Dear Readers,

This week I was visiting a dear friend as she made a very creative and lovely snack for her son who had requested, “I want a plate full of fruit that looks like a flower but make it pretty and a flower of green beans in the middle”.  Simple, right?

As a great mom and friend, she did this as we talked about the things of our lives since it had been a month since we saw each other last.  As I watched her put this together and as I watched, she noticed that one thing led to another. Getting a dish for said display, involved figuring out that there was NO dish and she had to improvise with pyrex which turned out to be dirty so then she had to wash it, and on and on.

It occurred to me that this happens to most of us when we set out to accomplish a task.

Case in point, I need to go to the store to get yogurt, I go to the refrigerator to see how much I have left, what is the expiration date etc and when I was in there, I noticed we were low on milk, so I made a mental note to ask my husband (who so wonderfully does all the grocery shopping) to get more milk, I then notice the expired items that we need to throw out but trash day was yesterday, check to see that the bags were emptied and no remnants remain and as I am in the pantry my eye is drawn to Vivienne’s bottle collection and I make a mental note, we really need to start weaning her off those, we should ask the pediatrician, and then I see that there are some dishes in the sink and start working on them, completely forgetting that I went in the kitchen to check on our yogurt supply!

So there I am working on dishes and making a grocery list (thank you Jeremy) and thinking about all the things that need to get done and getting frustrated with my lack of focus, since this problem is really isolated to home items.

At work I don’t have this issue because I time-box and set priorities each day and use Agile to the fullest.  In case you have no idea what I am talking about, ask me, I am happy to rhapsodize about it, at length.. You have been warned….

But back to my at home dilemma. I definitely don’t think you can schedule everything but there is a way to bring some “method to the madness”  For me, I use technology (Alexa) to help me remember things. I resisted at first, mainly out of vanity. I wanted to think I would remember ALL the things I have to remember. Yeah, not so much.

I realized I wanted to work smarter, not harder, so I gave in (after some trepidation about having a machine in our home) and we got an Alexa in December, it was our Christmas present to ourselves, and I am very happy with it.

It’s very nice not to have to stop what you are doing to grab your phone and put a reminder into it. For instance, in the example above, I asked “alexa” to remind me to buy yogurt, when in reality, that was me adding it the list that Jeremy will use to go shopping.  It’s also a fun way to send little messages to each other through the day when I am not there, to remind them that I am there.. (sort of)

Bottom line, I use technology to help me stay connected to my family. Put another way, if I can use Alexa to remind me to do something later, I can focus my “now” on my daughter or my husband or myself and my goals.  See below— 🙂 

For those wondering, I still prefer face to face over a phone call, and a phone call over a text message, AND I realize sometimes it’s just a more expedient way to communicate for both parties due to kids, work, pets and other life things, well like life.

I think that it’s a heck of an evolution when you consider I used to resist text messages.

Think About It.