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Thursday, November 17, 2011

Priorities

Priorities
The Writer's Post #23~Priorities

Ever have those days when you plan out exactly what needs to be accomplished and then the day unfolds and happens and it's suddenly nearing bedtime and you realize you have accomplished nothing from your 'list'? 

That happens to be every now and then. Not often, because I am a planner and I am a list maker and I love checking things off that list more than I like wandering around through my day doing, well, doing things NOT on my list. My lists are how I prioritize my days.  Important things go on my list and then I do them! That's the plan..  Since I am in charge of how my day is being spent, most of the time, I choose to follow my lists.

That being said, some of the best days are the ones where the list is just set aside.  Some of the worst days are those, as well.  Sometimes I plan to do a, b and then c and after that is done, I will do d and e. Some days, that is exactly what happens. While those days do make me happy because I enjoy being organized and feeling accomplished at the end of one of those days, they also lead to the next day and the next list.  On and on goes my life, for the most part.

A few weeks back I had planned one of those days (I almost always plan my days). I started with the first task of the day, which was clearing a counter in my basement.  Now, this counter is FULL from end to end of stuff. Some of this stuff is more accurately described as crap things I no longer need and have no idea why it wasn't in the dumpster months years ago.  Items that I take off said counter annually or more often, and then put back. Why?  I have no clue.  I am not a hoarder and for most areas of my house I am a very quick tosser outer of the aforementioned crapola type stuff.  But this counter remains my downfall failure junk heap challenge. Yeah, challenge, that's the word. I head down to the furnace room which doubles as a play room for the grand kids and is plenty large enough for all ~ minus the junky crapola covered counter ~ not horrible.  I inspect the room as I walk through the door and discover that I have not been very umm, vigilant about keeping the rest of the room from getting overrun.  It has gotten beyond a quick counter clean up.  This room is a days worth of up and down the stairs to the garbage and back for another load and maybe more than a day.  I pick up a few things and walk out to the garbage.  Dumping that I notice a pile of boxes and well, I don't know what else in the corner of my garage.

I can't go back downstairs and face that room, right now anyway. So I attack the pile.  About 2 hours later the pile has disappeared and I feel good about that.  My garage is kind of cleaned up.  There is more to do here.  But today isn't the day.

I head back downstairs and go to another room.  The tanning room.  All that is supposed to be in this room is the steam cleaner, it lives there.  The tanning bed.  A small table for the basket with lotions and cleaners and a towel. A clothes rack and a Rubbermaid box that holds the deck cushions in the winter. Somehow, this room is full of shit!  More boxes, empty.  Why are we saving these stupid boxes?  I order too much online.  Out they go.  Back to the garage with my boxes. Uh-oh.  I just cleaned out the boxes, didn't I?  Okay, keep going, these boxes cannot sit in this corner they need to go to the road for pick up.  Done.
Big ole pile-o-boxes by the road.

Okay the tanning room is sort of cleaned.  I finish up in there by emptying the closet of a bunch of stuff that I don't even remember putting in there.  It looks pretty good and I am exhausted.

Dinner time!

Where did that day go?  Sure the garage looks a little better and the tanning room looks good, but the play-furnace-shithole room is virtually untouched.  *sigh*

Ordered dinner from a local delivery place, (thanks Papa Joe's) fell into rest and relaxation mode on the loveseat and settled in for an evening of TV and FBing.

That list, the undone one, remains undone.  Maybe one of these days soon, I will revisit it.  This time, however, the list will contain only one item, "Clean the play-furnace-shithole room".

A day in the life....

Jo


12 comments:

  1. I have a junk drawer in the kitchen. In theory, it holds tape, matches, playing cards, scissors, notepads, pens, a screwdriver, and the "save 20 for a free pizza" cards that come with each order delivered by our favorite pizzeria.

    In reality, that drawer is a catch-all for all kinds of stuff, a good percentage of which would do just fine in the trash. I clean it out whenever it gets so jammed with junk that it's either hard to close it or stuff starts falling out the back of it and onto my cookie sheets in the cabinet below.

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  2. Jo--I must say I'm getting exhausted cleaning off your counter in the basement with you--LOLOL :) I do know things go. Today I had several things I needed to accomplish--but my husband forgot to get the things I needed to implement that action plan (and we are down to one car) so I had to improvise and do tomorrow's things today!! HA! Yeah--I'm flip flopping the lists :)

    ONE of these days we should make a List of Lists we need to get completely finished!! :D

    Cheers, Jenn.

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  3. Beth...One drawer, wow, that would be doable! I have an entire basement apparently! Winter is coming and that is for certain a winter task. :)

    Jenn...Sorry I wore you out, I can find the most exhausting things to do to avoid doing an exhausting job apparently.

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  4. It sounds like you are very organized with your lists and I admire you for it. About the only thing I actually make lists for is what I am going to write next and in what order. The rest of the time I wing it through life haphazardly zigzagging from this to that. :D I could surely take a lesson from you my friend!!

    Kathy
    http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.com/

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  5. Kathy...I am a pro at that list making thing! I am usually, I say usually, pretty good at staying on task. It keeps me sane. I would never finish anything if I didn't make and use lists. I have a wandering mind, remember? lol

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  6. I thank my lucky stars everyday that I don't have a basement. If I did, who knows what crap I'd hoard down there.

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  7. Mrs.Tuna...The basement has our family room, the laundry room & kitchen, the tanning room, a guest room and then the aforementioned room. It's like another house below this one and I am obviously very good at hiding the 'should be junk' in those lesser used rooms! I just need to get them de-junked and then I will commit to keeping them that way.

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  8. I have to laugh because this so sounds like me! Except my entire house is one big room filled with crap. I guess that is what happens when you move from a 3 bedroom house to a 3 bedroom condo to a 2 bedroom. My husband says we just need to get a front-end loader at this point! I have no doubt you will get the things on your lists accomplished...when the time is right!

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  9. Susan...Tomorrow is the designated "clean the furance-play-shithole room". It will be emptied and organized before I go to bed. I'm glad I don't have a whole houseful like that room, I would have lost my mind by now! Can't stand messy and that room is MESSY.

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  10. I make mental lists of things I plan to do, but I usually don't do them. It's a one of these days sort of thing. Eventually, it will get done--like when the mold grows in the house. ;)

    Joyce
    http://joycelansky.blogspot.com

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  11. Joyce, I used to do the mental list, but that is not very productive for me these days! lol I need to actually SEE it to remind myself what it was I wanted to do. Mental anything doesn't work very well for me, except writing. When stories or ideas start developing, I pretty much think it through and then try to immediately get to the keyboard or a notepad and get the gist down asap...otherwise, it's gone.

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  12. I'd be SUNK without my to-do lists, Jo. Every Sunday I sit down and make a calendar for the coming week. It's the only way I can keep my head screwed on. I'm reluctant, however, to add, "cleaning" to the list because there's so much "stuff" to sort through that I don't know when I'd see the light of day again! Keep up the good (hard) work!

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