Dividing work into weekly Zones

I know I keep talking about my new flylady keep-my-house tidy challenge, but I just have to tell you how I am applying it to work.

The saying is that your mess didn't get made in one day, so you shouldn't try to solve it overnight. Instead, concentrate on a different zone per week and do a little something every day starting from the top of the room to the bottom. Last week was the Master bedroom. Having a week to get a room in order is a hell of a lot less pressure than trying to do it in a couple of hours because you have company coming. And, it is much easier to keep it nice if you're working on it in 15-minute intervals on other days.

I decided to apply this to my work. Two weeks ago I spent the week making plans for my volunteers--each day I spent some time working with two other volunteers to create a manual that new trainees can consult when they have questions, etc. As we are only just starting to work outside of the panic zone, creating a document that can help us give more thorough training to our SVs (Sweet Volunteers) and provide a little reference feels really good. It is such a relief to plan for the future rather than constantly put out fires.

Last week was Intensive course planning. I spent some time each day scheduling, planning, and putting together a plan of attack for getting the word out, etc.

This week I am working on my contacts and fundraising. This means updating my mailing lists and getting my old contacts in one place. It's amazing how going through old weekly planners and putting those little notes and phone numbers onto an excel sheet can bring back the memories! I'm going to be doing some contact and friendship maintenance soon. There are some people I've worked with over the years that I would like to catch up with.

Next week I will go back to BUSY but at least I will have gotten my house in order and gotten a little internal organization going on.

My next step is to get back to exercise, which I have been neglecting like crazy over the last few months. Maybe that will be next week's zone.