Tuesday, March 22, 2011

flexibility and Project Simplify

It seems like the past 2 weeks I have just been hit by waves of things to do...all 'good', mind you...but as I pondered yesterday about whether I've been being 'intentional' about it all, I realized that all intentionality needs to be balanced by flexibility...or you become an overly intense, hyper-focused (sort of snobby) person.  Which, of course, I don't want to be.  :)  Very easily, our 'to-do' lists could become masters, and we the slaves, if we never look away from that list to a friend in need, or a child who just needs some 'face-time' with mom - a story, a game, even just an undivided-attention chat about how their day was.  I can sometimes forget this, and when, for the hundredth time, I hear "Mom, can we play 'Guess Who'??", and I feel like I want to scream because the persistent question sort of becomes like a little gnat buzzing in my ear...I am trying to make myself realize that probably the reason it has gotten to this point is because I  have pushed them off for too long.  I don't think I have particularly 'demanding' children, and generally speaking, if I take a few minutes to stop, give them some attention, and then explain that I have to return to my work, they tend to be satisfied, and I get to continue working with less distractions.  But sometimes I have to remember that I need to get my head out of my 'mission' for the day...and remember the bigger life mission.

With that flexibility in mind, I will admit that I am just skipping over (for now) last week's paper de-cluttering challenge, and allowing myself to not obsess about it (I was actually chiding myself for not keeping up with it - only for the sake of blogging about it!).  I'm movin' on.  Here is this week's challenge (also a day late) but since I am trying to get to some thorough cleaning here this week (because we are going to be away next week, and someone is house sitting, and that freaks me out a bit, so I'm tending to feel a little obsessive about doing some serious cleaning) I'm hoping that I can get to this one.

This week's hot spot is toys and/or kids' clothes.  I realize this may not even apply to all of you, so if not, I guess you could find something else if you really wanted to.  Like, how about weeding through your doggie supplies?  Toss those half-chewed toys and give Fido a new one.  Or, maybe your own 'toys'??  Go ahead...it's okay to now get rid of those old head phones from the nineties; ear buds are much classier.  :)  Or, just think of it as a bonus that you don't have to deal with toys and kids' clothes, and kick back this week and chuckle at the rest of us.  Whatever makes you happy.  :)  In any case, for those interested, here's the link.



I hope to be back to chat some more this week...but we'll have to see.  Priorities, you know.  I want everything all nice and fresh for my wonderful house/doggie sitter (so that she'll actually want to do it again!!).  ;)