Boy, I feel like a new person. The past few weeks have been filled with changes for me and the family. Not major changes that are visible to anyone looking in, but more internal.
We just got back from a week in Cape G where Dad had to work. Carschooling and hotelschooling were an adventure, as usual. Though we started out on a bad note with Yena contracting a fever the night before we left, by Monday she was back to her happy self (and up to her usual tricks).
I wrote more than a week ago about my new planning system. While researching that I came across the GTD system, which somehow never hit my radar since it came out in ’02. Being away from the business world for so long, I had not really kept up with productivity/organizing systems since Franklin-Covey & 7 Habits
Though I won’t be using GTD as my sole guide anytime soon, there is quite a lot there that could apply to the homeschooling lifestyle. David Allen himself realizes we homeschoolers are a potential market. I’ve begun making notes to compile, sorta like a “GTD for homeschoolers” — for myself, as well as the kids. Will share 🙂
GTD is a bottom-up system, as opposed to Franklin Covey and other top-down, mission-statement type productivity systems. I will always be a top-down person, I suppose — just the whole “look at the big picture”, “why am I here, Lord” kind of thinking — that’s me (now, anyway; I wasn’t years ago). But as David Allen succinctly puts it, while you need that kind of top-down thinking, it still doesn’t tell you what you should do with the 3000+ e-mail messages in your inbox.
Even my dh, who is 100X more organized than I am, I think will benefit from this perspective. Actually, I think *his organization* could use it, more than he can. They’re constantly having meeting after meeting and I know how dh feels about those.
So I’ve got my e-mail inbox down to 1700 (yay me!) and carving away a bit at a time, daily. I’ve also put together a plan to go through my in-blackhole (the house) COMPLETELY this month and get it organized GTD-style.
The bad part about this is I picked a *great time* to get started on this new system: just when I was 20 books-and-2-file-cabinets away from stamping END on my organize-the-study-and-curriculum-project which I wrote about before. That’s also the good part; I now see clearly all the disconnects within my system. Almost everything that GTD teaches I’m ALREADY DOING or have tried in the past — I’ve got the tickler file (43 folders), which I’ve used off and on. I’ve got the boxes/drawers dedicated to each major project. I’ve got a great working calendar. I’ve got lists and lists and lists. I’m a master at collecting data and information and ideas and filing them away.
The biggest flaws in my system would be repaired by what to me are the two pillars of the GTD system: the Next-Action philosophy and the Weekly Review. Though to some degree this is how I’ve been running my life, I need to take it to the next level and do these things on a more regular basis. I always have long lists of next-actions, but I often miss on follow-up and follow-through; projects are simply set aside when important/urgent stuff surfaces, and not picked up again until the next lull in our always-busy existence.
I’ve also known for a while that I overcommit. I have way, way, WAAAAAAY too many projects that will obviously not get all finished in this lifetime. Because most of them are family-related, I tend to look at them as being on the same level of importance, and just work on them randomly, figuring that eventually all of them will get done. To some extent, this has worked for me/us; but I also have a lot of guilt/disappointment/doubt over the ones that DON’T get finished, even when those things won’t make a difference when I’m gone. There were just some things, as I was looking over my list and discussing it with dh the past week, that HAD to be crossed off the list as something I shouldn’t spend time on any longer.
One of those was the gig at b5media’s Noodles and Rice. At the time I applied it seemed like a great thing — passion and money together — I’ve always been a firm believer in “Do what you love, the money will follow”, and that has been true of my b5media experience. However, key in all this is the LOVE, and though I *love* food and writing about food, what’s always bothered me about it was the fact that I loved OTHER THINGS (and people) more: much much more than I loved writing about Asian food. And though I’m sure there’s always money to be made in doing the things we love, when you know what you love MORE, and who/what you love MOST, the money ultimately becomes a non-issue. Which is what the saying really means, I just forgot about that somewhere along the way. I do have to say the experience was a great one. I tried to work for two other networks and with one of them I ended up withdrawing my application (didn’t like the way they operated) — at the other one I only lasted a few months. The b5 people are/were always top notch, esp. my former channel editor Christina. And of course, Shai who started us at AboutWeblogs before the merger. (Disclaimer: if they ever get a homeschooling blog off the ground, though, you can bet I’ll be one of the first to apply. Hey, it’s what we live and breathe everyday!)
I’ve had to cross out a couple of other things from the list — promises I’ve made to people asking for help but now have to renege on — never a good thing, but better than having them rely on me and me being unable to deliver.
Some family items on the now/soon list:
The gardening project, which was put aside for several reasons including work, is back at the top of the list this year. We really want 2008 to be the year when we harvest 90% of our produce from our garden, and that’s not going to become a reality unless we devote the time to it.
There are a couple of house remodeling projects that are calling to be accomplished — partly because of allergies, partly because WE JUST WANT TO (I’m so excited about dh and I working on a project together!). With Ikea coming to the area in 2008, it’s a great time! 😀
There’s also the family website, which the kids have been asking to do for a while… no, not a blog… well, maybe a blog will be incorporated into it at some point…. we’re still just brainstorming at this point and digging through out our old notes and ideas…
There’s going back to sewing and knitting…. dresses for Yena that I haven’t made, rosaries and scapulars to be put together…. there’s the basement to declutter and organize and finish, in preparation for Aisa going to college in a couple of years…
There’s the cookbook, which I thought I lost when our hard drive crashed… it’s more like 3 different cookbooks now, for three different markets (muhahaha, more like my friends/relatives who prefer traditional Pinoy, then there’s the healthy-conscious ones, and the allergic ones). No idea if I’ll ever want to try and publish it as I had originally planned, but I need to get it DONE at least for the kids!
There’s oil painting which I haven’t done in years… and I’ve let my piano skills go so bad that I’m stumbling over the simplest pieces now. Bad example for the kids whom I’m teaching — gotta remedy that!
And then there’s the volunteer work that we’re not doing enough of… church and organization commitments that have to be re-evaluated in light of recent events…
Oh and the list goes on….. the kids have made lists in the past of things they want to do, learn, accomplish — but now I’d like to see them attack these lists GTD style, with Mom right alongside them.
All of that said…. I don’t think GTD will be a PERFECT fit for the homeschooling lifestyle — at least not ours anyway. Much of GTD is still directed towards the corporate executive who deals with clients and budgets and sales calls in their waking hours. You won’t find suggestions for what to do when you’re determining your Next Action and here comes the toddler needing to have his nose wiped, or a diaper change. Or what to do when your five year old needs a hug and a read-aloud book, while you’re in the middle of doing your weekly review (if you were doing it 100% GTD that five-year-old won’t be there beside you anyway). Or when your teen needs a 3-hour dialogue on her life and what she’s thinking — there’s just no way you can work on your “Calls” list when that happens. There’s no adjustment advice for when you’re “@errands” and your kid throws up so you have to turn around and go home. Or what to do about sick days.
There are pointers, yes, like how to achieve zen as you give yourself permission to — let’s say, run outside through the sprinklers with your kids instead of working on Project #375. It’s why I’m thankful I read through the book — at first glance all it appeared to be was a flowchart and “the willpower and the discipline to go to the next action” — but there are tiny gems here and there in the book that speak to the Catholic homeschooling mom in me that believes God first, family next, everything else falls into place. What I think GTD means to me is that I can focus most of all on “God first, family next” when my mental and physical inbox isn’t littered with actionables and non-actionables all jumbled up together, when I’ve quieted my mind and my being enough that I’ve put the non-essentials where they belong.
So all in all…. it was a good week. Values and goals clarified, focus back, moving forward.
Things are most definitely looking up.
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