Preparing for my day
Posted by: TammySo many mornings I begin my day with a cup of steaming coffee in hand and piece of scrap paper and a sharp pencil (I’m a bit picky about it being sharp ). I am making my “to-do” list.
Part of my list building/making came about when I became a full-time mom and was struggling to accept my new role and struggling with the feeling that I never accomplished anything in the course of the day. Of course those feelings were misplaced! Taking care of a 3 year old, a newborn and having a 5 year old in school should have been accomplishment enough but being new to full-time at home mothership, I needed more. Thus began list building.
Maybe my early list buildings were more of a personal, albeit abbreviated journal. At day’s end, it felt good to see what I had done. I made sure to include nursing and diapering the baby, playing and reading with my 3 year old; those were accomplishments! Not everything I did were house-keeping, cleaning type chores. I was doing God’s work as a mom.
My lists are similar now but I tend to write down things I want/need to do ahead of time versus jotting down what I managed to do previously during the day. My mother jokes that I must be getting old if I can’t remember what I need to do but in reality, there are days that I have so much to do that I it’s easy lose track of what I needed to do that day. Sometimes the things I want to do aren’t big and obvious either, like reorganizing under a sink. It’s an out of sight, out of mind thing. Having it written down helps me remember what I only think about doing when I can’t find something under the sink!
It’s still nice to see things checked off of my list at night. I don’t need to find satisfaction in a checked off list the same way I did when I first became a full-time SAHM as I’ve come to realize that God sees my accomplishments in the day and they are deeper than just cleaning the kitchen. I do like making the most of everyday He gives me and I guess my list-making does help me accomplish that.
- Tags: list making, organizing, SAHM, satisfaction