Early Mornings

So at 10 AM I have already eaten, run, gotten dressed and read some of my favorite blogs. I think I'm getting back into the hang of getting up in the mornings. The end of December through January threw me off with my morning routine. It is rather difficult to keep your routine when you move, especially when you move into someone elses space.

But now I'm back. Spent most of yesterday getting ready for the next two months. My morning schedule is in my computer and is fixed so that every week it starts 30 minutes earlier. This should give me more time to workout and not rush in the morning and still be ready for the day. Eventually my whole routine will end at 8 AM, but for now, I'm fine with it starting later. I don't technically have anywhere to be before noon these days.

Getting ready yesterday also helped me realize how important it is to take the time to regroup every so many days. I got time to think through how much is really necessary and how much in my life is just excess. For instance, over the past few weeks I've realized that it is hard for me to focus sometimes because I have so much stuff and it is all in random places. Having no real system to anything keeps me from being able to find things when I need them. So I made a few lists (i love lists. index cards make the best lists keepers too). I figured two things that I need to keep track of are my stuff (tangible items) and my data (lists, computer files, internet bookmarks). Having only two categories made it seem like I could actually conquer the amount I had. After all, who wants to tackle 600 categories at once?

Anyways. I broke the stuff down into the types of stuff that I have, need and want based on when and where I use the stuff (kitchen stuff has nothing to do with bathroom stuff or hobby stuff). Then I made a spreadsheet (I know, I'm a real geek. I even know excel formulas to make it add on its own). Now I have a list of all of my stuff in one place. It includes how many of each thing I have and need to buy or get rid of. This should make getting rid of things easier. If I only need one or two of something and I have 50, it goes. No questions asked. It's like an automated donate/shopping list. I absolutely love it. I think I might make it prettier in the future, but for now it does the job.

The data is something I'm still working on. I think the real problem started when I first got an email address. We all had that little kid email name that we ditched as soon as we realized it wasn't professional and we needed another one with our name in it. Only problem was that I still have that first email address. And both of my email accounts had a bookmarks list, with different bookmarks, that I still use. Dilemma. And it only gets worse when you add the other bookmarks that are stored in my web browser. So I put them all in one place. It took forever (watching the olympics helped pass the time) but now they're all in one place so I don't have to keep trying to remember when and where I bookmarked that one page about the thing.

Today will be more spreadsheeting and getting rid of stuff. But at least now I have a plan. That helps so much. Maybe when I finish I'll post my lovely spreadsheet, to-do list, and bookmarks list. We'll see.