Planning Day

Back last fall I decided that I really needed to sit down once a quarter and plan out home projects and "me" projects.  "Me" projects would be sewing, crafting and such.  I should have had a planning day back in April, but never did get around to it.  Now it is the end of July and I am finding our household becoming disorganized.  Time for a planning day. 

Yesterday I was going to sit down in the afternoon and get out a big calendar and start working on a plan, but the dust bunnies were making so much noise I found it hard to sit and make a strategy for the rest of the summer.  A nice vacuuming, washing of the throw rugs and tidying up the kitchen made me feel better, but then it was time for dinner.  So planning went out the door yesterday.

This summer the weather here in Iowa has been typical Iowa.  If you don't like it, wait and it will change.  We have experienced a lot of rain and a lot of heat.  When the heat index is at 100 degrees I don't feel like I want to go outside and paint the house.  You can't paint the exterior of a house when it is raining all the time either.  So, painting the house is being moved to early fall. 

Today and tomorrow I am spending time at the diningroom table planning out all of my projects over the next year.  My youngest son graduates from high school next year and I have a lot of home projects that I want completed by then.  The bulk of those projects are being done by me.  I purchased a large desk calendar (17 x 20 inches) that I plan to write on in pencil and plan out monthly projects over the next year.  This will be posted on the side of the fridge.  The frugal side of me stood at Wal-mart and contemplated if this 18 month calendar was worth $4.00.  I liked the size and since I can't print anything that big, I bought it. 

In March I made a list of all of the home projects I wanted to accomplish.  Albeit, a lot of these will be done over the next 10 years.  I made a list of interior and exterior jobs and then I broke them down into categories of hiring out (such as a new roof) and DIY ones.  Then I marked off the DIY projects that I wanted to accomplish by the summer of 2011.  I looked that list over one more time and made a note of those that were the basic projects that had to be done by next summer. 

There are a lot of DIY projects and some of those types of projects I have never done before which means I need to allot some research time.  Research time is beneficial for many reasons such as:  it lets you know if you really can do the project or if you really need to hire it out; budget for the supplies you will need to plan to purchase and you get your questions answered before you take a sledge hammer to a project.

None of this planning will be written in stone.  Stuff happens and things get delayed, but having a plan and seeing the big picture helps me stay on track and get more things done as opposed to not having any plan at all.  Also putting things on paper helps to relieve the frustration of trying to remember everything that needs to be done. For example, many times I have thought that when I have a free hour I should work on something but by the time I get supplies together and such, the time is gone.  Having a list of projects that have a time frame on them such as 1/2 day project, 1 hour project and such will help me be able to work on those projects when I have the extra time. 

This weekend I will also be planning my day to day household chores.  I need to have a better schedule for getting things done.  My plan is to sit down every Sunday evening and look over what is scheduled for the upcoming week, make a menu for the week and look at what housekeeping chores need to be done each day to maintain our house.  Then I will review what house projects need to be scheduled in for the week.  My goal is that while I am working on painting the house, as an example, I want to make sure our household is running somewhat smoothly with meals being prepared, laundry being done and the house being relatively clean and organized.  Nothing is more frustrating to me than to be outside working and to come inside to a messy and disorganized house and nothing ready for supper.  It doesn't work for me.  It creates chaos and I don't like chaos. 

Except for a couple loads of laundry and a few meals to be prepared this weekend, I will being doing a lot of planning.  I have been looking forward to this all week as I know that in the end it will help alleviate my frustration and leave me with a plan for getting things done.