Rae of Sunshine

I have at least eight blog posts, half finished, running around in my head.  Life is good.  Life is busy.  My blog has been neglected. 

 I have spent the last week really getting myself more organized.  I have been able to progress past the point of  “creating an encouraging learning environment.” 

Now I need to give a bit of history here.  I have been an organizational freak in the past.  I’ve even (in my former sales executive life) gone to paid seminars to learn how to use specific planners to improve productivity.  I have purchased many, many planners over the years.  I’ve even taught seminars on goal setting and time management, but it is the planners that get my blood pumping.  A planner is much like a blank canvas to me where I can create anything with the time I have at my disposal.

It isn’t just the possibilities of mapping my time and efforts, but the actual process of working with a useful planner.  It’s also the promise of what I can carve out of this life, and the little components of my planner help me to do that.  It’s odd that a musician, a free-spirit kind of girl like me, would thrive on such stuff.  Oh, but I do.  I really do. 

For some reason, I sort of shelved that organizational part of me for a time.  I’ve been busy exploring paths to different places.  Now that I have a firm direction (for now), I need a roadmap to keep me on course.  My planner serves that need for me.  I sit each morning with an empty page, and create a day that will serve me well.  I get out my highlighters and prioritize tasks so that the things I feel are most important are addressed before the day ends.  It’s quite gratifying.

I do not necessarily schedule my day.  I work with goals and blocks of time in which I know  I am the most productive.  I’ve been using this new planner system for a couple of weeks, so today I added a new element. 

Our schooling is going quite well, but I wanted to invite C into the goal planning process, so that her learning is both interest led and directed.  We began this morning with a weekly goal sheet, and I was very impressed with her choices. 

Her list of goals was pretty impressive, and it showed me that I had perhaps not been supplying her with enough formal material.  We will have to see how this week progresses to see if we need to re-allign things.  We made it through her goals today with a very positive attitude and focused effort.  This method allows us to chart our own course and approach her education as a partnership.  I like the way that feels.