Last week I posted the 12 week challenge to create real and lasting change in your life. Thanks to those of you who took the challenge! I’m so excited to hear about your successes later this summer! How are things coming along so far? Hope great …
So I’ve been dragging my feet a bit … deciding what to commit to and I’m at last ready. There are two things I am going public with. The first … and oh if you could have just felt the feeling of panic I had as I got ready to type this … purge my college text books and notebooks by August 22nd. Now I’m not going to purge everything. It occurred to me today that there are some really important papers I wrote for a creative writing class my senior year. It was a very pivotal year in my life … maybe that’s why I’ve been holding on to these books? I must find them and put them somewhere safe. So to make this measurable I am committing to keeping five or less text books, only the important papers, and a few notebooks (no more than three for posterity sake … the doodling is so telling about what was going on in my life and mind then.) Alright … I’ve said it. Now I will make it be.
Second thing … implement a workable chore system for my kids by August 21st, and consistently follow through. Workable seems a bit vague so I’ll expand. It will be easy to follow, even for my daughter who isn’t reading yet. I will consistently follow through on making sure it gets done and reward them appropriately. (Need to decide on an allowance system.) We’re currently in negotiation about what chores should be for pay and which ones are simply things we do because we’re part of a family. Goal here is to get buy-in at the onset. Any one chartered this territory successfully already? I’m open to advice because I’m on a time line, don’t ya know. Gotta have this baby figured out and fully implemented by August 22nd … just in time for kindergarten. Holy smokes.
Two more quick thoughts … it’s late so I hope this is making sense. None-the-less, here’s more potentially incoherent thoughts. I wonder if you find it interesting that I have things that are hard for me to part with. I do. It’s much easier for me to figure out why it’s hard to part with things for my clients than for myself … but regardless, the important thing is to know that most people have something that is tough to part with.
Do you have to part with these tough-to-let-go-of-things? Not if you’re working with me. I say keep what makes you happy. My philosophy is this. Does it hurt more to keep it or to let it go? If keeping something has you holding onto the past or stuck … then working towards letting it go is important. For me … the college text books are just taking up space. Not really hurting anything but by no means helping a thing. It’s just time to let them go. Because I have another philosophy … keep what you use, need and love. I simply can’t claim any of those for my economics text book, or my packaging book, or the fiber board handbook (yes it’s a real book – and even scarier, I’ve read it), can I? Alright … I think I’m talking myself into it .. .this could be easier than I thought.
Want to join in?
Alrighty, I’ll join you on the chore chart for my kids (6 and 4). Only I’m going to change the dates a bit. They are going to grandma’s house this Friday and will be back the 19th. By then, I *will* have a system created. I will use the summer to tweek it with them so we’re in a good place for the school year so it will be finalized by August 1. 🙂
We did do something with my daughter at the start of Kindergarten last fall that worked pretty well. I hear the baby crying so I’ll be back later today to give you the details.
Thanks for the push! 🙂
A week behind, but I am ready to commit.
This is just the sort of thing I needed to get motivated to complete this album. This album that was supposed to take no time at all, but has drug on now for eight months.
It’s practically finished, so my goal is completion by Aug 21st!
Thanks!
Back for a few details…
We used a point system where a list of tasks were worth one or two points. The list included hygiene, chores and academic things. Each day her goal was to get 20 points. I believe if she did everything on her list she could earn 26 points but that didn’t happen often. At the end of the week, she was rewarded with an allowance based on the number of points she earned for the week. $1 for 140 points, $2 for 150 and $3 for 160.
I also had a “good behavior/good helper” discretionary category so I could reward her for doing something above and beyond her list.
It worked really well! She is truly motivated by the points (even more than by the money) so she would often do something and then ask if that was worth a point. LOL
The only reason we stopped was because I was pregnant and spent 2 months on bedrest. My mom was here helping but our routines were so different. I really think that this is the direction I want to go again with her and I think my son is ready to start a modified version. He IS motivated by money so it probably will work for him too.
OK, so I didn’t keep this short, but that’s the gist of our plan. Just typing that out has got me excited to get started with it again. Thanks so much for the motivation to get going!!
Good luck on your plan. Please feel free to email if you want to see our list.
I have been thinking LONG and hard about what I wanted to do for this challenge (so long in fact that I am late posting this) but the funny thing is that I came up with the same things that you have.
I have years worth of college text books – books I haven’t even looked at in years, books that wouldn’t really be relevant to me now that I’m hanging onto.
and the chore chart thing is a big MUST…
Here’s to August 22nd!