Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Organizing Tips Following this Disclaimer!!!

Lately, I have had a few friends ask me to help them organize. As I wrote in my previous post, I long to do this "on the side" later in life but for now it is just a hobby. Last week I started helping a friend here organize her house. The morning we started I woke up so incredibly energized. I love to see order come from chaos. (that was a general statement about organizing not at all intended toward your house my friend :)) As we have continued to work on it I have been so refreshed. I love it...Really!! God has definitely said not now as a job but I thought that I might use this blog to encourage and spur my faithful readers on to organize and give them tips along the way. Being organized so helps me have the energy, resources and time to woo my flock....to love my family, to think for them, pray for them and serve them. I want to start with a disclaimer.....perfection is not even around the corner for me (unless of course God takes me home quicker than expected :)). I have learned that I am by nature an all or nothing person. This does not suit well at all with being anything but perfect. Most days I am not all and for a very long time I have struggled with feeling like those days I am nothing and therefor I do nothing. In the last few months after countless conversations with John about this struggle I am learning that living like this is not fulfilling so here is where I have landed regarding this all or nothingness (is that a word???) : God has given me the ability to organize and simplify my life quite easily. I want to choose to work towards doing this in every nook and cranny of my life so that there is less of me to make room for more of Him. I want to set up these "systems" in order to make day to day life easy and even some parts of it thoughtless so that I can spend my brain energy on more important things. As I do this I am learning to remind myself that it is a system that I am committed to but not one that I am ruled by- therefore it will not be the determiner of my success or failure for that day or week. This "thought process" has been so helpful for me in the past few months and has been greatly put to the test with my 9 weeks of sickness. I am learning that it is there waiting to be used but I am not a failure for not using it this week or the last nine for that matter.
I really love this gift that God has given me and I want to share it with you if you are interested. Of course I may not be able to be there in person but I will walk you through some of my thoughts on the process of organizing, how to organize specific rooms, how I plan meals, my weekly schedule, cleaning schedule, and so on. I am excited!!! More to come soon.


2 comments:

Duane and Kim said...

You should check out that website I was trying to tell you about the other day - emealz.com. I love it!

Kristin said...

I am so excited, too! I'll definitely be a faithful reader, Amy! I LOVE to be organized, as well, and I'm always looking for new tips. My house is organized into pretty good systems, but I am still struggling in Meal Planning 101... I don't know if you remember me begging you for meal planning advice in Pensacola, but I can still clearly remember the desperation in my soul as I stood at your counter in the kitchen and asked you for help! (With your little chart on your refrigerator, needless to say...)

Thanks for sharing your thought processes on how you're understanding and using this gift of yours. That was really good for me to hear.

I am soooooooooo looking forward to your posts to come...!!! You know, you could use this to begin writing a book...