December 30, 2017       The phrase, “Get your workspace ready for the new year -”

          - summoned me silently as I opened my e-mailbox this morning.  It was merely an advertisement from Staples letting me know about this week’s sales.  But, I’ve been pondering it now way into my second cup of morning coffee.

When you are retired, like I am now, what exactly is your workspace? 

      Is it the workspace for the hobby(ies) you had during all the years you worked full time and now they have become your full-time occupation?

      Is it your workspace related to how you manage your everyday life – like cooking meals or cleaning house? 

      Is it your workspace where you manage paying your bills, writing personal letters, keeping your tax receipts, personal birthday lists, and addresses?

      At this time of year, is it where you plan your budget, review your goals and set new ones for the coming year?

From my perspective, it can’t be reduced to a desk or a file cabinet or a kitchen counter or kitchen pantry, or the mudroom where laundry takes place, or the gardens outside where I love to play in the dirt.  I obviously have more than one workspace.

How does one get ready for the New Year?  It is an awesome question. Is it just a matter of making some resolutions and winging it?  I’ve discovered over the years “failing to plan is planning to fail” rings more true in January than at any other time of the calendar year. 

Example, start a diet without a plan of nutrition or exercise – how far will that get you  – aches and pains and starvation doesn’t make one willing to continue very long. 

Vowing to save more money without a realistic budget leads to emergency outlays of cash almost weekly. 

Planning to keep your house neater when one puts away the laundry doesn’t work well if the closets and bureau drawers are already chocked full.

The question really is – where do you begin, how do I identify my workspace? How do I get ready for the New Year? I wonder how I ever accomplish everything I do leisurely now when I was working full time? Is that why life zipped by in a flash?  I guess that was why I often used the phrase – “I want to retire so that I can have a life or get my life back.”

I’ve heard that phrase – I want my life back – a dozen times over the holidays from friends working long hours. I empathize with everyone who has said that to me. But, back to the phrase – get your workspace ready for the New Year – I guess I will just have to identify all my workspaces and then see if any of them are not ready and add them to my New Year’s resolutions.

A week or so ago, I started my resolutions:

1.    Straighten my desk and make my to-do list daily.

2.    Continue to picture straighten

3.    Identify all my workspaces

4.    Once workspaces identified – organize each in turn in order to save time through efficiency

This should keep me busy at least through the cabin-fever days of January. Maybe by February I’ll be ready to face 2018 squarely and glide through it with more grace and more time for myself. 

I wonder what I can do with all the extra time I might just carve out for myself?  I’ll dream on that later.