Chronotebook

WOW!  Mine’s been ordered and is on the way.  God is good and I have learned over and over to trust him–where he leads, I follow, and when I give my chaos to Him HE orders it.

The last two years have been an intense search for order in the chaos that my life became with the pg and birth of twins.  My top three books, in this order as reading them in this order is what developed my understanding and plan, are:

Too Much Stuff: Decluttering your heart and home

Organizing From The Inside Out

and

Organizing For The Creative Mind

The last one was a HUGE eyeopener to me as I am SO right brained I actually prefer intuition as a basis for decisions over empirical data   And one of the things that really hit me was how I see life circularly, not linearly.  Now a whole nother post is how Hebraic thought is circular and horizontal while Greek thought is linear and chronological and all the issues I have with study in the church coming from a perspective not inherent in Scripture . . . but this is about organizing (though it’s also about chaos and I believe that is a big source of the chaos of doctrines that has resulted in thousands of denominations).

I learned about mind mapping–rather than lists this is the idea of putting your goal at the center of a page and then creating arms out of it the way your brain tells you to order them of the things needed to achieve that goal, and then the details of each of those things branches off of those things.  I created three mind maps–one for homelife, one for homeschooling, and one for pastoring and I was able to *see* how they integrated instead of feeling that they were always in competition for my time!

So I’ve wanted to figure out how to make, or find, a calendar that was circular.   I DO NOT view time linearly. NOT AT ALL.  I’ve learned how to use a daytimer so that I don’t forget things, but it DOES NOT organize me or my time.  And I’m sure there is a way to create this on the computer, but I do not have the computer skills to accomplish that either (in fact, if I were designing the Chronotebook the only change I’d make is that I’d put the 12 at the bottom and express that my day starts around 6 am with the highest energy and then “drains” as it goes down to noon and I have to muster the energy to move back up to 6pm after which my evening begins–and sleep is about *gaining* energy).

So I open up my final issue of Martha Stewart’s Living (since I didn’t renew it for another year) and I got the greatest gift from her for the holidays–an article about daytimers.  Just a short one pager with some thoughts from the author and pictures of daytimers/notebooks used for organizing.  And #1 on the list . . . Muji’s Chronotebook!

IMMEDIATELY upon looking at it the mind mapping of a day formed in my head around the center timepiece. I felt a sense of order, calm and peace.  I felt zen

Every year I get a word or a concept from the Lord around the end of December that is the word for my family for the coming year–it prepares and focuses me. The year Fiona was born, for example, the word was “abundance” and we had an abundance of blessings and challenges that year.  For 2009 the Lord made it clear that our family needed Shalom, peace, calm, order, and beauty infused into our daily lives.

We are reinstituting our daily formal tea.

I will be spending this next week while we’re taking a break from school to declutter with a vengeance.  During the month of Hanukkah and  Christmas when we have all the decorations out, presents stored everywhere I can get to in my room to store things, and less room to live, I start looking around even more intently at what we simply do not need.

As I declutter I will be evaluating how well things we have are being utilized and if we can use them differently and/or find something else for what we’re currently using that for.

And I will get my Chronotebook and start to order my days in a way that my soul can best express itself.  I’m so very excited.