New Year's Revelations

On the eve of this new year, I found myself filled with more hope than I can remember in other years.  I can't say it's because there is anything monumental that I'm anticipating this year, or that the former year has been absolutely awesome and that things will continuously improve.  Actually, this last year was kind of rough with a lot of changes and scares.  But, as this year dawned, I was filled with excitement and hope.

For a lot of people, this is a time to set resolution that by and large are forgotten by this time in the year.  However, it's a time for me to set goals with specific deadlines of things that I want to accomplish throughout the year.  Even at this point in the year, I keep thinking of how to improve my year.  In that process, I've come up with some revelations on how to improve.

I find that one task regularly appears on my to-do list: clean up my messes.  It tends to be the thing that annoys me most about myself.  I have what I call a habit of convenience.  When i get ready for bed at night, I take my jewelry or glasses off and lay them on the dresser.  I figure I'll deal with it later, or sometimes I keep my socks on until I get right in bed so my feet don't get cold, and I lay them on my nightstand.  I think that in the morning I will take them to the hamper, but a week later there's a mountain of socks on the nightstand.  My favorite it when I come in from the garage and start setting things down as I make my way through the house.  I throw my purse on the bar, mail on the counter, Bible on the table, and - in the winter - gloves, scarf, coat on the table.  Then, as I cook dinner or eat breakfast, I have to shuffle things around to make room.  It makes me crazy!  

But I had a revelation the other day as I stared down my sock pile as if it was going to move itself to the hamper.  When I make these piles, they are only steps from where they belong.  If I would just take the time to take a couple extra steps, I could avoid my clutter and save my time.  What I think at the rime is a habit of convenience is actually costing me time as I have to go back and straighten it up.  With that said, my goal for the year is to make a habit of giving up my perceived convenience in order to save time and keep the house free of clutter.

I won't lie, this is going to take an intentional effort on my behalf.

This brings me to my second revelation.  I am a list maker, an organizer, and task oriented.  I make a plan to get something done and I would love to be as efficient as possible.  I try to make the most of the little time I have so that I can be as successful as possible.  Unfortunately, I am also really great at wasting time on social media, tv, or just twiddling my thumbs.  I just it because "I've gotten a lot accomplished, and I deserve a break."  I need to be better at managing my time. Yes, I do need to take brain breaks, but I can't camp there.  I need to not let social media waste my time; I need to use it for the tool it is and to connect, but not to escape.  I need to manage my time effectively, and be willing to say no to time wasters if I am going to accomplish my goals.  Nobody is going to hand me my dreams, so I have to hustle to achieve them, and I only have so much time.  Time is too valuable to be wasted.  

My hope is that at the end of this year, as 2018 dawns, I will see how much I have accomplished and how much time I have recovered.  I will have less clutter around the house and not have to clean so much, and I will have logged less distraction time.  The recovered time will be invested in eternal things.

Instead of New Year's Resolutions, I have a New Year's Revelation:  If I will give up convenience and comfort, I will recover time that I can invest eternally.  Time invested in eternal things is never wasted.