Disorganized was simply not in my vocabulary. I never imagined I could ever be a disorganized mess.
I’m not saying I didn’t have piles, but they were organized piles. I was never disorganized to the point that I didn’t know where things were or what needed to be done. Then Covid came and my life will never be the same.
I once prided myself on being organized. I kept the house tidy by implementing a daily schedule. I kept my desk at work organized with a filing system. And I kept my email inbox empty by using the one-touch method. Keep your eyes peeled for more details on how the one-touch method works for me. Covid-19 hit and I knew my organizational game was strong.
There was no way that remote learning would mess with that. And it didn’t. I’m not writing this to brag, but I still maintained my organization even while doing my professional work while at home with the kids and making sure they stayed up to date on their schoolwork.
Summer was just as organized, and I knew that if school wasn’t going to return to in-person learning in September, we’d be ok. I had this.
Then the pandemic caught up with me and ruined my spreadsheets, laminated checklists, and my, “keep things simple” organizational habits. I like to have a rolling list of projects, and things that need to be done along with our family schedule. This helped me to keep our lives simple and feel organized.
Suddenly, mid-August hit, and my organization hit a brick wall hard and fast. I became the most disorganized version of myself. Far past recognition. I used to have methods! Now I have piles and stacks!
You see, lately, I’ve turned into a crumbling pile of mush.
I am unable to organize myself, let alone organize things for my kids, my husband, and my life outside my house. I am suffering from pandemic fatigue in the worst ways and I feel like my life is a disorganized mess because of so many reasons! I long for my prior level of organization because sometimes this pandemic world seems so out of control.
I’m forgetful.
Writing this post for all of you is proof of that. I began the post a week ago, starting with nice detailed bullet points. Then forgot I even began the post. A couple of days later, I started it all over again. Then when I discovered the original and combined the two, I forgot to come back to finish the writing for at least 3 days. I’m just overwhelmed by the length of my to-do list, and it never seems to ease off.
Don’t even get me started on how often I’m restarting the washing machine because I forgot to move the clean and wet laundry to the dryer and it now has that damn musty odor from sitting too long.
I’m scatterbrained.
At work, I find that I constantly lose my train of thought. I also find that I forget mid-sentence what I was even speaking about. Or wonder if I stopped listening because I’m not actually sure.
I’m tired.
All the time. I don’t know if the weight of everything going on has caused me to be disorganized, but it is all leading to pure exhaustion. It is catching up to me like I’m sure it has for most. Living, working, remote-schooling, and parenting during a pandemic, social unrest, and during an election season is the hardest and most prolonged challenge I have faced as an adult.
I’m lazy.
Do you want to know how many times I have emptied the laundry basket on my bed in the last week to look for clothes, only to then put everything back in that basket at night? 6 TIMES. The basket is almost completely depleted now and what is left is too wrinkly to pull off as acceptable. Though the wrinkles may really reflect my disorganized self and seal the deal for how I’m feeling. I try to remember that I’m doing my best but it’s not always easy when all I can see is my own disorganized mess.
Right now I’m focusing on how to not be disorganized.
It is going to be a baby steps process back to my original organized self.
I wrote this with the worry that I was letting things slide by being disorganized. The truth of it though is that I’ve found how realistic the idea of minimalism (or at least my version of minimalism) is. Even though I’ve claimed how disorganized I’ve become, I can’t stress enough how happy I am.
My family is happy, healthy, and we are all surviving even without my crazy laminated spreadsheets.
I relate to this so much, right down to ALSO having a load of laundry I keep tossing on my bed thinking that will make me fold it and then tossing it back in the basket. I work from home and have for six years. I think a lot of it is all the input of info. Incoming texts, work emails, personal emails from the schools for the remote learners, both my kids asking questions, needing to enter a grocery order online because I have the kids with me and don’t want to take them into the store. I miss my quiet days at home. I love seeing so much of what the kids are learning but it’s overwhelming to do it ALL AT ONCE. Hang in there Mama, you’ve got this.