I’m inside trying to work, feeling completely overwhelmed, and like there just are not enough hours in the day, when from outside comes a TERRIBLE RUCKUS!

That old man of mine (of the husband variety) is BANGING on the bricks of the house!  And then he is DRILLING into the bricks of the house!  And yes, I am speaking of the wall that is right outside my desk.  Loverly!

And then there is some more odd BANGING!  And the dog, who was peacefully resting at my feet, is nervously pacing around directly behind my chair.  (Yes, he is a 120 pound scaredy cat - go ahead, laugh - we can take it!  Right, Puppy?)

There is no telling what that man is up to out there!  These are the joys and the pains of being married to a contractor - at any moment, some new project could be begun on your house.  He may come home with extra materials.  He may come into some ‘extra’ money.  He may have just had a really cool idea.

And then the banging, knocking, hammering, drilling will start - sometimes at the most innoppurtune times.  Like when I have so much to do today, and not enough hours to do it.  The RUCKUS is really not exactly beneficial.

I have just absolutely got to get more organized, and even more importantly, more focused.  You know, Wendy Piersall does a really cool thing on Mondays on her eMomsAtHome blog.  She calls it Monday Motivation.  She lists a few things that she really needs to get done that day, and then she gives herself a consequence if they are not done by the end of the day.  And then, she, of course - reports back to her readers about her success or failure to finish the list.  One of the consequences she gives herself is to not have coffee for a week.  Oh my gosh!  And she really, actually follows through with it!  She was even out of town once and had to go without coffee and it was really hard!

Most of the time, though, I think - she is successful.  I guess it just takes a time or two of an awful consequence like no coffee for a week to get you straight!

Anyway, I did it with her the first week she did it, and I got my list finished.  Whew!  I don’t remember what my consequence was, though.

So I was thinking, I wonder if I do that with her on Mondays, and then maybe also on Wednesdays and Fridays, if that would help get me to where I need to be.  I would just do the extra days for a little while, so that I could get myself in a good, organized frame of mind.  I want to do this, because, right now I am thinking that I need to give something up - a blog or two, or something.  And I don’t want to give anything up, nor do I feel that I can give anything up.  Well, I did decide to really back off from doing ChaCha.  That is not much, since I wasn’t doing it very much anyway.  But as long as it’s not hanging over my head, like all the little details of my WAHM life have seemed to become - that is a good thing.

So just picture me with about ten or fifteen black clouds over my head.  I got rid of one, and some of them are turning grey…

And hopefully soon, I will get this thing called ‘working full time+’ under a little more order.

Oh, and I finally realized what the old man of mine is doing out there.  He is hanging up the cedar shutters he made on the side window.  They are really beautiful - he is definitely an artist at his trade.

Ok, I’m off to try to complete a few more tasks before I just get way too sleepy to do any more!

Thank God! It’s like a breath of fresh air! Every now and again, my email box gets so cluttered up and I get so behind, that it is just overwhelming! And it has been that way for a few weeks now, and it’s been driving me crazy.

So I just sat down yesterday afternoon and went after them with a vengeance! Do you find this happening to your email box, too?

I am a packrat, by nature, and that carries into my online life, as well. Or, I should say, it carries into my computer life, as well. My documents and my pictures get pretty messed up, too!

So when I get a chance to clean things out and get more on top of things, I feel so much better!

One thing that I have found very difficult, as an entrepeneur, is staying organized. I am always getting to where my desk is a mess or my office is a mess or my computer stuff is a mess. And I also often bite off more than I can chew work-wise, because, it all just sounds so good or inspiring or like it’s just going to be a great money-maker.

So that is definitely one of the challenges that I face as a work-at-home-mom, or entrepreneur. I find myself in a ‘mess’ way more often than I like to think about.

I know staying organized can only benefit me and my business, and my children, too. It benefits my children, because, when I am more organized, my work days are shorter.

I’m going to try to remember how good this feeling of having my emails cleaned out feels - so that I can inspire myself to keep it together!