Streamlining: a personal theme for 2013

I’m excited about my themes for this year.  I was actually inspired by Chris Brogan and his 3 Words approach to opt for themes as my focus for 2013, as opposed to random resolutions and the idea really resonated with me.  Perhaps it’s the event planner in me and my inherent love of themes for everything from a family reunion to a brunch, but I immediately decided on two themes that will carry me through the year.

Streamline.

This is a huge one for me.  My personality is such that when things are out of my control or haphazard, I become amazingly overwhelmed and stressed out.  Not good.  I realized over the past year that a great deal of my stress comes from not having efficient systems in place that govern the various aspects of my life.  My goal is to come up with streamlined systems for managing my family and home; my work life; and my personal life.  For the past few days, I’ve been compiling resources to help me in my journey – here are a few:

For My Home:

The Motivated Moms Chore Planner with Bible Reading {thanks to my sisterfriend Donne for gifting it to me!}

31 Days to Decluttering Your House by Good Housekeeping {simple, small steps to decluttering – just what I need}

Monthly Challenges with Jen @ IHeartOrganizing {her Home Office challenge begins next week and I’m so on it}

Our Family Command Center has been working well so my goal is to keep it up and find ways to make it even more useful (and attractive).

For My Work Life:

Taking Control of Email. It sounds so ridiculous, but email is a constant source of pressure and stress for me.  I have 3 email accounts that I check constantly and 2 email accounts that, praise God, Jazzy, the Blogalicious Operations Manager screens for me, and 1 account that forwards to one of my main ones.  Those 6 email accounts are spread between 3 different web-based email clients which means that I am always logging into different accounts and the calendars, folders, etc. are different and not synced and IT’S. A. NIGHTMARE.

When I switched from PC to Mac in 2010, I tried to find an Outlook proxy and used Entourage for a minute but it was always crashing and buggy, so I abandoned it and have been logging into webmail clients ever since.  I just got a tip from my bloggy bestie Amy @ TeachMama and she suggested that I check out Thunderbird.  Also, Jyl @ MomItForward recommended Mailstrom.co for cleaning out your inbox.  I’ve already unsubscribed to a ton of junk newsletters and have committed to replying to all emails that I can as soon as I ready them — Gmail has gotten me in a terrible habit of ‘starring’ items to come back to later and I’ve been starring my heart out, even if the email only requires a “Sounds good!” reply.  It’s usually because I’m ‘triaging’ email on my iPhone and it just feels easier to star it to come back to when I’m on my laptop but it ends up biting me in the butt.

Creating Business Systems. This one applies most to Blogalicious, but I imagine my other business would benefit from this as well.  The funny thing about Blogalicious is that, because it was dreamed up on a whim, it’s kind of been operating with that mentality for the past 4 years and, well, it’s time to be more intentional and streamlined about things.  I’ve been talking to Jessica at Room to Breathe about how we can make that happen.

Mapping Out a Strategic 6-Month Plan. There’s something comforting about having a plan.  Back in November I started a 6-Month Plan for Justice Fergie Lifestyle Media that includes all of my scheduled and anticipated projects through May.  Not only was it helpful in guiding what activities I would spend my time and energy on, it has already helped me to see just how much I have going on and given me the chance to prioritize.  I’ve got 4 major JLFM projects for January, which I didn’t even realize until I put it all on paper.

For My Personal Life:

Waking Up Earlier. As hard as I’ve tried (and trust me, I’ve tried), there’s just no way around this one.  I hate waking up before 7am and as a result, I’m always rushing and stressed in the mornings – and it turn, so are my family members.  My day gets off on the wrong foot and it’s hard to regain my center after that.  Of course of the flip side, this means going to bed earlier so that I am getting enough sleep.  But I think the pros will outweigh the cons in the long run.

Settling Into a Church Home.  This one’s on my Life List!  I’ve been on a journey to find a church for my family that fits us.  Since moving to the DC Area in 1999, I’ve thought I found the right one 3 different times; but as time passes and our family changes, I find myself looking for a new place of worship.  Just before the holidays the kids and I visited a new church and we really liked it. We went back today and I’m optimistic!

I’ll be sharing my progress in meeting my Streamlining goals as the weeks progress.  Next up, I’ll share what my Whole Living theme is all about.

If you had a theme for 2013, what would it be?