Sorting it all out

Anyone who has known me for any length of time is probably familiar with my 'tidy-enough-house' dilemma. I like to be spontaneous when it comes to the kids' learning but the irony is that one can only be truly spontaneous when one has a rough idea of where things are, and that takes time and effort.  I've also noticed how my mood improves when the house is relatively tidy, and how muddled I feel when the house is in a more chaotic state. However, I just don't like housework. Perhaps I feel it's beneath me, or maybe it's just a hangover from my childhood when I had to follow someone else's agenda and timetable. I had a bit of an epic struggle this week with a small but very significant part of the house. I call it 'my area' (maybe I should change that to 'my space'!), and it's about six foot square with large windows looking out onto a lovely bit of the garden where the bird feeders are. Since we moved here two and a half years ago, it has gone through a few metamorphoses ranging from general dumping ground to depository for other people's stuff to 'this bit belongs to me - see? I've even got a storage unit (erected by me) to prove it'!!!

I had an external deadline to work to as we were having a new phone line put in and I just had to get it tidied, but when faced with the prospect of getting down to it I went into a kind of meltdown. It seemed to me to be the embodiment of a problem that's been getting worse and worse lately. I try to get things sorted, but when faced with what seems an uphill struggle I panic and freeze and feel totally overwhelmed by the task. I've been trying to sort the playroom (ie tidy, find a place for everything, throw away stuff we no longer need or use, gather stuff from around the house and put it where it should be) for the last 18 months. It just feels like such a mammoth task, and every time I get it sorted to a certain extent, life intervenes, I turn my back and it's all back to square one. I feel like Sisyphus some days.

 Well, with some emotional help from Gary I calmed down enough to make a start, but not before I'd retreated under my duvet to try and steady myself. I got stuck into it and the strange thing is that once I'd started to make a difference to all the piles, I actually began to enjoy it. It felt like a fog was lifting. Having the deadline both helped and hindered. It meant that I absolutely had to get it done, but it definitely contributed to the anxiety attack as well.

I never really know how to organise myself as there seems to be so much going on at once that it's hard to see what really needs doing and what can be left for a while. I did take on board something I read recently in a book called 'Undoing Depression' by Richard O'Connor. In it he talks about the difference between things being 'urgent' and 'important'. Too often we are governed by the tyranny of urgent tasks because they are in your face and demand your attention right now, but there are also important things, things that could really make a difference to your life, and even lessen the number of urgent tasks, but these important things keep getting pushed to the back of the queue by urgent tasks. I took from this that sometimes you have to risk the anxiety of ignoring the urgent tasks and actively decide to tackle the important ones. Like 'my area'. It's going to make a real difference now that I have a space to retreat to with a lot of my stuff around me, especially now that I have found homes for a lot of it.

Evne though I hate hearing myself saying 'Not now, darling' or 'Can't you see I'm busy?' I may just have to weather that for a while until I feel I have achieved more of the really important things in our life. Either that or take a leaf out of one home edding mother of six's book, whom I read about some years ago. She would get up at 4am apparently, so that she could get all the housework done before the kids got up, then she could devote her entire day to the kids learning. I certainly admire her, but I know for a fact I don't have that amount of stamina.