Tuesday, January 10, 2012

New Year's Resolutions and Bathrooms

Don't you hate it when you realise that you couldn't see the wood for the trees, and instead of being happy that you finally saw the trees, you are instead annoyed at yourself that it took so long for you to change your perspective so your could see the trees. And the smaller the change in perspective from before until now, the more annoyed you are with yourself.
It just hit me this afternoon how to summarise my New Year's Resolutions into something meaningful to me. I've been thinking about it few a couple of weeks and I knew I was close... I was in the forest, but I just couldn't distinguish one tree from the other. What was important and what wasn't, what did I want to commit to and what wasn't important enough to do it right now. I should have known that all I needed was a light-bulb moment in my usual light-bulb producing location... the bathroom!
Yes I know it is a bit weird, but the bathroom has always been my go-to location when I am struggling. I can remember being only 9 or 10 and coming to this realisation and since then it has always been true. If I am stuck on a problem, struggling for inspiration, questioning the best path or the optimal solution I don't "Go to the mattresses" a la The Godfather... I go to the bathroom. Some how I can't see this being the inspiration for a movie, nor one of the more memorable lines that people will quote, but it works for me.


Moving right along...


This year my word is "Organisation". It is a common theme for a lot of people because it seems that wherever I look, everyone is talking about getting organised. Some people favour an intense go for broke, hell for leather, all in one month approach. Others, like myself, have a made a 12 month commitment to get organised. Personally I think the later is a more realistic. I know I can't devote such an intense amount of time to get organised... I have a life (believe it or not). The other reason I prefer my version is that realistically I don't expect myself, let alone my family to make such wholesale and dramatic changes to the habits we currently have and then stick to them if I make a whole lot of changes all at once. At least if I make smaller, more subtle changes, then I have a chance of some of them sticking and being followed by the family. I am a realist.
I wanted my New Year's Resolutions to reflect my commitment to getting organised this year as well as all the different aspects of my life that I am focusing on - Household, my business, my scrapping area and my studio. I also wanted to ensure there were some challenges built in in terms of my scrapping and crafting to make sure that this did not go by the way-side in deference to everything else I am trying to do.
There was one final thing I needed to do... make sure that whatever I came with was not so overwhelming that I would give up after a week and wouldn't stick out the whole year.
So here is the double page layout I've created to record my Resolutions for 2012. Once again I have gone for a simple colour scheme - black with one colour with a simple page style as well.


Each week I will:

  • create at least one meaningful scrapbooking layout
  • do one thing that inspires the organisation of our household
  • learn one new scrapbooking or crafting technique
  • do at least one thing that strengthens my business
  • create at least one card
  • do one thing that contributes to my personal development
  • do at least one thing that improves the organisation of my scrapping space and studio
  • make progress towards the completion of my monthly Off-The-Page project
Oh and can I just say... for a change I really love my handwriting on these pages LOL!!!!

2 comments:

Gypsy said...

With regards to thinking in the bathroom- me too! Your blog is looking good too by the way.

Carrie said...

Nice resolutions Paula. Precise, achievable and measurable.