Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
While the Mice Are Away
I’ve had an incredible week. I’ve been dancing twice, went to the beach and logged some serious hours at work, too. Tomorrow, I’m going to a concert (a rock concert) and I might go dancing again the night after that. What’s behind this frenzy of activity? The kids are at camp. Yes, when the cat’s away the mice may play, but when the mice are away, these cats go wild.
When I was pregnant with my oldest son, I spent nine months worrying about how was going to find the time to manage everything with a baby in tow. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have worried, but some of the time-saving methods I came up with 17 years ago have stuck, like going to the grocery store once, and only once, per week.
The thing about having kids is that they have really taught me to seize the day—both the days they are with me, which I know will pass too quickly (even though they sometimes go really slow), and the days when they are away. My husband and I milk every moment they’re at camp, and try to do all the cool NYC things we love, and it’s fun to cram so much into a few short days.
Summer is a great time for projects: A lot of my clients use some of the time that their kids are at camp to tackle an organizing project. I always do a photo album in the summer, and lots of people do home-improvement projects over the summer when less people are around to be displaced. But consider this: If you maintain your organization habits over the whole year, you might not feel like you have to spend camp time catching up. This time next summer, you might be going out dancing too!