New Kitchen Layout

While we’ve been waiting for the renovations to proceed, I’ve been looking for ways to keep my spirits up (it’s hard living in chaos), and since I am excited about the new kitchen, and the cabinets are finally getting installed in the kitchen, I thought it might be fun to explore where I would put everything when the everything is done and we can move all our stuff back in to the kitchen…

I’m actually pretty excited to start organizing things… Does that make me a complete dork?  Probably, but so be it…

The List

First step is to make a list of all the things that I want to store in the kitchen, or all the “stations” that I want to have… Basically, I just thought back to every cupboard that  I had in the old set-up, and made a list from that… Here’s what I came up with:

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Getting Organized: An Update…

I’m sure you were all waiting anxiously to find out how my first week of “getting organized” went… Or maybe not… but in any case, I’m going to give you a quick recap…

In summary, it didn’t go so well… but I still feel like there was some progress made, so maybe with a couple more weeks it will go a bit better…

I started the week off strong, with my Sunday plan completed on Sunday evening, I thought for sure I was in for a 100% success rate.  And while I did do some of my evening to-do list on Sunday night, I didn’t get it totally completed… my lunch was only half made, and I definitely left a few dishes in the sink… (not a good start)

So, Monday morning, when I slept through my 5:30 am alarm… Or hit snooze in my sleep… I’m not sure which really… the morning didn’t exactly follow my morning schedule… And then I didn’t have that extra time to make up for my slacking on the evening to-do list… Which of course means that I didn’t leave on time for work… and didn’t make my goal of 8am arrival at work.

Getting Organized: My Morning Schedule

The last couple days, I’ve been going over my new three part plan to get my life organized.  You’d think by now I’d have figured it out… but better late than never, right?

My Sunday plan is to set the week up right and get my lists together for the week, and then my evening to-do list is to make sure that I get things done before going to bed, so that my mornings are easier… which of course brings me to my mornings… the dreaded mornings…

I am not a morning person.  I hate getting up and out of bed.  (I mean who does really?  Bed is warm and comfy…) But I love mornings when I do actually get up to enjoy them.  For a couple years now, my running buddy and I have been trying to go for at 6am run three times a week.  I say “trying” because we don’t always do it… for various reasons… sometimes the 6am text conversations look like:

“It’s raining out…”

“Yeah, it’s really wet… ”

“and dark… ”

“and cold… ”

“Try again on Friday?”

“Sounds good.  Enjoy your sleep-in.”

Getting Organized: My Evening To-Do List

As I mentioned on Sunday, I’ve come up with a three part plan to get myself more organized and be more productive.  The first part was my Sunday plan which has helped a little bit already, but will probably take a while to really be a habit.  The second part of the plan is my evening to-do list.  This is sort of linked to the third part of the plan, my morning schedule, but I’ll post about that tomorrow.

It probably comes as no surprise, especially to those who are naturally organized and productive, but I have found that if I get a few small things done in the evening before going to bed, my mornings are way easier, which of course leads to being more productive in the morning and getting to work at a better time, and generally leads to a better day.

I’m pretty sure that there are many home/life organizing blogs, websites, and even courses that cover the topic, so rather than go over all again, here is my “must do” list before bed.  No exceptions.

Getting Organized: My New Sunday Plan

I’ve decided that I need to work on getting a bit more organized in my life in general.  Every once in a while I’ve posted a to-do list (like here or here) on my blog when I’ve felt like my schedule or to-do list is out of control and I need some external support and accountability.  Those weeks mostly work out to be much more productive… I don’t know if I need to write a list on my blog each week, but I’ve come up with a three part plan to get myself organized:

1. My Sunday Plan
2. My Evening To-Do List
3. My Morning Schedule

Today I’ll talk about #1, and hopefully I’ll be able to post about #2 and #3 later this week.  I’m sure some of you will wonder that I need to actually think about these things, not everyone needs to… but I love lists, and schedules, and my brain seems to require them in order to be the most productive, so bear with me as I go through this process.

So, I have created a Sunday evening plan for myself.  Somewhere in my organizing internet adventures, I stumbled across this post on the Sunday Basket.  I have not purchased the ebook, but I’ve read some of the posts and I’ve adapted the idea for me.