Thank you for joining me on my journey to a more organized life and home. I would love to tell you that I am now the most organized person with the cleanest home around, but that just isn’t true. Starting this before Christmas with all of the homemade gifts I made and gatherings we attended may not have been the smartest move.
However, I can say that I don’t feel as overwhelmed as I did when I started. In fact, I feel pretty good about my accomplishments.
Week 1: Read my Bible for 15 minutes each day.
With the exception of one day last week, I read from my Bible for 15 minutes each day. I skipped around the Bible quite a bit and just enjoyed reading God’s Word. This goal deserved to be number one and I am glad I made it a priority.
Here are the books of the Bible I read in 11 weeks. Romans, Hebrews, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Titus, Acts, Proverbs 1 & 2, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Jeremiah 1-29.
I started reading Genesis yesterday and plan to read straight through the Bible. 15 minutes at a time.
Week 2: Get dressed for success by wearing nice clothes and fixing my hair.
This goal was mostly met. There were a few days, especially last week when I was painting the dining room, that I looked pretty shabby. However, I think that making it a goal to look nice each day has been good for many reasons.
When I have put on decent clothes and fixed my hair I am ready for company, to leave at a moments notice if the need arises, and I put importance on my role as stay-at-home mom.
Week 3: Exercise for 10 minutes each day.
Time to get real here. I really let this one go. I had lost 5 pounds after starting to exercise daily. Thankfully, I didn’t gain that weight back, but I didn’t lose any more. That is because I quit exercising a few weeks ago.
I could make excuses due to outside commitments, homemade Christmas gifts, etc. Yet, it ultimately boiled down to the fact that I wasn’t disciplined about exercising. I felt like I could let this one go and focus on other goals. I am determined to make it a priority again.
Week 4: Get 8 hours of sleep.
I was doing so well at getting a good night’s sleep. Then, December hit and all of the reasons I didn’t exercise came into play with regards to sleep. I just couldn’t get everything done and still get to bed in time to get 8 hours of sleep.
This goal is something I am going to work on as well. I can’t meet my other goals if I am so exhausted that I fall asleep as soon as I sit down to nurse the baby.
Week 5: Manage computer time.
Keeping my online time in check was really good for me. Sometimes I can get sidetracked and have 3 windows with 6 or 7 tabs open in each whenever I am online. The internet has been a valuable resource for me over the past 9 years I have been at home full-time.
However, the internet should never prevent me from completing all of my household duties. And, it can’t. Unless I let it. Focusing on one task at a time and limiting the time I am online at any one time is the only way to go, I think.
Week 6: Keep bathrooms “company ready”.
If you wanted to come to my house right now and use the bathroom, I would be totally fine with that. If that is the only reason you stop by, that might be a little weird. What I mean is, my bathrooms are all clean.
By wiping down the sink and toilet each morning and replacing the hand towel, my bathrooms are all company ready. This one is definitely a habit now.
Week 7: Don’t go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.
Now, I told you that you could come to my house and use the bathroom, but if you do you can’t look at the kitchen on your way there. I have not made this goal a habit yet. However, I am going to keep working at it. The mornings I have woken up with a clean kitchen have been wonderful.
Yet, on days like today when I baked a ton or have held a fussy baby (She’s asleep in my arms right now.) the kitchen sink is far from empty.
Guess what? Tomorrow is another day and I have a chance to try again. Plus, I didn’t make these goals to get distraught over how many blank spaces there are on my checklist. I made the goals to celebrate all of the checkmarks from my accomplishments.
Week 8: Do one load of laundry from start to finish each day.
You can walk through my laundry room now. I finally got caught up! Now, if we don’t change clothes for the rest of our lives I am good. No one would be able to stand being near us, but I would still be caught up on the laundry. Ha!
Clothes get dirty and that is just a fact of life. They need to be washed, dried, folded and put away. Getting over the fact that a family of 7 produces a lot of laundry was half the battle. Working on it a load or two at a time is what is winning the laundry war.
Week 9: Spend 10 minutes decluttering.
Spending 10 minutes each day picking up and putting things away goes a long way towards avoiding having to crisis clean before company arrives.
I have always had a bad habit of filling every flat surface with clutter (usually of the paper variety). I’m working on it and it is getting better. This is still a work in progress, but spending just a few minutes a day is helping.
Week 10: What’s for dinner. AKA: Meal Planning
I go through spurts of planning my meals for weeks and then just winging it. Thankfully, I always have something in the pantry or freezer I can cook. That doesn’t mean we eat lots of frozen dinners, though. I cook mostly from scratch. Plus, we live too far from any restaurants to eat out all of the time. Once a month is usually the most we eat out, if that.
So, while I am pretty good about keeping our food expenses down, I could still do a better job of planning ahead. For example, tonight I was sure I still had some browned burger in the freezer to make spaghetti. I was wrong, but was able to make a quick recovery by thawing out some turkey (already cooked) and making a turkey and rice dish.
Week 11: Focus on family and enjoy the holidays.
We had a great Christmas and New Year’s. I thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent with family and friends. We were able to have some friends over last Tuesday evening and ended up with 26 people here. It was so much fun, and I hope we can host more gatherings in the near future.
My family is a priority every day, so I haven’t felt the need to add something to my checklist about it. My family is the reason I started this series in the first place. They are always my focus and I don’t ever want to take them for granted.
Drink 8 (8 oz.) Glasses of Water
During week 4 I started drinking one 8 ounce glass of water each day. I added one glass of water each week. This meant that last week I was drinking a total of 64 ounces of water each day. I am happy to report that for the first time ever, I have been drinking the recommended amount of water. Slow and steady was definitely the way to go for me.
New Weekly Printable Checklist
This week I am back to blogging and trying to decide what I hope to accomplish in 2012. I have created a new weekly checklist to start the year. My others were quite plain, so I decided to make this one colorful. I am going to try it out this week and make changes as necessary. I have left a few blanks for additional daily goals and weekly goals.
My husband, who teaches graphic design, did help me with the water glasses. I usually try to figure these things out on my own, but sometimes it is nice to get help from someone who knows what they are doing. If I were one of his students there were a few things he would have had me change, but since he loves me he was kind. 
If you wish to print out a copy for yourself just click the picture below. It will print fine in black and white if that is the only printer you have.
Please let me know if you followed along with me through this series. Did you try to accomplish the goals I set or did you make your own? I would love to hear from you.
