My Efforts in Being Proactive

For the past year and a half I've been working on self-improvement.  My life was rather out of control since the twins were born and I felt I really needed to take control of my life.

Last year my focus included implementing things back in to my life that I really enjoyed doing but hadn't been making the time for - reading!  My other big focus was finding a way to bring peace into my life - since I had started having anxiety attacks.  In my quest to find peace, we started going to a new church - which has helped tremendously!

Now this year my focus seems to be on organization.  :-) First I started with adding a calendar application to my android called Cozi, it is very user friendly.  Between my oldest daughters commitments, Anna & Ethan having things that needed to be done for pre-school, my husband's work schedule and the normal doctor/dentist appointments...I couldn't keep up.  I have a calendar at home that I use, but the problem was that when I was out I would be told things that needed to be done and then I'd forget!  I hate feeling that I've dropped the ball - and I was dropping the ball a lot!  Now when I'm out and am told that I need to bring something to the pre-school for instance, I plug it right into Cozi and it's on my calendar.  There is even a widget with Cozi that is on the sidebar of my computer at home.  Everything is synched nicely!

My next order of business was (and is) to get a handle on our finances.  I read the book by Dave Ramsey - My Total Money Make-Over and found the information and procedures in there to get out of debt and build some financial stability to be very profound.  Actually it may be common sense to some, but I am not financial savvy so what I read made a LOT of sense.  I downloaded his financial software Dave Ramsey's Personal Finance Software and have now been using that on a regular basis.  I also have Quicken, but I need more of the feature's on Ramsey's program as well.  So now I use the two together.

This past Friday I was at a MOPS meeting and we had a speaker who talked about the site "Motivated Moms", which has a chore planning system.  I didn't even realize there was a "system" out there to keep track of adult chore's like that!  And, since I find myself so reactionary to getting the household chore's done, I thought this was an excellent way to get proactive.  The only problem I had with it is that it costs $8 for a download, and since I am watching every penny we spend I didn't want to spend the money.  So I started searching for a "free" chore planning system.

Since my discovery of how incredibly useful the android market and widgets can be - I started searching for something on android.  First I found an application called Evernote, which is a great place to put thoughts, ideas and things to remember in - such as shopping lists and quick "to do" notes.  It has an excellent feature for capturing images too.  Everything can be organized into different notebooks.  Evernote is also synch-able with a free download for your computer!

Then...I found the android app called Chore Checklist!  Wow, I love this!  It automatically installs with routines, such as daily, weekly, bi-weekly, etc.  Then within each routine is a set of pre-installed chores, such as clean bathrooms, mop floors, wipe counters, laundry, etc.  These might sound pretty routine to some, but there are times that things just get away from me way too long.  It is completely customizable, and once you have things set - you can send it to email, text, Evernote, etc.  The great thing with Evernote, is once it's there I can add check boxes to it, then I have a nice printable version of it!

I find it very rewarding to start taking control of my life!  I love that technology can help so much with the process.  :-)

Have a great day! ♥