Am I Crazy or is This Organized?

You know how thoughts and conversations get interrupted once you have kids? You start one and get in a few sentences then are interrupted and if you’re lucky a half an hour (maybe more) later you add another sentence to that conversation and perhaps even finish the complete thought?

For me getting and staying organized with kids is the same.  I now organize in “time bytes”.  I sort my mess into piles (save, toss, donate), then fill a sippy-cup, change a diaper, and find a lost matchbox car; throw out the ‘toss’ pile.  Start putting away the ’save’ pile, then change another diaper, make lunch, and prepare for nap time.  Usually leaving something left to do another time.

Time Bytes 

I do what I can with the time bytes I claim.  These little pieces of day add up to my organizing whole.  I discovered after my first child that I have to be willing to be less than perfect and deal with the feelings brought up by having a job remain incomplete (sometimes for days before I can get back to it).  Every day I make a conscious decision to measure progress and success differently than I did before I had kids.  I have to or I’ll drive myself nuts.  Or maybe I am already crazy!

One Shelf at a Time 

I was once an on-the-ball, list-maker who completed tasks in an hour and a half (max) and was on to the next one on the list unless I specifically chose to procrastinate.  Now I’m an on-the-ball Mom who is changing her definitons of success and organiztion.  I am the “Crocodile Hunter” of time bytes. 

I am the champion of organizing the linen closet one shelf at a time, one nap at a time.  I mull a project over while I nurse and strategize HOW I will conquer it so that when the time comes I’m diving in.  I pull out only the items on one or two shelves of a closet (not the whole closet like I could in my Before Children life) and get those items organized.  I’m always ready to throw everything back in (in some semblance of order) if my moment is squashed.

Baby Steps

After my first child was born I started to think that because I wasn’t organized like I used to be I had become an absolute disgrace.  Now I am proud of the smaller projects that together equal the whole.  I am proud when I take care of something in the moment, while I have it in my hand so that it does not become yet another item on the long list of things to pick-up. 

My organizing life is like my new baby: there are subtle changes every day that equal big change at the end of a week.

P.S.  Maybe I’ll get to that last shelf in the linen closet today!