Order, Balance & Plan for Success

Today, my intentions were to highlight some organization ideas, but as I went to copy and paste from another great website, I instead decided to share where I begin with order in my life.  When I have a plan for each week, it offers me peace.

In order to keep balance in my life, I try to assign different events to each day of the week, so I don't have to be bogged down with so many things coming at me everyday.  Here is a sample of my ideal schedule for each week.  Granted many things come up, and it is always a battle to stick to my schedule, but it gives me direction, a map to follow.  Sometimes, I get off course and have to make efforts to get back on track.

Sundays:  Plan my Week Activities & Menu's, Spiritual Study,  Church Meetings, Enjoy family, Scrapbooking
Mondays:  Organization & Cleaning Projects, Family Night
Tuesdays:  Finances
Wednesdays:  Laundry
Thursday:  Errands, Service, Prof. Meetings
Friday:  Fun Day or Catch Up (unfinished items during the week), Date Night
Saturday:  Yard Work,  Projects, Family Outings, Sunday Prep's
(These are the functional things that have to be done each week aside from my work (piano teaching), kids activities, church assignments, etc)

Each day, I have set a goal to start my day with prayer and at least 30 minutes of excercise, and at least 30 minutes of spiritual study.  This is the most important investment to my well being.  Because life is full of surprises, these goals don't always happen.  But they are present in my mind and probably the most important part of my day.  These items are an investment that in return offer a huge reward.



At one particularly stressful time in my life when things seemed to be upside down, nothing working out as it should, feeling stress financially, and stress with my husbands job security.  It was one of those times in life where really you feel like you want to give up and wonder if this is all there is too this life.  I found myself pouring my heart out to God in prayer, fasting, and attending our temple for answers and peace.  One morning I felt incredibly peaceful and my mind flowed with inspiration for my family and what we could do in our life to bring about balance and peace.  I reluctantly share this, as it is personal, but feel there is great wisdom from this experience and hope that others might benefit from this.

This is what I wrote in my journal:

• #1  In our family, we must have order from everyone---order in our lives, work, school and play.  If everyone cooperates, things in our life will mesh and we will live in harmony.
• #2  We must take care of our own person first in order to provide and serve others (eating healthy, enough sleep, excercise, limited hours of work, etc.)  there must be a balance.
• #3  We must fill our cups spiritually at the beginning of the day, so we will have strength to keep things in order.
• #4  Each person in our family must have a plan for success.  Our family plan involves each person in the family, so individually each must have their own plan for success.  Cooperation from all will keep balance in our home.
• #5  Keep a family plan booklet that has a copy of each individual's plan for success.
• #6  Seek for simplicity - don't complicate things, look for the simple way in all things.  Simplify it is the simple way.
• #7  Respect and honor Family Night and time for Family Counseling, Family Scripture Study, and Family Prayer.  Expect success from honoring these principles.
• #8  Order in each of our days will provide success.  Balance will help us be successful in all things.
• #9 It is not about one day at a time, or one moment.   It is about a big picture, moving forward to build and create our big picture.  Some days we can only think of a moment at a time, but if our actions are organized with a plan to move towards our big picture.  We will be successful.
• #10 Ask myself daily is our family cart balanced or is something in our life causing it to tip over.  We must have balance.

 It seems that the forces in this life continually pull at us to try to upset our carts and turn our lives into chaos.  I feel that we must fight against this if we want peace in our lives.  Best wishes in your daily endeavors.  Please share your ideas and comments.

                                                            Marilyn