Over the last few days, as I looked over my goal list here, my to-do list on paper, and just plain looked around my home, I came to the realization that I have too many things that I’m trying to get done and not enough time in which to finish them all. Something has to change, and I honestly don’t know what it is yet. There’s meals, homeschooling, potty training, diaper changing, baths, online college classes, reading, blogging, running a design business, and on and on the list goes….

I was busy with blog projects last week (which I loved working on), but at the end of the week I had done almost nothing for my two online classes, which now puts me behind with school. Is it May yet?

I’m not sure what to do because I don’t feel like there is anything that I can completely give up for a long period of time. I feel stuck, but I know what I really need to do to get unstuck. I need to set some time aside and pray about what the Lord wants me to be doing right now and how I can better organize my days to get those things done in the most glorifying way possible. I need to pray, and that is what I will do this week.

Here’s what happened with last week’s goals:

Family/Mothering Goals:

1. Come up with a family activity for us to do for our Family Day on Friday. Done. We took the kids to Culver’s for lunch on my birthday. I used two coupons, and we all ate for $26 (with dessert). Pretty good for a family of seven (baby girl was not a part of the eating, though). We wanted to avoid a $50 meal out at a sit-down restaurant.

2. Cook with Breanna and Isaac for our “cooking days” together. Done. I made quick homemade cinnamon rolls with Breanna, completely from scratch with a great recipe! And Isaac and I made our family’s favorite BIG chocolate chip cookies.

Personal Goals:

3. Walk for 30 minutes 3 days this week and do strength training 2 days with my exercise band. Almost. I ended up walking for 2 days and worked out with the band twice as well.

4. Finish reading WordPress Web Design for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. I wish! I’m hoping to finish this book this week.

5. Wake up by 5:30am every morning. I’m come to the realization that this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Baby girl has been going to bed around 11-11:30pm for the night and that hinders my efforts to get up early. The last two days are showing some promise, though. Elisabeth has gone into a deep sleep a little earlier.

Home Management Goals:

6. Help Nathan and Breanna sort through their clothes and remove what doesn’t fit and can be donated. I’m also going to try to make up a couple of boxes for ThreadUp. Done, but I decided to forego the ThreadUP boxes and instead either donate the clothes or keep them as hand-me-downs in tightly sealed boxes.

7. Sew hole in Breanna’s pants since I didn’t get to this last week or the week before. Done.

Business Goals:

8. Post one blog post each day. I started well, but didn’t finish well on this one. Hoping this week will be better. I’ve planned my posts out. I just need to write them.

9. Implement regular Office Hours for both my business and blog time, and send emails I didn’t get to last week. Ha! Along with the realization that I won’t be getting up at 5:30am each morning because of baby girl’s sleep habits, I also need to rethink my Office Hours idea. I suppose if I take a look at things as they stand right now, the best time to have Office Hours would be from 9:30-11:30pm. Maybe I should try this? I did send most of the emails I needed to, but not all.

10. Create graphic I have in mind to use in future weekly posts. Done! I’m looking forward to sharing a new weekly feature with you soon.

This week’s goals…

Family/Mothering Goals:

1. Cook with David, our almost 3yr. old.

2. Write in the children’s baby books.

Personal Goals:

3. Walk for 30 minutes 3 days this week and do strength training 2 days with my exercise band.

4. Finish reading WordPress Web Design for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

5. Wake up by 8:00am every morning.

Home Management Goals:

6. Help the kids clean their closet.

7. Put away my coupons, so that I actually have them ready when I need them.

Business Goals:

8. Post one blog post each day.

9. Implement regular Office Hours for both my business and blog time, and send emails I didn’t get to last week. I guess I’m going to try the 9:30-11:30pm Office Hours this week.

10. Add more plugins for functionality to The Sensible Mom.

What are your goals for the week?

Last week, I’m reluctant to say, wasn’t the most productive week as far as my goals went.

The reason?

I still haven’t established “Office Hours” for when I need to get work done, both for my design clients and for my blog. So I ended up waking up pretty much whenever in the morning, and got work done during the day. This means that it sometimes took twice as long to get things done because of all the interruptions.

But now that the baby will be 6-weeks-old in a couple of days, one of my goals this week is going to be to earnestly work on making it a habit to get up before the kids and work during my Office Hours of 6am-8am & 9:30pm-10:30pm. I’ll let you know next week just how this works out.

Here’s how I did with last week’s goals…

Family/Mothering Goals:

1. Come up with a family activity for us to do for our Family Day on Friday. Done. We ended up keeping family time super simple last week. It consisted of donuts and Wheel of Fortune. In the last two-months, Breanna discovered Wheel of Fortune and fell in love with the show. She makes sure to watch it each day at 6:30pm. We decided to watch it as a family last Friday and had fun trying to figure out the puzzles before the contestants on T.V.

2. Cook with Breanna for our “cooking day” together. I didn’t get to this, but we’ll do it this week.

Personal Goals:

3. Walk for 30 minutes 4 days this week for exercise. I ended up walking for 3 days and didn’t make my goal of 4 days for 30 minutes.

4. Read Chapters 10-13 in WordPress Web Design for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. This is such a great book. I’m really expanding my knowledge of WordPress. But I didn’t finish all the chapters I wanted to read. I read chapters 10, 17, 18, and about half of chapter 11. I decided to start skipping around, because I needed a break from chapter 11. It has a lot more code references than the other chapters.

5. Wake up by 7:30am every morning. I wish! Elisabeth, our baby girl, is in a routine of going to bed around 11-11:30pm, which means I didn’t go to bed until around midnight or later. Not good. I got up by 7:30am, maybe one day last week.

Home Management Goals:

6. De-clutter the kids’ desk. Their desk is a clutter-magnet. Done. Something I actually did get to.

7. Sew hole in Breanna’s pants since I didn’t get to this last week. I didn’t get this done….two weeks in a row now.

Business Goals:

8. Write 1 Blog Post per day starting on Tuesday. Laugh. But I promise to get more posting done this week. I’ve already written out a schedule of posts that I want to write this week; I just need to carve out that time to write them.

9. Send emails to those on my to-do list. I got most done, but not all.

10. Create graphic I have in mind to use in future weekly posts. I didn’t get this done, either.

And now for this week’s goals….

Family/Mothering Goals:

1. Come up with a family activity for us to do for our Family Day on Friday.

2. Cook with Breanna and Isaac for our “cooking days” together.

Personal Goals:

3. Walk for 30 minutes 3 days this week and do strength training 2 days with my exercise band.

4. Finish reading WordPress Web Design for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

5. Wake up by 5:30am every morning.

Home Management Goals:

6. Help Nathan and Breanna sort through their clothes and remove what doesn’t fit and can be donated. I’m also going to try to make up a couple of boxes for ThreadUp.

7. Sew hole in Breanna’s pants since I didn’t get to this last week or the week before.

Business Goals:

8. Post one blog post each day.

9. Implement regular Office Hours for both my business and blog time, and send emails I didn’t get to last week.

10. Create graphic I have in mind to use in future weekly posts.