Organization

Link turns over a new leaf

By / February 3, 2011

Last night I was down stairs discussing a chapter with Howard and the rest of our writing group when I heard clattering in the kitchen. Link was doing the dishes. Unasked. Link also made an exercise chart and proceeded to do exercises. Then he sat with our writer’s group and participated in the conversation instead of disappearing into a video or video game. Today he kept to his schedule of exercise. He also encouraged the younger kids to eat their dinner and even cooked a pizza for them. He said “Mom. I like my new schedule. I’ve been happy ever since I started it.”

The origin of this new and improved Link is not a mystery. He and I had a scolding conversation the day before where I pointed out to him the quantities of time that he has been spending glued to screens. Add to that the fact that he has begun his first junior high PE class. Also add that his scout troop has just begun working on the Personal Fitness merit badge. All of these circumstances appear to have clicked together in his head and he is newly ready to take charge of his life.

I know that the road ahead is not going to all be sunny and cheerful as today was. Link is going to have tired and grouchy days. He’s going to forget (or not want) to keep to his schedule. This is okay. The fact that he made it and kept it for awhile means that the next time he does something similar he’ll already have some practice. This is the same method I used to teach myself how to stay organized. It is also how I taught the kids housework.
Create a system with built in incentives and tracking.
Use it until it breaks down.
Build a new system based upon what I learned from the previous one.
Repeat as necessary.
Once I realized that the break down of a system is part of a process instead of a failure, I felt much better about my capabilities. Now I just need to figure out how to teach that to Link. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy Link’s new confidence and enthusiasm.

Pondering next year’s calendar

By / December 30, 2010

The calendar lay across half of my kitchen table. Around it were multi-colored pens, my planner, a schedule from the school, and last year’s calendar laid partially across the top. The time for my annual switching of the wall calendar had arrived. All the various notes and plans made for 2011 were dutifully recorded in the color of the family member to which they applied. I stood back and surveyed next year laid out before me. It didn’t look too bad, but there were big events not on the calendar because the dates for them are not yet fixed. Howard and I had a long conversation about this just after Christmas. We mentally juggled book production and release schedules against the fixed commitments on the calendar. Some side projects were approved while many were tossed in the “not this year” file. The resulting plan for next year is busy, but hopefully only crazy in a few spots.

My fingers traced across the calendar as I mentally marked our tentative press and shipping dates for the two books we plan to produce next year. My hand hovered over June and July which look empty on the calendar, but which I know will be full of preparations for GenCon and WorldCon as well as book production. I thought back to a piece from I book I’ve read recently. It talked of an old Jewish man who never made any kind of appointment or plan without speaking the words “God Willing.” For the man this was not a fatalistic prediction that the plan would fail, but rather an acknowledgment that no mortal being is in full control of his life. Many things may happen between now and next week to make a dinner date impossible, he speaks the words so that he will not be angry or frustrated if some other event intervenes.

I press my hand flat against the calendar. I have planned next year. It is a good plan. I have built in more flexibility in the months. I have place space for happiness to dwell in each day. I intend to hold this schedule loosely and not panic when it inevitably has to shift or change. God willing, this is how 2011 will be. If it turns out differently, and it almost certainly will, then I will try to trust that there is a bigger plan with pieces that I can not see.

The calendar now hangs on my wall. I’m ready to proceed.

Office Cleaning Continues

By / December 16, 2010

I sorted through 15 years worth of filed papers today. I ended up with five boxes of paper that could just be pitched and a huge stack of paper which needed to be shredded before it could be pitched. It turns out that 10 years worth of bank statements fills four garbage bags when shredded. Part of my brain rebelled at the wanton destruction of data that the shredding represented. An analysis of all those papers would tell worlds about our life and habits during that era. The rebellious thoughts were squelched by remembering that during all of those years I have been entering all that data into Quicken. I have it all in digital form where it can rapidly be turned into reports. There is no reason to keep storing the paper.

Disposing of garbage paper was only part of the benefit of this project. I unearthed many hidden treasures and have now organized them so that I can find them again as needed. Memorabilia is all filed together as are health documents and contracts. I also have a big stack of file folders which are available for reuse. A piece of my brain is happy knowing that I’ve collected fragments of writing and family stories together. Someday I’ll put together a book out of it all. Not this year though. I need to finish cleaning my office and then use the space to continue working on all the other lingering projects in my life.

Starting in the corners

By / December 15, 2010

My front room is a mess. It has been a mess since some time before Thanksgiving. I don’t like it when my living spaces are a mess, and I’ve been sorely tempted to clean it up by shoving stuff elsewhere. I don’t because that is what I’ve been doing ever since school started and at this point “elsewhere” is full. Last week I finally had space in my brain to try to figure out how to clean up the front room. In order to do it, I had to start in my office. This makes sense when you realized that “elsewhere” is usually in the middle of my office. This continues until my office is impassible. Which it was.

So I began to clean my office. Unfortunately many of the things in the middle of my office had been stuffed there because they simply did not have other places to belong. All the stowing spaces in my office and storage room are full. Half of what they are filled with is the wrong stuff. Things I use regularly reside in piles and under other things while things I no longer need sit neatly on easily accessible shelves. Reorganization is in order. So yesterday I began. I am going through my office shelf by shelf and evaluating everything. I’m putting things where they will be readily useful. This is not going to be a quick process. I expect it to take weeks.

Yesterday I finally accepted that my office needs to be an office instead of also doubling as a guest room. I set up a permanent shrink wrapping and paper cutting desk. Now there is not room for me to put an inflatable bed in here for guests. I am sad, because I like being a good hostess and giving guests their own space, but this makes much more sense on a daily basis.

Today I began going through the four drawer file cabinet. All the drawers are stuffed full and I intend to look at almost every paper in there. I already have two garbage bags full of shredded out-dated documents. The world will not suffer for me shredding old utility bills. I keep the tax related stuff back 7 years, but I’ve saved so much garbage paper. It wasn’t garbage when I stowed it carefully away, but it is now. Soon I’ll be able to re-think the organization in those cabinet drawers. I’m hoping to be able to stow writing notes in the newly created spaces.

Onward I will head to the cubby holes and shelves. Then into the storage room. I will haul garbage bags out. I will have a stack of things to give away or donate. In the end I will have space and the supplies I need ready to be used. It is going to be good to have an office that I am able to vacuum.

Scheduling next year

By / September 29, 2010

About two weeks ago Howard and I took a good look at all the events scheduled for the next 18 months and realized that 2011 is full. When I say “full” I do not mean that we have things scheduled for every week or every month. Some months are entirely empty. However the empty months are either preceded or followed by a decidedly not-empty month. For the sake of our sanity we declared that no big events, such as conventions) could be added.

Our resolve is already being challenged. New opportunities have begun to pop up and we are sorely tempted to add them to the schedule. So I stare at the calendar again to see if the new thing can fit. Next year’s calendar has fixed points like conventions we have already committed to, or the family vacation which has a definite date. The calendar also has probable fixed points, which are events we want to do, but have not actually committed to yet. What is not on the calendar are book releases. I know that next year will contain two within the first 6 months, but I do not know exactly where they will fall. This is another reason to keep those empty spaces.

So I stand in front of the calendar and I discuss with Howard. I list the concerns. Howard lists the advantages. We talk about how the new event will affect all the currently scheduled events. We discuss similar events in the past and what would be required to do this one the same or better. It is our little prognostication ritual by which we attempt to peer into the future and decide what is best for us, for the business, for our family. The decisions are not easy.

Getting the hang of Saturdays

By / September 26, 2010

Nearly the first thing I did yesterday morning was to jot down some notes for a blog entry about how I’m having trouble getting the hang of Saturdays. But the day proceeded and I never had time to write it out. In fact I got all my stuff done in time for Howard and I to escape the house and have dinner with some other local writers. It was a wonderful event full of laughter and good conversation. As a result I wrote nothing at all and left a semi-discouraged note up for a whole extra day even though the day itself turned out quite well. Oops.

Since the analysis contained in my notes about getting the hang of Saturdays is still valid and interesting to me, I am going to do a write up from the notes anyway.

The first problem with Saturday morning is that I want to sleep late. I actually need the extra sleep since I tend to run on a sleep deficit during the rest of the week. My desires to sleep hit the first snag when the iPod alarms go off with their wake-up play lists. The one in our room is not much of a problem because we have a remote. However I’ve also set one on the iPod in the kitchen. On school days the play list helps the kids time their mornings so that they’re on schedule. In theory we can turn these off, but I always forget to. I think part of my brain is afraid that if I turn them off on Saturday, I’ll forget to reset them for Monday.

The morning music is the least of the troubles. I want to sleep in, but I want the kids to wake up on their regular schedule. If the younger two sleep late, it is harder to get them to go to bed that night. I’ve worked really hard to get their bio rhythms adjusted and I don’t want to send it askew. So in theory I should just get up at the same time as I do all week so that our schedule remains intact. But I love the sleep in. In the end the kids usually wake up about an hour later than normal and then they go play video games while I sleep longer.

This pattern does not generally include breakfast except what the kids decide to feed to themselves. Usually they do a pretty good job, no one goes hungry, but without an official breakfast no one has a marker for the beginning of the day. The kids don’t have a set point for when they should do their chores. When I groggily wander down stairs half the morning is gone and the kids are all fully engaged in activities where they will object to being interrupted. Chores are easier to swallow if you don’t have to stop doing something fun in order to do them. At this point I usually decide not to interrupt happily playing children to fight over chores. Instead I wander into my office to do a “little bit of work.”

Then suddenly it is noon, I’m still in my pajamas, and kids’ friends are knocking on the door to ask if my kids can play. (Their parents got them up, fed them breakfast, and focused their mornings so their chores are all done.) I look at the kid on my front step and I have a bare moment to decide whether to just let my kids go or to enforce chores first. The easy path is so easy. It really is. But I feel a vague guilt as I look at my not-so-clean house and worry that I’m not teaching them the housekeeping habits they will need.

I look at my Saturdays and feel that I ought to plan something better, more structured. Then I turn it all upside down and look at it again. The weeks are made of structure. Every day (except Saturday) I know exactly when to get them up in the morning. I have songs to measure out when breakfast should be, when Kiki leaves, when Link leaves, when Gleek and Patch leave. Even while they’re gone I’ve planned my days and run them by task list. Then they come home at we all hit schedule marks for play, homework, dinner, and evening stuff. Saturdays are all squishy and free-form. And maybe we need that.

The Next Sugar Experiment

By / August 23, 2010

Once Gleek and I concluded our brief experiment with using an alternative method for balancing her body for sugars, we talked over what worked and what didn’t. It was obvious that Gleek is sensitive to sugars, this is not news. I figured that out around the time she used her first words to beg for candy. So we made a plan for our next experiment. I suggested that we log the food that Gleek eats and how she behaves. Gleek added that she thought we should do a one-day-on-one-day-off sugar plan. This sounded like a reasonable idea to me, but we made clear that “off sugar” mostly meant treat food made with refined sugars. She can still eat fruits even though they are high glucose foods. We also clarified that “on sugar” meant one glass of chocolate milk or a reasonable amount of other treats. She does not get to eat nothing but sugary foods all day.

I like this plan because it gives me structure to use when deciding whether to say Yes or No. Even better, Gleek knows the structure and agreed to it in advance. This did not stop her from flopping and moaning yesterday on the Off day. But more interesting to me was that when she was offered chocolate milk today, she decided against it because she wanted to save her one glass for later. This from the girl who has subsisted on chocolate milk for a significant portion of the summer. So far both days have been fairly good behavior days.

What Gleek does not know is that just by putting the experiment in motion, we have taken a huge step toward reducing her sugar intake. Even her On Sugar days will have less sugar in them than before. This is because the log is forcing me to pay attention to what she eats. It is forcing me to think before I agree to treat food. The fact that I am observing is changing my behavior. Not only that, but I knew that the only way to survive the barrage of treat requests was to have a plan in place for what we’ll eat that day. I need to be able to point to the schedule and say “We plan to have cookies for snack tomorrow and next Thursday, not today.” So I have made a month long meal plan which includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. This already represents a major change from the last-minute-scramble method which dominated the summer.

This plan will not solve Gleek’s challenges. She’s been doing much better over the summer anyway. But it will let me alleviate the influence of diet, and if there is a measurable reaction to any particular food I’ll see it. What else needs to be done depends upon how her new classroom situation affects her. It depends upon whether I can build a good working rapport with the teacher. It depends upon me building solid communication lines with the administration. And in fact this whole food plan depends upon me staying focused, which is not always easy when it comes to daily mundane tasks. I hope it all works.

Schedule as puzzle

By / August 22, 2010

The first step to assembling a jigsaw puzzle is to spread the pieces out on the table and turn them over so I can see the shapes and colors. At that point the table is covered and it looks like there is no way for all the pieces to be assembled into a coherent picture. This is exactly where I am in planning the family schedule for Fall. I have all of these things which need to fit in somewhere, but I can’t see how. It is a bit overwhelming. And so I apply the same method I use when faced with 1000 loose puzzle pieces. I find the edge pieces and build the frame. In our lives the frame is structured around getting kids to school, meals, and bedtime. The markers which delineate space for everything else. They dictate rising in the morning and sleeping at night. Next I find a cluster of pieces which obviously fit together. I figure them out and then take the larger piece and place it within the frame. This is like the grouping snack, reading, tooth brushing, prayers, and laying down all together as parts of “bedtime.” Last I look at the spaces left and try to fill in the remaining pieces. Sometimes where they go becomes obvious after the big shapes are in place.

This week will be a frame week with a little bit of clustering. Next week will probably be the same. By the third and fourth week of school I’ll know how to fit in all the loose bits. Or I’ll know which loose bits are simply not going to fit for awhile. That’s the hard part. Some of the pieces I would like to fit into our lives simply don’t belong right now. I wish I knew which ones so I could let them go.

Yesterday’s Clothes

By / July 27, 2010

2005 was an extremely lean year for us. Howard had quit his corporate job and we had not yet released the first Schlock Mercenary book. I watched every penny, knowing that the longer I could make the money last, the longer Howard could stay a cartoonist. All our resources were tracked and carefully managed. This included outgrown clothing which was carefully boxed to wait for the younger sibling to grow. These boxes of clothing sat in a row in our garage, and I kept careful inventory.

In 2006 we released the first two Schlock books. Our long-term financial prospects shifted dramatically. My purchasing and resource management techniques changed in response. At first I still stashed away all the outgrown clothes, then I began to be more selective, only saving a few items. Later I noticed how the six year gap between my daughters was sufficient time for styles to change, and many of the clothes I’d carefully saved were being discarded in favor of hand-me-downs from more recent sources. So I shifted to giving out-grown clothes to friends and neighbors who could use them right away. I figured it was my turn to be the one giving out bags of clothing instead of receiving them.

All of this is on my mind because today I dug through the last of the boxes of carefully saved clothes. My youngest two are now the same ages that my oldest two were in 2006. It gave me pause to pull out Link’s old clothes and remember what life was like when he wore them. We had a good life then. We have a good life now. They are just different shapes of good. I miss the slower pace, but I love the exciting things I get to do now. I don’t want to go back. I’m happy to continue forward, shaping my present so that it brings me good tomorrows and a wealth of things about which I can be nostalgic in years to come.

Cleaning a closet

By / July 20, 2010 / 2 Comments

I cleaned out the coat closet today. It was not a critical task, nothing depended upon getting it done. Sure it was annoying to have everything jumbled up on the floor of the closet, but we’d dealt with it for six months and could have dealt with it for many more. But today I had time and I felt like cleaning out a closet. Having time to ponder what I feel like accomplishing is amazing. For at least three months all of my “get stuff done” energy was spent on business or family critical tasks. Any free time was spent crashing. But today I had just enough time and energy for a coat closet.

I decided to be thorough. I got out a stool and scraped everything off of the high shelf. This shelf is above comfortable reach for every member of the family. Mostly we’ve used it as a place to toss things when we didn’t want the kids playing with them, like umbrellas. We have half a dozen umbrellas in varying states of disrepair. Apparently I have never cleaned that shelf since we moved into the house. I found a Baby Einstein CD that apparently came in a package of diapers and the instructions to an infant seat that we replaced before Patch was born. I also found an old flag Howard once made for Halloween and pieces of a plastic jump rope.

Such is the detritus of our lives. None of the stuff I found is currently useful to us. It is clutter which carries a mild nostalgia for a time long past. I’ll not keep clutter for nostalgia’s sake. With the closet now organized I can begin to tackle the front room and finally put away all the pieces of projects which linger there. But not tonight. I’m out of energy tonight. Tomorrow also looks like it may contain spare energy and time. I’ll get started then.