So. I spent the past few days observing the many ways I find to procrastinate getting started on my downsizing project <smile> I am a procrastination pro. I'm embarrassed to admit it's been almost a year since I decided to work on sorting out our house after being down-sized at work. I have to laugh at myself, though, as I take notes on my varied ways of not doing.
Don't want to make a plan? I suddenly MUST get the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) vegetables cooked. Don't want to clean out a cupboard? Simply must do laundry right now. Don't want to come here and write about procrastinating??? Well...gotta check email and FaceBook first...or find a recipe...or, or, or...sucking me into endless surfing. Then there's the ever present temptation of TV, Netflix (I kind of regret learning how to stream using the Wii), the garden, books to read and, and, and...
Yet, in the back of my mind, in spite of myself, I'm making a plan. I'm trying to think and plan SMART, which stands for having goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time specific. (Google SMART criteria) I am quite sure I could manage to spend weeks writing up a detailed plan to procrastinate even more...I can apply the Transtheoretical Theory of Change or even my own theory of behavior change that I came up with for an assignment in a Health Behaviors course I took last semester...so many fun ways to think about doing instead of doing!!!
Therefore the first part of the plan is to just start anyway and keep it simple.
In general, the first step in making my life smaller so it can be bigger is decluttering the house one room at a time, starting with the easiest ones. If it's "easy" I'll be successful and can build on that success. At least that's the idea. Specifically, I'll sort into 4 categories: keep in the room, go to another room, donate, trash. Anything undecided goes into a box that gets donated after 6 mos or a year if stuff isn't used.
I need to treat this like another job so I'm committing to 2 hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (days I work part-time) and 4 hours on Tuesday & Thursday. Weekends for tasks or fun stuff that hubby and I can do together. This feels manageable.
Downstairs bathroom tomorrow.
