Finding time

So, I have been feeling a bit uninspiring and a bit unworthy of writing something that I think might help someone else.  Now that's not to say that I haven't had some major break throughs and made some major life changes.  I guess I am struggling with the fact that it's a bit embarrassing and I am a bit ashamed of some of the things that were "wrong" in my life.  Really a lot has happened since I last wrote a blog.  I have been struggling through making to-do lists and blocking out my time.  It's a love hate relationship.  You see the thing is, I used to make excuses for why I couldn't do this today and I would put off until tomorrow what I should have been doing today.  So I started doing to do lists and I found it incredible what I could get done in a day.  Then I stopped after three or four days because I realized that I had spent the last month to month and a half getting all the "stuff" done that needed doing in my life.  You know the "stuff" no one really enjoys doing.  We're talking deep cleaning the house, cleaning out all the closets and storage spaces in our house, the kitchen, the dressers, the whole nine yards.  I cleaned until I couldn't see straight for days. I have added more work outs.  I have added time with friends.  I have added and added and added things to my life and I have reached a point to where I have more time than things to do.  Nice problem, right?  Well not really.  It's a bittersweet thing.  I look back over the last two years and am filled with regret about what I should have been doing.  So that's something that I am having to deal with.  I have realized that I have been living a life without much purpose outside of these four walls.  Not that my life within these four walls doesn't have purpose.  I am raising two wonderful kids and getting to experience things with them by staying at home that many don't ever get to experience.  But I know that God is calling me to something bigger than that.  So I am in the middle of this journey to find what I can do to make an impact in this world.  How can I use my time to make a difference.  You see I used to give all this time to trying to do tasks perfectly.  I would spend two hours cleaning my floors, now I spend 30.  And no they are not as clean as they were when I spent two hours on them but they are cleaner than they were before I started and now I have an extra 1 1/2 hours that I can spend doing something different and bigger than sweeping and mopping floors.  I used to spend all day Monday picking up the house and doing 7 or 8 loads of laundry.  Now I just do laundry on the fly, a little bit every day and same goes with the picking up the house.  I do it as I go.  So there is a whole day now that I can dedicate to something different, something bigger than laundry and picking up.  You see, I have learned through my coaching with Lonnie that I used to use perfectionism as an excuse.  I used it as an excuse to do it later when I have enough time to do it perfect instead of doing it right now in the time that I have.  He introduced me to the "law" that tasks will expand to fill the time you allow then to.  He encouraged me to block out half the time that I thought it would take to do something and I found rather quickly that sometimes I could still get it done quicker.  So, the moral of this blog I guess is that if you find yourself not getting enough things done, I encourage you to make a to do list and block out time on your calendar of when you are going to do things. You will be amazed at how simply setting a schedule for yourself of what you are going to do and when you are going to do it can change how much time you have and how much you get done.  Try it for one week.  I can almost guarantee you that you will get more done than you ever thought possible.  Setting a schedule has changed me.  I schedule my wake up times, my work out times, my cleaning times, everything so now I don't lay in bed and think should I get up?  I don't walk around the house and think, what do I feel like doing?  I wake up look at the clock and see it's 5:00 and I get up.  I have a run scheduled or a task scheduled and I need to do it.  I look at the schedule and see it's time to clean the bathrooms and I do just that instead of standing there thinking, I need to clean the kitchen, but I don't really feel like it.  I do it regardless because if I don't do whatever it is I have scheduled, I won't feel like when I go to bed that night that I have given my best.  By following my schedule I know everyday that I have given my best because I sat down the night before and said to myself, what do I need to get done tomorrow in order to be successful?  And I put it on the schedule.  Now I will tell you there are days when my schedule gets off and there are days when I get done more than scheduled.  But even on my "off" days, I get WAY more done than I ever used to.  And now I have time to do something that can make a difference in this world.  I don't know exactly what that is yet but my heart and mind are open to finding ways to make an impact.