Time Management Tuesday

Isn't it ironic that my post for Time Management Tuesday is late because of poor time management? 

Better late than never. 

In last Tuesday's post I had mentioned that I needed to put up my curtain rods, and that I could make the task more manageable by putting up one pair a day. Well here I sit in the middle of a major snow storm and I still don't have my insulated curtains up. 

It is a fairly easy task. They are the cheapo white ones that install with hammer and finishing nails. 

I have put up curtain rods, several in the house I shared with the X for 15 years. 

So why can't I bring myself to tackle this task?

There are MANY reasons:

The clutter and chaos of the space is overwhelming and I feel like I CANNOT tackle it. 

I do not like the curtain rods. They are the cheap white metal ones and I just don't care for them. They WILL show (and not just when my curtains are open) all the time because I have grommetted curtains. I also don't really care for the curtains that I have. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for either the curtains or the curtain rods (my mother purchased both for me because I could not afford them myself). But here is my dilemma, I am tired of having to make do, just because. So instead of hating the curtains that my mother was generous enough to purchase for me, I am going to use them to help save on my energy costs and figure out WHAT it is I WANT. Then I am going to price out what I want and start saving to HAVE what I WANT. 

Lastly, and most importantly is my fear of failure. I have spent my whole life being told I am not particularly good at anything (except that I would make a good lawyer, hence my decision to become a lawyer AND my failure to do so). I lived for 17+ years with someone who "playfully picked" at everything I did, pointing out all of the flaws and failures. 

Yet, if I don't TRY then I didn't fail, I simply didn't do and I can come up with a million reasons  excuses why.

I am working to acknowledge my fear of failure and even to retrain my brain to think of failure as ONLY that which I do not try.

For this upcoming week I am going to tackle 3 daily tasks that I believe will help make my life better AND improve my time management.

I HATE walking into a kitchen with dirty dishes. So to try to keep the dirty dishes at a minimum I will wash 1 load of dishes a day.

Cat litter. I clean the boxes, put fresh litter in and then commit to cleaning them daily, and the I don't. So today I will clean the cat litter boxes (entirely) and refill them with clean litter, then before bed I will scoop them and first thing in the morning I will scoop them again. 

Pick it up and put it away. Every time I walk out of a room I will remove one item that does not belong in that room and put it away. Away might be a space in another room, a storage box in the attic, the recycle bin, the trash or a staging area to list it on one of the multiple Facebook sites I am using to declutter my life.