This year I want to get organised. And not just with the big stuff, with all the little details as well. But I suppose if I could get on top of the little stuff, the big stuff would follow. Control freakdom is creepy that way.

Now, my inner perfectionist may be dead, but my inner control freak never dies, she just lies (almost) dormant and often passes judgement on everything.My inner control freak is in league with my inner Virgo, who is often (and easily) enraged by the piles of washing, the undone dishes and the general lack of systems that make for a messy house and a messy mind.

While I wouldn’t necessarily want to live under their benevolent dictatorship, I think I could definitely benefit from at least a little control freakiness. The excuses challenges are these:

1) I live with a small hurricane of destruction (commonly known as a toddler) who rips into everything with a joyful abandon

2) I have too much going on (house painting, furniture re-organising, work, chores, toddler entertaining and sometimes I even have to take the time to feed myself so I should probably get on top of meal planning too – you do the math)

3) Anything resembling a rigid system doesn’t work because there are days when Riley literally needs me every waking minute (and some of the sleeping ones as well) and other days where she’s quite happy entertaining herself and will only grace me with her presence at meal times. And really isn’t that the whole idea of me being home in the first place? That on those days where she really needs some TLC I am there?

So you see? A little control freak would go along way. Only the control freak doesn’t do little, or flexible for that matter. She’s an all or nothing kind of girl. The Virgo totally gets her. The pragmatist in me thinks they’re both pretty delusional. But the control freak and the Virgo tend to think that the pragmatist has a standards problem.

The situation as it currently stands is: I have a few painted walls, and need a whole lot more if I ever want to get the floors done. I’ve made a good dent in my home office re-organisation and that just needs some fine tuning. House is clean, but in general disarray.

Before I had a few of the new demands I was able to do pretty much everything using the flylady system. I like the principle of it because it’s about developing good habits and doing things in 15 minute batches – which works great when you’ve got a little person to consider. But this was before home renovation and blogging. So I used to be able to spend a bit of time in the evening doing a few chores, whereas now I’m more likely to blog instead.

I’m great at budgeting. I think I should use the same system for my scheduling. So I’ll have to schedule in the non-negotiables: work, Riley and basic house cleaning and then figure out how much extra time that gives me for the other desperately needed but not absolutely necessary projects.

In an attempt to develop something resembling accountability one of my next posts will get specific about how I plan on doing this.

Control freak and Virgo are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect and shooting death stares at the Pragmatist, who seems to look vaguely ill.