Get the Help You Need

We planted corn this weekend. My job was to furrow the rows while my husband tilled and my children planted. Part way down one of the rows, the furrow fell of its handle. I didn't know how to fix it, so I decided to till while my husband fixed the furrow. I've been gardening all my life and I had tilling experience (3 feet of garden a few weeks ago while my brother got a drink), so I figured I could till. (Tilling has never been my job). I did great until I got to the end of the row. I've watched the guys turn the tiller around easily at the end of the row, but when I tried, it barely turned and the tiller and I kept heading off towards a wood pile. I yelled, I tugged, I yelled, I tugged and missed the woodpile, but I was still tilling up grass. I yelled. I could see my husband and daughter yelling at me to do something, but I didn't know what. Finally, I understood. Let go of the handle. I let go and the tiller stopped. The lesson? Sometimes you just need someone who knows more or has done something a little bit more than you around. I've been gardening forever, so I thought I could do it, but I still needed some training. So do your kids. Maybe so do you. Maybe so does your husband.

When it comes to organizing, that means organize with your children. Let them see how you do it. Give them opportunities to help. Help them see how to do it.

When you are tackling something new, try it. Do everything that you can do and then get help. I'm in the middle of planning an event that is 10 or more times bigger than anything I've ever done before. It's so big, I almost don't know how to do it. But there is someone on the planning committee who has done it, knows how to do it, and can do it. I'm learning how to think big. It's kind of exciting. I've also had help learning how to raise chickens, learning to write HTML, and learning how to put phone numbers in my phone. Sometimes you just need help.

(I have pictures coming, but they're in an email and I can't figure out how to get them to my blog. My email/picture mentor will be helping me with this soon).

Be Ready and Do It When the Time Is Right

It's been raining all week at our house. The ground is sopping wet and saturated. But today it stopped raining, so I went outside and weeded. There were plenty of other things I could do today, but the time was right, so I went. The weeds came out easily and in no time and I had lots of piles of weeds all over my yard (but no longer growing in the ground).
There are lots of things that are easier to do if you do them when the time is right. Here's a few things I try to do that are much easier if I wait and prepare for the right time.

* Weeding.

*Copying. If I know I have copying coming up (anytime), I try to get it ready. Then if I don't need it immediately, I just leave it around my house. Almost inevitably, someone will need to copy something before I need my copying done and I can send it with them. It combines 2 copy trips into one and eliminates something from my "to do" list.

* Projects. I happen to have lots of projects going on at my house all the time. I like to have an idea of the things that are coming up in my head. That way, whenever I am shopping, I can be looking for the things I need for those projects. They may be months away, but if I get the things I need when I'm already shopping, I can usually save money on them, and be done without an extra shopping trip.

* Scheduled times in my life. (There is another post dedicated to this topic). I have scheduled times when I work on our finances, send big emails, and even write in my journal. Since I have a set time to do those things, I don't need to worry about them - or even think about them - at other times. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I have a time for those things - and when I do, I try not to spend any more time thinking about them.

What things work for you if you wait until the right time to do them?

Organizing My Blog

There is a never ending list of things that can be organized. My past month has been full of a 2,000 mile, 5 day family vacation; an (approximately) 2 week, 20 people family reunion at my house, and everything it takes to get ready for both of those. And the whole time, my blog has sat neglected.

I've thought about it a lot. I've had ideas for posts and even composed them in my mind. I've thought of things I want to change and update and improve. But I haven't done any of it yet. And that's ok. For the past month, it was more important - and I chose - to do other things with my time, effort and energy. And that's exactly what organization is about - choosing the things that are important to you and doing those things. I'm not ready to say my blog is clutter. But at different times of our lives, almost anything can become clutter. We need to clean it out and clear it out forever - or until it's important to us to make room for it again.

So I'm hoping I'm back. I'm going to work on improving my blog. I'm hoping to go back through and label my posts so it's easy to find posts of topics of interest. I'm hoping to post on a more regular basis. And I'm hoping to remember to take pictures! And I'll do it, as long as it's one of the important things in my life.