My Antidote to Discouragement & UK Fellowship Friday
A couple of weeks ago I realised that I was getting discouraged almost every day, which in turn made me feel even more down! The reason being that I kept failing to get done even half of what I wanted to do. I think the biggest discouraging thing to me is that the house seems to be in a permanent state of messiness and it’s so hard to find the time to declutter!
During our time away in Holland I took the K.I.S.S. Guide to Organizing Your Life with me to read. There was a wonderful statement in there that has really helped me.
That is so freeing to me, to realise I CAN’T get it all done, but I can get some of it done – the most important things. And really that is what matters.
Since my son turned 6 and I have started homeschooling in earnest I have been struggling with managing my time and fitting everything into my day, keeping the house more or less tidy, the laundry done, the meals cooked on time etc.
But what I’ve realised is that while it is good to have those goals, it’s not that big a deal if the breakfast dishes don’t get done till lunchtime, the laundry stays in the washing machine over night, and there is an obstacle course of toys on the floor when a visitor arrives. Because there may be more important things that need to be done at that time!
Elisabeth Elliot said that we might not be able to get everything done, but we can get God’s will done each day. Sometimes when I’m feeling temperamental I think, “But how do you know what is God’s will?”!
I think the first step to knowing that is to be grounded in the word of God and prayer, so that we know what God desires, and what is important to Him.
Then practically the thing that helps me the most (also from the K.I.S.S. book) is to write down a list of all the things I have to or want to do the next day and assign them priorities – A for very important, B for important, and C for not so important. Then go through the As and number them in order of priority, then the Bs and then the Cs, and try and work through them in more or less that order.
I never get them all done, but I get less sidetracked, and I can go to sleep confident that I got the most important things done 🙂
Also there is an option to ‘Get code’ which means that if you paste the code into your own blog you can display the blog hop there. If you do this I would appreciate it if you could copy and paste the first sentence above that explains the blog hop, or just explain it yourself, so that your readers can know what it is about and whether to join in or not.
