July!

Today I tallied up my stuff in/stuff out total for the month of June. I brought 15 things into the house, and donated 75 things. In addition, I got rid of 3 large bags of garbage, but I only started counting those near the end of the month. The number of things I gave away isn’t nearly as high as I’d hoped, but I do feel like I’ve become more aware of the impact of bringing new things into the house and needing to find a place for them.

I spent a lot of time today thinking about how to get my project back on track. Since I started, I’ve been focused on organizing, and putting my decorating plans on hold. When I got home from work this morning I decided to re-arrange the artwork in the living room. This picture has been in this same spot for ten years, and I’ve been meaning to move it for a long time, and make the space more of a ‘gallery wall’.

catprint

This picture needs a new spot.

Unfortunately it’s not done. Even though I planned it carefully, laying everything out on the floor and then on the wall with paper, it didn’t look right when I actually hung the pictures.

gallerywall

This looked ok, the final stage, not so much.

So it’s still a work in progress, like everything else.

I’m glad it’s the first of the month. It’s a good time to reboot and restart. Having a 30-day challenge was helpful, so I’m going to do another one this month. Even if I didn’t get rid of as much as I wanted, at the end of the month I still accomplished something. There were so many other things competing for my attention in June that I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten much done.

In honor of my renewed commitment to my project, here are my plans for this month. In addition to my 30 day challenge, I’m going to work on one bigger project. Trying to do two things may or may not come back to bite me. We’ll see.

This month’s 30 day challenge: Since school’s over, my routine’s a little different. I want to have Emma do a little reading and math work a few times a week, but I also want to have certain chores done before work and before bed. I’m going to make a specific list tomorrow. This is related to my second objective, which focuses on time management.

This month’s big project: To focus on my bedroom and closet, and not just organize but decorate. I’m thinking that I’m not seeing the progress I want because I’ve been all over the house and not really emphasizing one space at a time. I do a little garage, a little playroom, purge books, purge clothes, clean the fridge, pull some weeds and cycle through the whole thing again. This pertains to my first objective.

This month’s book: Eat That Frog: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy. I read this book a few years ago but feel it’s worth re-reading, and it’s a fairly recent book but not so popular that it’ll be hard to get from the library.

I feel optimistic about July. I feel like I’ve tried several different approaches and have had trouble sticking to things, which I hope to change this month.


2 Responses to July!

  1. I think all progress is a step in the right direction. Congrats on June!

    I find when I set goals that breaking them down into smaller chunks helps me to accomplish them (then it doesn’t feel overwhelming as a huge project — if, for example, today I’m simply sorting out all of my shirts). Good luck with July!

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