New Year, New Theme

Hi There!!

Happy New Year! Ellie and I just got back from a family cruise over the holidays and I must say, it was so nice to unplug from the world for awhile and get to be completely present with my family. It was a nice recharge and now I’m ready for 2019!

This year instead of New Year’s resolutions, which I admittedly keep for at best a week, leaving me with an expectation hangover, I decided to come up with a theme for 2019. (Drum roll, please)…

Complete projects I’ve put off for the past five years.

To stop making excuses, to stop getting discouraged because the projects feel insurmountable, to stop feeling embarrassed because I’m so far behind, and to take ownership for what is, accept it, and start taking small steps of action until completion.

A few months ago I read a great book, Get It Done, by Sam Bennett, which inspired my theme for this year. I heard about it through my favorite writing podcast called The Beautiful Writers.

Sam was one of the co-hosts for the day and after hearing about her business, The Organized Artist Company, and how she helps creative people get more organized, I knew I needed to read her book ASAP. Being disorganized has been a major challenge for me in adulthood and I was hoping for a breakthrough. The tools I learned from her book have been transformational in moving me closer to where I want to be in my business and in my life.

Today I’m going to share one tip from the book that’s brought me the most traction. It’s simple, but profound:

Pick a time frame, anywhere between 5-30 minutes, and commit to working on your project for that amount of time daily. Set a timer and get to work.

I have to admit I’ve heard this advice for years and I just wasn’t buying it. I couldn’t see how five minutes a day would get me anywhere.

I always thought I needed at least one hour every day, and when I didn’t foresee that amount of time in my day (which was often), then I never got around to my project. After years of failed attempts at completing projects, I decided to give this advice a whirl.

To my surprise, it works, and I’ve already completed several projects I’ve started over the past five years but never finished. Now I know what they mean when they say we overestimate what we can get done in a week and underestimate what we can get done in a year. It takes a little time every day and over time, the results can be life-changing.

This new approach has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders because it’s shown me my projects are doable when I break them up into smaller chunks of time. Now that I have momentum under my sails, I wake up feeling hopeful and inspired by my projects, rather then discouraged and overwhelmed by them.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes! Also, if some of your projects are like mine and involve decluttering, I’d recommend a show someone recently told me about called Tidying Up on Netflix. I watch it while I’m decluttering. It gives me some good ideas and it’s inspiring.

Some of the projects I’m currently working toward are: decluttering each room in my house and keeping/giving a home to the item, donating or selling each item, going through piles of paperwork and either filing it, throwing it away, or taking care of it, cleaning out my inboxes, writing articles to submit to magazines, and helping Ellie put together a garage sale so my budding entrepreneur can make extra money.

What projects are you wanting to complete in 2019? Can’t wait to hear about them.

Thank you so much for taking the time to be with me today. Grateful for YOU! Love and Blessings.

PS Here are two other great books I’ve found to be helpful in the area of getting organized: A Simplified Life by Emily Ley and The Everygirl’s Guide to Life by Maria Menounos.

PPS  Emily Ley has a great yearly planner called The Simplified Planner. It’s probably the best one I’ve ever used and I’m pretty selective about my planners, so if you’re looking to purchase one I’d look into this one. I bought mine at Office Depot, but you can also find them on amazon and on her website www.emilyley.com. Here’s the one I have…