Where the heck is Day 4??!!

Where the heck is Day 4 you ask? 

I am writing this on Day 5!  AS PLANNED my lovelies! 

The beauty of organizing your life consistently is that you also have the luxury of planning a day off for yourself.  I've had today planned for quite a while actually.

I have it written into my 365 Brilliant Days planner and I've been looking forward to it!!  Counting down the days as a matter of fact.

My wonderful,  fabulous, smart, sexy husband has been out of town.  He was back in town for only a couple of days so we planned a romantic dinner - Chinese food to go - some snuggly alone time, and a movie at home date night!

It was so nice!!  We were able to spend a nice amount of uninterrupted time talking and catching up.  Reorganizing our schedules and planning our next date night for when he gets home in a week or so!  Then we..... dot dot dot..... and spent the rest of the evening watching a great movie that we both love! 

(....dot dot dot..... courtesy of the Mamma Mia movie)

The beauty of being as organized and thought-out as we are is that now we have something BRILLIANT in our schedules!  We don't feel as though we are passing notes and texts to each other.   We will look forward to our date, think of something fun to do, and if we start to feel a little lonely, we will think about our date and smile!

Please understand that I am not giving you all this detail to tell you how fabulous my life is.  Although it IS.  I am telling you this because I want you to understand that every part of your life can be organized.  Not just your work and your tasks, but your off duty life as well!  And all written down in the same place.  Allowing you to create joy and brilliance!  Allowing you to build the life of your dreams!!

With a little planning and carefully choosing to say yes or NO, you can probably fit it all in. 

And if you feel you can't......

Day 3. The Power of "NO"

.....Once the pity party was over and I figured out what I needed to fix, I felt 100 pounds of weight fly off of my shoulders.  I felt happy!  I felt like a light bulb went on over my head!  I felt free!  I felt opened up to new possibilities!  And it SCARED the shit out of me.

The BIG thing I needed to do was:  LEARN TO SAY NO.

Once I made the decision to learn to say no, I actually had to say the word to some people.  That was scary.  But I thought, start small.  The ladies who lived on my street used to meet up twice each week for book club.  Twice!  Why?  Don't normal book clubs meet up once each month?  Twice each week didn't even give me time to read the book!

"No" number one was to call the secretary of the "Bored Housewives Club" and tell her I couldn't come to the meetings any more.  PS and by the way.... I was the ONLY woman in my posh neighborhood in Connecticut that actually worked.  Everyone else played tennis at the Country Club full time.  I used to joke with them that none of them would be the next Anna Kournikova.  They were all over 40 and Anna was about 18.  Do the math.  Some of the ladies would even put their children in day care so they could play tennis all afternoon.  Me?  Resentful?  Sure made the phone call easier to make.  They were great ladies.  Fun and interesting.  Bye bye.  I'm sure they didn't miss me much after the fourth or fifth bottle of wine!

"No" number 2 was to my current husband.  That was a little harder.  I had to tell him that I was going to hire a cleaning lady.  I was saying no to cleaning a huge, dusty house by myself.  Strange, that man.  No matter how much money I made, it was all his!  How the HELL did I let that happen?  Shame on me.  He wasn't even all that cute!  And as you might imagine, he said, "Absolutely not.  I will not have some stranger in my house."  And as you might imagine, I decided to sneak a cleaning lady in once each week anyway.  It was BRILLIANT.  For a while at least.  Of course I got caught.  I panicked and introduced her as my friend, whom I was helping out!  He was a jerk, but he wasn't stupid.  Naturally, he knew I was lying and naturally, there was an argument.  I held my ground and told him I was going to continue having her come to clean.  If we wasn't ok with it, I'd continue having her come when he was at work.  Period.  Five days later it was all over.  I had my cleaning lady and he and I never talked about it again.  He's gone now.

"No" number 3 I felt a little guilty about.  For a minute.  Then I got over it.  I was asked to volunteer some time at our local grade school.  I do not have children, but that small detail didn't stop the PTA from asking me to volunteer a few mornings each week in the school library.  Of course, being the weenie that I used to be, I said yes.  Then about an hour later I hated myself for saying yes to her when I could barely find enough time in the day to get everything else done.  I called the school and backed out of the agreement.  No judging please.

Why am I telling you all of this?  One reason:  YOU must learn to say no.

How can you accomplish all of your goals and live your fabulous, brilliant life if you spend all of your time doing things for other people?  Let me explain!!!  We all have our favorite organizations, charities, etc. that we want to be part of.  I certainly do, and I find a way to help as much as I can.  Sometimes I help by sending a little money.  Sometimes I help by donating food.  Sometimes I help by showing up at an event an rolling up my sleeves.  I help based upon what I am able to fit into my life and my at that time.

Let me ask you this:  Who do you need to say no to?  Is it a girlfriend who is an energy drainer?  Is it a group you joined that is sucking the life out of you?

Especially while you are learning to manage your life and create your super organized, powerful self, you need to very closely manage with whom and with what you are filling your time.  There are 24 hours in a day.  You need to get a good night's sleep every night if possible.  There goes 8.  Do you work?  There goes another 8.  That leaves you 8 good hours to build, create, nurture, redecorate, declutter, achieve your goals and LIVE.  There is no honor in volunteering so much of your time that your own life suffers.  Make sure you are saying NO when you need to say no.  Make sure you are managing your time.  Even micro-managing your own time is good for you when you're working on your OWN BRILLIANT LIFE!

Once I said "NO" to 8 or 10 things that were sucking my time down the drain, I started to feel happier, more rested, more accomplished, less stressed.  I chose what I wanted to do every day.  I chose it, scheduled it and did it.  Life got better and better from that point on.

So give yourself a HUGE gift.  Time.  Time for you and for everything you want to accomplish.  Time to sit down quietly and set goals for yourself.  Time to spend with your family without being interrupted.  Time for a bubble bath and glass of champagne without being interrupted.  Time to finish that great book without being interrupted.  Time for YOU.

I promise you'll thank me when you master the power of "NO."

So now you're probably asking me, "OK smarty pants.  I have all this time now.  I admit I'm less stressed, but NOW what do I do?  There's only so much QVC I can watch."

That answer is coming.....      

Day 2. Donna's disorganized life

....In my last post, I said I would share with you what my life looked like before I decided that I'd had enough of the disorganization.  I was self-employed, which I am no longer.  Sidenote:  I REALLY miss working for myself.  It's not for everyone.  It's 24/7.  Well at least it was for me.  When - not if - WHEN I am able to become self-employed again, I know I will be so much more successful than I was last time.  Why?  The Big "O"!!!  Organization.

I needed to be organized, but I didn't know it yet.  I was just scrambling through each day, trying to stay in touch with my existing clients, manage my product, find new clients, manage my household, get my dog to the million Vet appointments she seemed to need, work out, maintain my nails, keep the fridge stocked with Champagne - thank you Cara Alwill-Leyba for showing me that Champagne is a big priority in my life!  ...keep food in the house, cook meals to keep my husband from starving, pick up the dry cleaning, vacuum up the dog hair...  AAAAAAaaaaaahhhhhh!!!

You got it.  I was all over the place!  And this went on for AGES!!!  I remember back then that there were days when I would go non-stop, 100 miles per hour, grab a burger at a drive-thru, go home, clean the house, make dinner, lay in bed and not remember a thing that I did.  I would actually lay there trying to remember what I'd accomplished on a given day and feel really badly when I realized that while I was moving as fast as I could, I accomplished absolutely nothing.  I'd look at my to do list and see that I didn't cross off a single thing.  This happened to me over and over.  I was busy being busy.  Sound familiar?

At one point, I was laying in bed thinking about my day, for the 10th or so day in a row and realized that I hadn't even looked at my list for days and days.  I had run errands, some for me, mostly for other people, and didn't do one single thing that would push me towards success in my business.  And worse than that, I didn't even feel good about what I had done and the tasks I had completed.  No sense of accomplishment whatsoever!

That was the night I cried.  I was physically and mentally exhausted and I had nothing to show for it. Now, believe me, I'm not the type to feel sorry for myself, and that's not where I'm going with this.  I was PISSED.   So pissed that all I could do was cry.  Really??  Exhaustion with NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT???  I'm sorry, but that does not work for me.  

I needed to get a grip.  If I'm going to work my ass off, at least I want to be happy doing it, and see some results from it.  Exhaustion is just not enough for me.  So how did I handle this, you ask?  I had a four day weekend-long pity party for myself.  I earned it.  I cried, prayed, listened to gentle music, listened to Ozzy Osbourne.  Even my pity party was all over the place, but I felt good about this weekend.

For the first time in ages, I felt like I was attempting to take control of my life, my attitude, my tasks and obligations.  There was a light that started shining on me (not really, but I felt like there should be).  I felt GOOD.  I felt like I had taken a minute to get in control.  During the last few hours of my weekend-long pity party I started organizing my brain a little.  Then I started writing some things down.

And I realized there was something absolutely HUGE that I needed to do, and I had to do it RIGHT AWAY.....