My Guide to Surviving Too Much to Do

I don't have that much going on. I only want to plan a family reunion, sell enough things on Craigslist to be able to afford the gas to go to the reunion, keep the house clean, play with BabyMoney (3 yrs.), hold LittleGuy (1 yr.), who's going through that phase where he cries all the time unless he's being held, write blog posts for PYP, keep up with my church obligations, make sure my husband feels like he's getting enough TLC, get a tutoring and writing business going well enough that I can hit it hard in the fall when my potential clients come back to school, prepare the lessons for my day-job well in advance so that while I'm marketing and moonlighting as a tutor and writer, my teaching prep has already been taken care of, catch up on digital scrapbooking pages, and write for this blog and MoneyDummy.net. And I really want to get that next draft of my novel written. Oh, and at some point the editors of the lit magazine that accepted my story are going to get in touch with me for the revisions, which need to be done by the end of July, I think. Oh, and my husband's grandma is lonely and I promised that I'd e-mail her sometimes. And I just got a tutoring client, which is very awesome.

I'm feeling the burn, and I need to make sure that I don't fizzle and die and crash. So, since this blog is the place where I focus on getting and keeping it together, I'm working out my plan of attack here.

1. Do the basics. The basics. The things that are really, really important. I need to make sure I take time for prayer and meditation. And by time I mean about ten minutes a day. I need to take the kids to the park every morning. Children need to be outside during the summer. And yes, that's more important than any old part-time business. I need to keep the house functional and clean. Unless I do this, I can kiss everything else good-bye because when the house spins out of control, nothing else works really well. And the huge sense of success I get from continuing household improvement is keeping me going right now, and I need to keep going. So that tells me how I should spend my mornings, at least. Now I don't have to wonder anymore.
2. Some things are worth doing only medium-well. Whoever coined the phrase, "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well," did the world a huge disservice. Some things are worth doing only medium-well, just to get them done. I would love to spend fifteen minutes choosing, editing, and cropping photos and then putting them on richly detailed digital scrapbooking pages, but it ain't gonna happen. What's really essential is that I preserve the memories somehow, even if only by opening a Scrapbook Factory template and pounding words out for a few minutes. I can go back and add pictures in later, even years later if I need to.
3. Handle the immediate priorities. Yes, I would love to write a novel. Really, really, really. But the immediate priority right now is to earn enough money to put a downpayment on a house and bankroll Mr. MoneyDummy's grad school program, so that needs to be where my focus is. I'd love to do more, to be more, to "pursue my passion," but sometimes you just have to grind.
4. Let the rest go. For three years, I've had this fantasy that someday I'll have time to really make www.moneydummy.net a "real blog." To do the networking and the guest posting and stats analysis and the template development that makes blogs "big." Ain't gonna happen. It hurts to let go of that idea, but seriously, it's time to let it go. There are plenty of huge, wonderful personal finance blogs out there, but mint ewill not be one of them. And I shall be fine with that.

Comments

[Cat]

Aha. So THAT's what's eating your brain. You and I are doing similar things. My project for my dad will hopefully pay for David's first semester of tuition.

Cat is:
- trying to finish this big project for my dad on a very short deadline
- trying to pack / get ready to move
- trying to spend enough time with David and kids
- trying to keep up with church stuffs
- trying to read through David's book (i've given up on editing at this point)
- trying to keep my house clean (laundry should fold itself, i tell you)
etc.

I know how you feel about wanting to do your own stuff and needing to do other stuff instead. I want to go after a master's right now, but I need to take care of kids instead.