I Lack Follow-Through

I lack follow-through. There are many reasons for this. Some are out of my control.  Some are not.

First off, I am very very busy.  Sometimes I don’t like to admit how busy, but just my primary job of children, school, and house could keep me working hard for 17 hours a day, 7 days a week, if I wanted to be perfect at it. There is the job of homeschooling times six. There is the job of cooking and cleaning for eight, combined with training new people to be subordinates in this job.  There is the job of fundraising for Kender’s dog, now, on top of the job of keeping him safe without the dog when he is determined not to be. There is the job of generally managing the health and finances of eight people, some of whom have special needs, coordinating medications, doctors and hospitals, treatments and therapies.  There is the job of learning the skills of blindness myself, better than just being acquainted with them as the wife of a blind man, well enough to teach them to my son.

That’s just the bare bones.  Nevermind the extras, things just for me, like studying for priesthood, learning to knit at production speeds, reading books, keeping my body strong.

Every day, I struggle with priorities.  What job do I focus on, and what is going to slide because of it?  If I work on Kender’s fundraising, school and chores are going to fall behind. If I focus on training my subordinates, school and fundraising will fall behind.  No matter what I choose, every day something on my essential list is going undone.

With that lack of follow-through seemingly built into my life, is it any wonder that I feel trouble following through on additional ideas and commitments?

I’ve been working on learning to say no.  Sometimes I want to help somebody else, but I will wait (see I Am Lazy) for somebody else to step up first, because I fear my ability to follow through once I commit to help.  Sometimes I just say no up front.  I am learning, slowly, that I can’t do everything.

I have lots of ideas.  I wish I had my own army of minions, and when I have a great idea, something that would work beautifully and might even help me personally, but that I don’t have the time to focus on, then my minions could take over, take my idea and put it into action, consulting me for direction but getting it done themselves.  That would be nice.  I’d like to have SpiralScouts around for my children to participate, but I don’t have the time to deal with it myself. I’d like to bring in more income through my skills, like sewing and such, but again, there’s the lack of time, and spoons.

I wish I could find a way to manage my life just so that I could get the basics done, with a little time for myself.  I have tried every schedule, time manager, task system, etc., that I can find.  The problem seems to be that there is just too much.  I don’t know how to get everything taken care of, and neither does anybody else.  I can’t just cut out enough things to make it work, because too much is essential.  I need to find a way to recapture follow-though in my own life, though.  Without follow-through in my everyday life, how can I expect to have it available for anything or anybody else?