar and knows where they need to be when.
    3. Don’t overbook your calendar! This is the most important rule. If you jam pack every minute of your week, you will feel stressed, rushed and things will fall apart.

    Calendars are one system that EVERY family needs to run smoothly. They also give every family member accountability and help you avoid the stress of conversations like the one at the top of the page.

    If you liked today’s article, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com .

  • The Mom Spiral

    You woke up this morning after 8 hours of undisturbed sleep with the sun shining and the birds chirping. You take a hot shower and get dressed for work. You skip into the kitchen and pour yourself a cup of coffee (or tea, in my case) and make breakfast. Just as you finish your cup of tea, the kids come down for breakfast already dressed and ready for school. Your morning goes off without a hitch and you even get to work 10 minutes early!

    Then, at 10 a.m., you get the call. Johnny is projectile vomiting and you need to come pick him up from school. You grab your bag and rush to your car. Your shoe gets caught in the sidewalk and you break the heel off your shoe. You run over a nail in the parking lot and get a flat tire. AAA fixes your tire and you make it to school to pick up Johnny (albeit an hour later). On the way home, Johnny throws up all over the back seat. Your day has spiraled down into the dark abyss of motherhood that you can never prepare for… you have entered The Mom Spiral.

    OK, so there is nothing you can do to stop days like this from happening, but you can do a few things to minimize the pain (emotional, physical, work loss) that these days can cause.

    • Make sure you have an emergency back up plan. What if you are at a client site on a day like this and you are 2 hours away from your child’s school? Make sure the school and you have a list of people that you could call (with all their contact #s) at your fingertips to pinch hit for you.
    • If you work from home or from your car, create an “Office Day” folder or task list. This would be all the phone calls you need to return, the memos or emails that need writing, reports that need reviewing, professional reading or all the things that you could do easily while sitting home with a sick kid all day.
    • If you work in an office, find a way to have remote access to your computer or if you work on a laptop, bring it home. Create a “Grab and Go” folder of all those same types of things listed above. Don’t wait until a day like this happens to create this folder!
      Create a cold/flu season kit. Keep it stocked with all the things you would use while sick: pain reliever, throat lozenges, thermometer, nose squeege, super soft kleenex, pedialite or gatoraide, etc.
    • Create a kids sick day kit. A couple of new DVDs, coloring books, crayons, sticker books, books or other things your child can do easily unsupervised or with little supervision so you can still get a few hours of work in.
    • Keep some easy-to-eat-while-sick foods. When your kids don’t feel well chances are they won’t want to eat the leftover Italian sausage hoagies from last night’s dinner. They want apple sauce, grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken noodle soup or just some plain noodles.

    We know that these days will still happen, but by following these few simple steps you can set yourself and your child up for sick days that are a little less painful and at least slightly productive for you. And, don’t worry, this too shall pass! There is always a chance for a perfect day tomorrow!!

    If you liked today’s article, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, individuals and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com.

  • Expectations

    There is a quote that I love that says, “Frustration is mismanaged expectations” and I couldn’t agree more. There are some many things in life that cause us frustration OR maybe we are causing others to be frustrated because we are setting their expectations too high. Have you ever:

    • told a friend that you would meet them at a restaurant at 7 p.m., only to show up at 7:15 p.m.
    • told your kids that dinner was going to be ready ‘in a minute’, only what you REALLY meant was 30 minutes
    • told a client that a project was only going to take 3 hours, only to have it take 6

    If you are guilty of any of the above, you have caused others in your world frustration. Expectations are a tricky thing because you don’t want to set them too low (especially in your career) because it could translate to less money, fewer promotions or maybe even fewer clients. But on the other hand, if you set the expectations too high and fail to deliver, you will really frustrate and anger coworkers and/or clients and probably lose work and clients.

    Managing expectations requires you to KNOW how long it takes you to do things. Which means, you need to have good time management. So, over the course of the next week take a look at your calendar and see how many times you were ‘on time’ for appointments or deadlines. Also, take a look at how many times the other people in your world were ‘on time’. Maybe there are places where you need to be more honest with yourself about the time it takes you to accomplish a task or arrive at a destination. Maybe you need to give yourself a few extra minutes to get out the door in the morning. Or maybe, you need to let your kids watch an episode of Backyardigans when you pick them up for daycare so that you can have an uninterrupted and stress-free 30 minutes to get dinner on the table!