In Which Mel Talks About How She Lost an Entire Week

I’m usually highly organised. This is, after all, what I do – I help work at home moms with planning and organising. But last week I lost the plot. Last week came and went in a haze of disorganisation and fire-fighting. Not real fires, I mean the stuff that happens and has to be dealt with IMMEDIATELY! RIGHT NOW! because the deadline was actually a week ago and somewhere along the line several tasks had dropped off my to-do list.

I was debating writing this post, and finally decided that hey, everyone gets disorganised sometimes. I’m not some fantastically perfect, 100% organised, never lose the plot person. Except when it comes to housework, in which case I never had the plot. Housework got dropped years ago, except for keeping the house liveable (no, we don’t have a cleaner).

Last week I finally managed to get my organisational mojo back at 4.30 Friday afternoon, while sitting waiting for my daughter’s Irish Dance class to finish. I think the fact that I didn’t have a computer in front of me actually helped with that. I couldn’t do any work because it was all on the computer, so I had just a small notebook in which to plan and review the week that sucked.

How did it happen? How did I go from being organised to chasing my own tail for a whole week? Here’s what all contributed a little bit, and added up to a lot:
• Hubby went back to work after six weeks at home
• The kiddo started High School
• My studying (two evenings a week) started back
• I spent much of my days tracking down ‘stuff’ that was needed for the Kiddo’s school and was “I HAVE to have it tomorrow” items
• I skipped breakfast every day (this might sound small, but it had a huge effect on everything else I did or tried to do. No breakfast = no brain power and more stress)
• I didn’t plan meals for the week, let alone for the evenings I was at school
• I started a Deaf Bible Study in our home
• My desk was cluttered
• I was telling myself how disorganised I was and how I wasn’t getting anything done  (Negative self-talk – bad mistake!)

Ugh. Any one of these would be enough to get off track temporarily. All of them in one week? I was a basket case by Friday. And I was so caught up in the stress of trying to catch up with myself that I couldn’t see it, not until I sat down and gave myself time to think – even though it was accidental as I’d intended to take my laptop with me to dancing.

So now it’s Monday of a brand new week. Last week was a timely reminder that no organisation process is perfect; it’s still easy to get knocked for six. This morning is being spent getting back into being organised. Reviewing structures and processes that didn’t work last week, so they won’t happen again. Checking on what I didn’t get done that should have been. And telling myself it was just a hiccup, because the negative self-talk I had going on was stopping me from seeing the problem in time to catch it early.

If you’ve ever had a week like this – and I don’t know anyone who hasn’t – let yourself move on.  It’s only a temporary state.  Learn from the lessons, tell yourself you’re better than that, and get over it.

Oh, and the new ‘Dream Setter’ program that’s supposed to be released tomorrow? That’s going to be a few more days until it’s ready… If you’re on the VIP list you’ll be notified first with a discount code, if you just read the RSS or on the blog you’ll have to wait a couple more days. (or you can go sign up for the VIP list now).