Do What Needs To Be Done

This is my phrase of the year for 2018 – Do what needs to be done. 

I am a planner. I manage fundraising events for a nonprofit and love what I do. However, as much as people think I’m totally on top of things and have my shit together, I still procrastinate.

I love planning the future. I can send hours on timelines and charts. It’s almost like a fantasy. I lay out the future (event timeline) the way I hope it will go (the way it NEEDS to go), but reality often intervenes. I’ve never had an event go exactly as scheduled, even though I take pains to make sure the guests never realize this. I do this with vacations too. I love planning vacations, researching hotels and AirBnBs, reading about the destination and figuring out fun things to do. And I’m great at it.

What I’m not great at? The tedious, boring, difficult every day tasks that keep my household going. We have a nanny and I absolutely HATE filing our quarterly employer taxes. It takes a total of 15 minutes, but I drag it out until the absolute last possible second. Same thing with paying bills. Thank god for automatic payments, because until those came along, I was constantly late on paying my bills. Not because I didn’t have the money, but because I just dreaded sitting down and writing the checks or logging online and actually going through the motions of paying them. It seems silly now, but I was really bad about this.

Same with my house. I’m great at keeping the house clean and tidy because I get that instant gratification. A clean home keeps my mind calm. However, our bathtub seems to be leaking, we really need to have our roof resealed, and our backyard grass is nonexistent after a recent drought in our area. These items I keep putting of because they’re not fun. It’s not fun to research roofers and schedule the consultation. Or have a plumber come over and take apart our bathroom. But these are things that need to be done.

So this year, I’m going to embrace the boring, mundane tasks that need doing. My spouse and I have been saying for months that we need to create a budget. So I’m going to sit down this weekend and create one. I’m going to schedule a plumber and roofer and lay some freaking sod in the backyard. 2018 will be the year I tackle tasks with a vengeance and just do what needs to be done without (much) complaining or procrastinating.

This includes my online art shop. I’ve been wanting to do this for so many years and just haven’t put in the time. This is the year. I’ve actually sat down and created a schedule and am laying out the inventory now. I’m hoping to go live with the shop in February or March. I’ve got a list of tasks and I’m checking them off one by one. Do you have a phrase or word for 2018?  I love hearing people’s resolutions!

I will be doing a lot of “adulting” this year. And on that note, does anyone have recommendations on planners, scheduling tools, or just general organizing templates? Of course, I’m much more motivated to tackle these necessary tasks if they’re written down in a cute planner or notebook 😉