Getting Things Done

I survived the weekend!

In preparation for Saturday's party, I was on my feet Friday from the second I woke up until close to midnight. I got a FitBit the week prior and it's kind of sad to know that I've already likely hit my lifetime high: nearly 17,000 steps on Friday thanks to running between floors and cleaning like a maniac.

But it was all worth it, and I'll post some party pics on Baba G and Me later this week.

As I mentioned, one of the biggest pre-party/pre-vistor stressors was the painting project I decided to have done in the two days before my relatives arrived, like a genius. But that, too, worked out beautifully.

Here's what my office cubby looked like before:

And here it is now:

I am beyond ecstatic about the upgrade. I mean, I spend the majority of my day, every weekday, sitting here. And while I've always been a big believer in the power of your surroundings to affect your mood and productivity, I let myself wallow in that complete mess for three years.

Which led me to wonder this weekend, "Why? WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG TO DO THIS?!?!"

I think it's like anything else I put off (which is a lot). There will always be a better, more convenient time. We're planning to rehab our entire house in the future, so I always figured it was stupid to spend money on anything that would eventually be totally redone. And even though we have a lot of visitors, no one really is ever staring at this little corner of the floor—except me.

But the reality is that we're not going to do any construction on our place for at least five years, possibly more. And between now and then I would have still been here every day, sulking about how crappy everything around me looks. Now I'm excited about it and proud of it and look forward to coming up here each morning.

Granted, by the time it hit somewhere around 10 p.m. on Friday night and there were still stacks and stacks of papers everywhere I kicked into "Just Hide It!" mode and now I have no idea where bills, tax documents and other important files are... but hey, it LOOKS nice and clean right now. My new project is to go through each drawer and cabinet and closet and find all of the stuff I hid and then actually take care of it right then and there and create a new filing-cabinet system in the process.

Because if there's anything this experience taught me—or reminded me, rather—it's that it just makes everything worse when you put things off. If I had simply kept this place clean on a daily basis by taking five minutes to straighten up at the end of each day or by doing things like washing guest towels and sheets immediately after people left, I wouldn't have been miserable on Friday by trying to cram and get everything ready before the latest round of visitors showed up.

So I'm taking my own advice for once and have loads of laundry in right now and will get our guest rooms ready TODAY for the five people we have coming to stay in less than a month.

Now wish me luck in finding all of my bills before they're due...

- e