What Can You Get Done in 15 Minutes?

Yesterday I worked on my Project Life album. After only ten days into the new year, I’ve already seen lots of blog posts of what their first few pages look like...journal cards filled—out, pictures already in place and some with lots of embellishments to make them all look pretty. I have found some pins on pinterest as well and started my own board for Project Life. 

This is what mine looks like.

Not exactly like some of the ones I’ve seen posted. But I am caught up on my journal cards. What I try to do is sit down once a day, usually in the evening after the kids are in their rooms, and write my journal card. But sometimes life gets in the way and it doesn’t get done. That’s when my back-up plan comes into place. Every Monday, I set time aside to catch-up. With my camera by my side and my plan book open, I can write those journal cards pretty quickly. I still don’t have my pictures in the album. They won’t come until the end of the month. At the end of January, I will download all my pictures for the month to Shutterfly and when that bright orange envelope arrives in the mail, I will slide the pictures into place. Not all of my cards will stay exactly where they are now. Depending on how many pictures I have for a particular day, my cards may get moved around. Project Life can be different for different people. Some people take a picture a day. I try to do that, but I don’t always stick to it and that’s okay.  There are some days that I wouldn’t be able to stick to just one picture…Ryan’s birthday or Molly’s pictures from her own little picture project, for example.

I follow Gretchen Rubin’s blog, The Happiness Project. She has written about organization, using time more wisely, and getting things done and how it all relates to your happiness.

Some of her words that run through my head are:

People usually overestimate what they can get done in a day and underestimate what they can get done in 15 minutes.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a “to-do” list for the day and at the end of the day I am disappointed because I didn’t get everything done. It wasn’t because I wasn’t busy. It wasn’t because I wasn’t focused. It really was because I overestimated what I could get done in that day. We sometimes set ourselves up for failure. We think about all the things we didn’t do and not all the things we did get done that day.

Once a week, Gretchen Rubin posts a video on her blog. In 2011, she was focused on resolutions. Each week she would have a resolution suggestion. This year she is focusing on getting rid of those “pigeons of discontent,” kind of the opposite of the “bluebird of happiness.” What are those “little” things that weigh us down and then make us discontent? On yesterday’s post she talked about that overwhelming task of doing something with all those family pictures. She said if you do something for 15 minutes everyday (which equals an hour and 45 minutes by the end of the week) you will make a dent in whatever overwhelming task is before you.

Click here to see her blog.

People overestimate what they can get done in a day and underestimate what they can get done in 15 minutes. So if you take 15 minutes out of your day, everyday to do something with your family pictures, whether it’s scrapbooking, digital books, or Project Life, by the end of the year, you will have something that documents your family’s life.

It only takes 15 minutes.

A New Year's Resolution - What I Won't Say in 2012

When I was little I remember baking all sorts of different kinds of cookies at Christmas time with my mom. I remember scooting one of the kitchen chairs over to the counter to help add the ingredients into the bowl. I remember picking and choosing cookie cutters and trying to figure out how to get them all to fit onto the rolled out dough like a jigsaw puzzle.


The past few years I have not made any Christmas cookies. I could say that "I didn't have time" to bake. But I really hate that phrase. We are all guilty of saying it. Especially us moms. Our lives and schedules are so busy. There is so much that we want to do. I don't have time to bake...I don't have time to scrapbook...I don't have time for______ . You fill in the blank. But it is such a negative statement. If you think about it, we all get the same amount of time every single day. We all get 24 hours. We get to choose what we will do with that 24 hours. 


How did you choose to spend this first day of 2012. Did you take a nap or play a game with your kids? Did you take down Christmas decorations or watch a football game? Did you spend the day with friends or did you scrapbook? All choices. So instead of saying, "I didn't have time" to bake before Christmas, I say that I chose to be the room mom for Ryan's and Molly's classes and planned their holiday parties. I say that we chose to go to NY for Christmas and so I had to wrap and pack to get ready for our trip. 


I remember a while back getting together with a bunch of teacher friends. We started talking about scrapbooking. Some of us do it and others do not. The ones that do not, said that they "didn't have the time." Now they are working moms and so you might say that they don't have the time but as the conversation continued they said that they hated doing bulletin boards and that scrapbooking reminded them of those bulletin boards. They dreaded every month trying to come up with a new idea for them. So all those things that we "don't have time for" do we really not have the time or is the real question do we really want to be making that scrapbook, baking those cookies, organizing those closets? My friends that didn't scrapbook would probably not choose to scrapbook even if they had more time. 


So the next time you find yourself saying, "I don't have time for that" ask yourself if it is really something you want to do? If it is something your really want to do and enjoy doing then you need to choose to do that fun thing...whatever it is.


Before Christmas, I made different choices and did not choose to bake cookies. But I really enjoy doing it and so Molly and I made New Year cookies. At 11:42pm New Year's Eve Molly and I were in the kitchen rolling out cookie dough.

                                           This morning it was time to decorate.

These are suppose to look like melted snowmen. They don't look exactly like the picture we had but we had fun making them.

So in 2012, I am going to enhance my life by not saying, "I don't have time for that." It is either something I really didn't want to do in the first place or it is something that I need to choose to do because it brings me happiness.

This year Molly and I chose to make our cookies at 11:42pm on New Year's Eve. We just might have started a new tradition in the Nealon House. Another pearl was just added to the necklace of family memories.