Spring break isn’t just for kids. Adults need a breath of fresh air every so often to recharge their batteries and diminish work-related stress and anxiety.
Taking a spontaneous break isn’t something I do very often, but the more I live a truly organized life, the clearer I can see the patterns of how to breed more productivity in an organization and a large part of this is taking the time to relax, unwind, and de-stress.
My impromptu adult spring break adventure began a few weeks ago without me even realizing it until I was mid-way through the week!
I share my story on this week’s podcast episode and it begins with replacing the windows in my home. I know what you’re thinking, what does something as mundane as windows have to do with spring break? As it turns out, deciding to upgrade my windows kick-started a week of relaxation and organizing because it gave me the opportunity to take some time off work.
Upgrading Our Windows
Greg and I had been thinking about moving for some time, but we finally decided against it and focused on renovating and upgrading our current home instead.
Our old wooden windows were once the envy of the neighborhood back in 1986. But that was over three decades ago and they are no longer functioning.
The entire process took three days. Although this didn’t bother us much, our dog Hunter wasn’t pleased since he had to get shipped to doggy daycare until the workers were done.
Even though all of this work would be going on in the house, I knew I couldn’t take a break from my work schedule. However, I also knew that the workers would be replacing the windows in both of my kid’s bedrooms and trying to walk through the room to reach those windows would be almost impossible!
There was one clear solution – I had to take a break from work (if only for a few hours) and clean my kids’ rooms so the workers could cross the threshold to reach the windows.
Cleaning & Organizing The Kids’ Rooms
Since both of my kids are teenagers and their rooms are more like mini apartments than bedrooms, let’s just say that I don’t go in there very often!
But on this occasion, I didn’t have a choice. I took the morning off work and assigned myself an hour and a half to clean each room. I stuck to my schedule and finished both rooms on time, but when I finished cleaning, I didn’t feel like working.
If you know me, you’ll know that I always feel like working. However, Monday passed, and then Tuesday came and went, and I still didn’t feel like working.
My Adult Spring Break
By the time Wednesday arrived, it hit me. I had scheduled my own spring break! Granted, most of you probably would prefer to go on a sunny vacation for spring break, and the idea of cleaning your kid’s rooms and organizing the inventory sounds like work. But for me, it’s heaven!
I spent a large part of my spring break creating and organizing my Household Reference, Household Operations, Financial, and Medical Binders.
When I wasn’t organizing my binders, I was out shopping with my family and getting things done that I usually didn’t have time to do.
Finding The Time To Organize
We all live such busy lives that it can be challenging to find the time to organize anything. The more I started to think about a week-long adult spring break, the more I was convinced that this was something I’m going to do every year.
Here’s a short video where I talk about the struggle of finding time to organize and how to overcome this problem:
My Sunday Basket saves me a minimum of five hours per week. It helps me to organize and plan by season – which is much more practical than planning for the entire year in advance because life always gets in the way of our plans.
By planning your schedule every 120 days, you can carve out pockets of time for yourself so you can spend your time wisely and get more done.
