Managing Monday

Do you ever feel that life is flying by, out of control, and you just can't seem to get a grasp on it? Well lately, life seems to be running me rather than me running my own life. So....I am taking it back. And the first step is to manage my own time/schedule.

My daily routine is not routine in any way. (Par for the course for living in Kenya.)
Sometime I get stuck in a jam that delays me for hours (literally). Sometimes I don't.
Sometimes we have water in the house. Sometimes we don't.
Sometimes the babies all wake up happy. Sometimes they don't.
Sometimes I spend 5 hours driving in the car. Sometimes I don't.
Sometimes we have electricity. Sometimes we don't.
Sometimes the babies get sick and need to go to the clinic. Sometimes they don't.
Sometimes I get a portion of my to-do list done. Sometimes I don't.

What IS routine is the busyness of life, and its unpredictability.

If you want to know what I do on a daily basis....well, good luck. I would still like to know that sometimes myself! (You can look back on my July posts for a real daily log example.)

Things remain busy. Busy is fine if I am well organized and in control of the busyness. Busy is not so fine when it is controlling me and I am not being as productive as I should be...feeling like I am spinning my wheels. I know that I must be a good steward of the time God has given me and the gifts He has given me to be able to do my job.

The hard part of that is learning to say "no." If you ask any of my friends who see my life on a daily basis, that is the advice they have given me MANY times over the past month or so. I also must learn to say "yes" to time for myself.

So....I am managing my own schedule on this Monday - and subsequent Mondays - so that I can be a better manager of the ministry God has blessed me with.

So far today I have done management tasks like....
- talking with the girls about their "time away" hours,
- filling in the calendar with important dates & known appointments,
- writing the forms for 3-month evaluations,
- writing permanent employment forms,
- talking with my assistant about the future of one of the employees,
- going over the shopping list with the head girl, and
-completed last week's Expense Report & Petty Cash Report.

So far today I have practiced managing my own life by doing things I have put off, i.e.....
- organizing one more closet in my "apartment",
- putting away misc junk brought up from downstairs,
- replying to emails, and
- doing a few loads of laundry.

In my life right now, there is no such thing as a "weekend," no days off. Every day is the same and it is hard to tell when a weekend is here. I am making Monday a sort of "weekend." It may seem that I did a lot for a day "off," but let me just say that it actually felt like a day off to stay at home and do those things!

And now, it is 4:30pm and I am going to try to remember what it was like when I had a job that I left at the end of the day. I am going to go downstairs and play with the babies. Then, I think I will make dinner and watch TV - without doing some kind of work at the same time. Yes, that is just sit and watch TV! I may go for a walk. Or read a book. Hmmm. Calling it "a day" at 4:30pm??? What will this be like???