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JennGM
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| Posted: April 13 2010 at 2:24pm | IP Logged
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Patty wrote:
About the perfectionism--I will give you an example. Our basement storage room is a complete wreck right now. People have opened the door and just thrown things in, and it looks it! It's got a lot of shelves and a LOT of stuff, and it's very hard for me to think about tackling it because I KNOW I will not be able to do it all at once and put everything perfectly in order.
Yes, I should just focus on doing a certain area or shelf, but I don't. It would seem like I hadn't done anything because the room is still a mess. I couldn't see the progress very well. Does that make sense to anyone else? |
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This is so me. I want the time and planning to do a job correctly and well-done. I don't want to do it more than once. So I put it off until that time never comes.
This is my biggest struggle, to realize I need to work in small chunks, for planning, for praying, for writing, for schooling, and especially for cleaning.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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Kathryn
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| Posted: April 13 2010 at 6:22pm | IP Logged
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Patty wrote:
Yes, I should just focus on doing a certain area or shelf, but I don't. It would seem like I hadn't done anything because the room is still a mess. I couldn't see the progress very well. Does that make sense to anyone else? |
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Absolutely 110%!!!!! We don't have basements but rather an upstairs gameroom that tends to be the catch-all as well. Plus, for me, it's a lot of out of sight, out of mind and I have alllll these organizational things "in place" but I go up there and just don't know where to start. Sooo, you're def. not alone!
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Kathryn in TX
(dd 16, ds 15, dd 8, dd 5)
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Kathryn
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| Posted: April 13 2010 at 8:21pm | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
I wanted to come back and emphasize that the times I listed above are the times that work for us. |
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Ohhhhh yeh, I already knew that 5:30 AM would not work for me at all!!!  I just liked the idea and reminder to blocking out our time since it seems when I don't have those blocks of time (hence focus), I literally feel like I spend all day doing chores b/c there's always something that needs to be done. Which really that's what I did for so long when they were in traditional school was the traditional homemaking duties. Now this 3rd littlest person makes me feel like a cat chasing my tail most of the time as she creates a mess behind me bigger than the one I just cleaned up in front of me. Soo, scheduling and planning will go a long way to help us all.
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Kathryn in TX
(dd 16, ds 15, dd 8, dd 5)
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 15 2010 at 10:02am | IP Logged
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JennGM wrote:
Patty wrote:
About the perfectionism--I will give you an example. Our basement storage room is a complete wreck right now. People have opened the door and just thrown things in, and it looks it! It's got a lot of shelves and a LOT of stuff, and it's very hard for me to think about tackling it because I KNOW I will not be able to do it all at once and put everything perfectly in order.
Yes, I should just focus on doing a certain area or shelf, but I don't. It would seem like I hadn't done anything because the room is still a mess. I couldn't see the progress very well. Does that make sense to anyone else? |
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This is so me. I want the time and planning to do a job correctly and well-done. I don't want to do it more than once. So I put it off until that time never comes.
This is my biggest struggle, to realize I need to work in small chunks, for planning, for praying, for writing, for schooling, and especially for cleaning. |
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I have this problem but also with the added pressure to avoid making a biggish decision needed to proceed. I feel PARALYZED by that decision.
For instance, we have the biggest, airiest bedroom set aside as a school room. The closets are still my husband's and mine, but the rest of the room is "school"
I am also trying to figure out organizing the downstairs.
For future reference, I'm only EVER buying a ranch in the future or a two story big enough that the second story is ONLY for sleeping or something.
But for now, I'm just STUCK trying to figure out organizing my homemaking and homeschooling tasks. We chose to make the bigger, airier room the school room for obvious reasons, and I actually like our smaller, cozier bedroom now.
But, I'd much prefer everything were just in one place. The schoolroom is a wreck, and I can't start organizing because I canNOT figure out where I want our home "office" I like to read and work in my chair in the front room. I finally got some shelves there, and I am equally paralyzed about what to put on them.
I have an area in the dining room where mail stuff/coupons/menus/etc... tends to go as well as power cords, cameras, phones, etc...
So, when I try to think about organizing for school, I feel completely divided. I am tempted to cram our "school" into our tiny dining room where there is no space. Dh would NOT go for that.
Sorry that was rambling, but for WEEKS (if I were honest, months) I've been viewing the shambles that is my home office center, my schoolroom and its office type center, my chair and ITS office type center, and I have NO CLUE where to start.
I find it extremely stressful, and my husband does not understand at all. He built me the shelves, I love them, but he has no idea why decided what type of stuff to put on them is a big deal.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Patty
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| Posted: April 15 2010 at 4:25pm | IP Logged
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CrunchyMom,
I sort of get what you are saying. It's similar to what I'm going through. I want to do it completely and perfectly before I even start, so I don't start.
Would you like to do some decluttering/organizing with me? How about anyone else reading this? We could each set a small goal that we will do in the next 24 hours to clean/declutter/organize. You decide what you want to do first and work on it, then we can report back.
CrunchyMom, can you tell yourself that if you just start somewhere with the organizing, it will be better than doing nothing? That's what I have to tell myself. You are not going to make any horrible, distrastrous mistakes by, say, starting to organize your schoolroom, or the shelves your husband made for you. (how nice of him, BTW!) If you don't like something, you can change it! You're not setting anything in stone.
If anyone else is up for this...I'm going to attack the area between my side of the bed and the wall. (Dh sleeps nearest the door). I always pile that area with books, magazines, notebooks, a variety of stuff. Dh often goes to bed before I do, so I don't want to bother him...and end up piling stuff on the floor in the dark. Then it gets to be a big mess that overwhelms me.
So...I'm going to work on that tonight. If I don't finish it all, at least it will be better and more manageable. What do you say? Are you in?
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JennGM
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| Posted: April 15 2010 at 4:28pm | IP Logged
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Patty wrote:
If anyone else is up for this...I'm going to attack the area between my side of the bed and the wall. (Dh sleeps nearest the door). I always pile that area with books, magazines, notebooks, a variety of stuff. Dh often goes to bed before I do, so I don't want to bother him...and end up piling stuff on the floor in the dark. Then it gets to be a big mess that overwhelms me.
So...I'm going to work on that tonight. If I don't finish it all, at least it will be better and more manageable. What do you say? Are you in? |
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I'm in, Patty. And you just described my corner of the room. The floor isn't too bad right now, but it does get out of hand. Your scenario is exactly as mine -- goes to bed before me, sleeps near the door. Oh, the bad habits I fall into!
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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Patty
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| Posted: April 17 2010 at 10:00am | IP Logged
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OK, I'm still working on my cluttered side of the bed! In the past two days I've also homeschooled my three youngest (the others have graduated), shopped for groceries, gone to Irish drum lesson, the library, did laundry, and cleaned the main rooms of the house! Oh, and kept everyone from starving. Today I'm going to focus on bedrooms and bathrooms...and work on the area between my side of the bed and the wall.
How's everyone else doing?
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Anne McD
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| Posted: May 24 2010 at 9:47pm | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
Recognizing that the every-day needs wide margins |
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Jen,
I've noticed you use the term "wide margins" before. What exactly do you mean by that? Does this mean that you plan an hour for meals, when you know it takes only 45 minutes, or, for instance, dinner is planned from 5 to 6 when you know it will be finished at 5:30, so when you plan to do a rosary before bedtime routine, it will get done because there's room before the 7:30 bedtime routine starts?
Also, when there are "wide margins," what are the children doing? If the've finished dinner and cleanup, and its 5:45, do you start the rosary early, or wait until its appointed time at 6pm? If you wait, do you have difficulty pulling the children from free time to fixed time, from free time, to fixed time? It seems that whenever they get free time to themselves, my children have trouble adjusting back to "I need you over here to finish the next task". Also, when we have that free time, I find myself putting out the next fire (baby napped at the wrong time and is now up, toddler blew out diaper and destroyed the kitchen with a canister of sugar and the others are bickering because they lack direction at the moment. Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little.  but not too much 
Does this seem to make sense?
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Anne
Wife to Jon
Mommy to Alex 9
James 8
Katie 6
William 3 1/2
Benedict Joseph 1
and baby on the way! 10/14
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Anne McD
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| Posted: May 24 2010 at 9:59pm | IP Logged
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Oh, Jen, forgive me for not reading the entire first page before jumping in with all my questions! (don't you just hate it when people walk into a conversation and start asking, "what??? )
I not only understand what you are saying about the large margins of time, but I love it! In fact, I see how we are already loosely doing that. It seems like a little further tweaking and say by 9am, cerain morning things should be taken care of, by 11:30am, the morning block of schooling should be done, etc.
Lots to think about, but making sense to me. gotta put the baby to bed. thanks again!!
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Anne
Wife to Jon
Mommy to Alex 9
James 8
Katie 6
William 3 1/2
Benedict Joseph 1
and baby on the way! 10/14
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Perfectionist tendencies get in the way
