Thursday, April 17, 2008

Too much change?

Update on last night: we spent $10.35! Our dinner bill was $4.35, and we tipped the server $6.00 - both my DH and I feel that if the restaurant is giving us something free, the server shouldn't be penalized, so we always leave a great tip. We ended up skipping Coldstone's because Red Robin brought out 2 sundae's for my DD and DH's birthday. That gives us another trip for ice cream next week!

Now, for today's topic . . .

Do you ever feel like you are constantly trying to improve or change your life? I get so many great ideas from books, blogs, websites, etc. of all the different things I could do to be more organized, more fit, healthier, etc. It's tempting to try them all, and I usually do . . . for a day or so, then on to the next big thing. In the end, I get stressed by all the "programs" or projects I'm trying to complete at once, and I'm not sure anything really changes.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and have decided to try an experiment. For the rest of this year, instead of trying to do many things at once, each month I'm going to concentrate on one aspect of my life that I'd like to improve or make changes to. Not that I'm going to neglect all the other aspects that month, but my focus will be on that one area. Today, I sat down at Starbuck's (a rare treat these days!) and made a list of the areas I'd like to work on. Then I looked at the calendar - took into consideration events, vacations, etc. and matched up each topic to a month. Here's what I came up with:

May - healthier diet
June - consistent exercise program
July - extra fun with the kids (day trips, museums, crafts, projects I've wanted to try, etc.)
August - organize my scrapbooking and office
September - organize and deep clean the house
October - travel writing, mystery shopping, other "money making opportunities"
November - "me" time
December - Christmas
January - budget, saving money, plan for 2009

Hopefully this blog will keep me accountable and I can share some of the successes and failures of this experiment! I'll post more tomorrow on my thoughts and plans for May.

Now off to clean the other half of my bookshelf - my anti-procrastinating project of the day!

1 comment:

Mom2fur said...

I think putting the focus on one main thing each month is a wonderful idea! For all 'they' say about multi-tasking, I read recently that concentrating on one thing at a time is much more productive. I've recently started doing this with my housework, and I find I get it done faster--and it looks better. I bet the same holds true for all aspects of life.
And yes, I'm also one to look for a new and better and cheaper and faster way to do things. I'd say I actually try about 40% of what I find...and stick with about 10% of that. I mostly like reading tips and suggestions just to see how other people think!