Wednesday, January 9, 2013

So. This is the New Year.

I'm a bit of an organizational nazi at the moment. I mean, I always am really, but its been kicked into over drive. I think for several reasons.
  1. Its the New Year. We get so much pressure to start fresh in the New Year and I tend to subscribe to that pressure. Also being a tad on the OCD side I can't start any new plans for myself without it being at the beginning of something, January, the 1st of the month, Monday. I've tried to break out of this but I tend to not follow through if I do. For instance. I bought The Happiness Project in about February last year. Gretchen Rubin even says in the book, jump in wherever you are. So I thought, March. I'll jump on in. The first month is about energy and I was on tour so schedules and exercise were hopeless. I gave up and couldn't bear to try again until the New Year.
  2. The Happiness Project and Flylady. Both projects seem like a good place to start a new year. I have been on and off the Flylady system for years. I usually give up because who ever I am living around makes fun of me enough that I lose all motivation. Rob is giving me his honest effort to be supportive. I told him he doesn't have to personally subscribe to the program but at least help me get the dishes done at the end of the night so I can shine the sink. You wouldn't believe how much this woman is right about that shiny sink. Check out the Beginner Baby Steps here. My favorite part of the program is that it is one day at a time. I have never made it through all 31 (although some of the early habits are things that I keep with me even when I'm not totally on the program), but this is gonna be my year. Two nights ago when we started putting out our hotspots, Rob actually set the new kitchen timer and raced me to our respective hotspots. Pretty cute.
  3. Rob. Rob has never lived with anyone before. Yes, his parents and he grew up with a brother and he and Greg lived together off and on for a few months at a time on a couple of 4 month work terms, but for the most part Rob has occupied every space he's ever lived in entirely. And that has included owning two houses. It has been an effort to elbow myself some room (in a very spacious house). Its been a point of contention in our relationship, which is not surprising after a year on Skype. But we are working on it. And baby step organizational routines make me feel less panicked and him less pressured. We can work on things 2 minutes at a time if we have to, which will make the days that we work all afternoon on something feel less oppressive.  I hope.
  4. SKAM. I have just walked into an office that has been without an administrative assistant for almost a year. In that time they have moved offices and Matthew who was left to run the company by himself, became a dad for the first time. Some parts of the company function marvellously because they have long standing systems in place, or because we have a great enthusiastic Board of 10 diversely wonderful people. Other things have been totally let go. The weeks leading up to Christmas I found that I could not handle leaving one chaos and coming home to another. My anxiety was seriously through the roof. On New Year's Day when we were supposed to be getting ready to have 19 of Rob's family members over for dinner, I exploded, went on strike and laid in bed and cried until my mom came over and bailed Rob out.
    We made it through dinner. But I knew things had to change and I needed to get myself under control.
So with these systems in place, I feel armed for both a new year and what is essentially the beginning of a brand new life out here. I have very quickly gone from never knowing where the next contract would be, spending a huge amount of time living out of my suitcase and being in love with a man that I saw every night over a video screen ... to living in our big beautiful house together, knowing (mostly) not only where I will be every night, but also where I will be every day. Permanently. My new job (in case this hasn't been public enough) has me in training to very soon (like, by this summer) be the Operational Manager and eventually I will be the General Manager of Theatre SKAM. I will be helping to run a whole theatre company, not just our home! Yikes.

So. We are on day 8 of FlyLady. This is a good start. Today I was able to come home, do my 8 new tasks and start reading a new book, instead of fretting over all of the things that aren't done. 
I'll keep you posted. Do any of you have tips with how you deal with feeling out of control? 
“You are a fortunate person, indeed, if you can begin each day accepting the fact that during that day there will be ups and downs, good breaks and bad ones, disappointments, surprises, unexpected turns of events.”
— Roy Benjamin

2 comments:

  1. I have zero advice. My life seems to be perpetually out of control. When it seems to be a little in control, that's when I start to panic... and then eventually kamakaze into a fight with Roland in order to set the disorder rolling again... Healthy? probably not.

    I am interested to know what exactly a "Hotspot" is to this flylady and what Rob's and your hotspots are! :)

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  2. Not much... but that quote is pretty awesome! :) I try to remind myself to just be gentle with myself.

    And I make lists. Tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of lists. I like sticky notes the best. ;)

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