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For the past couple years, I have used a three ring binder to hold by planner, my to-do lists, my meal plans, grocery lists, important papers, etc.  It is a home management notebook of sorts.   I am currently overhauling my whole system.  So, I have been looking at all the various elements that make up a home management notebook.  In my search for the perfect binder to hold whatever I come up with, I found Crown Bindery.  I love these binders.  They hold lots of stuff.  They are versatile.  They lay flat when you open them.  They come in different sizes.  AND, they are so cute!!  Everything I am looking for!

Carla Smyrl, founder of Crown Bindery, made her first binder as a way to bind student artwork for a teacher’s gift.  She soon found lots of uses for the binders and Crown Bindery was born.  Here is how Carla uses her binder:

I use my Crown Binder as a catch all for the activities of life.  In the first section is my calendar.  Yes, I am a paper person at heart.  There is, no doubt, a modern electronic device which could do a fine job.  But I find comfort in viewing a full month on a single piece of paper. I print mine (loaded with birthdays) from our Outlook Express.  My second section contains phone numbers and contact information. The third section: game and event calendars for the girls.  Such has been my personal Crown Binder for the past four or five years. The best part is that I can flip the front cover completely over and throw my whole binder on the seat of the car, onto my desk or kitchen counter or sit with it at a meeting and have a place to write.

Here is the best part.  You can have one of these awesome binders for your very own!  Carla is giving one lucky Overcoming Busy reader the choice of one of her 9×12 or a 6×9 binders!!  There are several ways to enter.

1. Leave a comment. Tell me how you would use your Crown Bindery binder.
2. Spread the word. Facebook, tweet or blog about the giveaway and leave a separate comment telling me about it.
3. Subscribe. If you are a subscriber, leave me a separate comment telling me.  If you aren’t yet, click on the RSS feed link at the top of the page and subscribe.  Leave a separate comment telling  me you are a new subscriber!

Entries will be accepted until 7pm cst March 10, 2010.

Check out Crown Bindery’s etsy shop.  You have to see the notecard binders and the doodlers, too.  I can think of lots of uses for them, including gifts!!

photo by ToUsMiC Place

This is a guest post from Annie @ SisterWisdom.com as part of our week long celebration and blog party here at Overcoming Busy.  Keep checking back for great insight on keeping the busy out of our lives and great giveaways!!

Last night I snuggled down in our cozy bed next to my husband, thinking about how great marriage is, how amazing it is to share your life with someone who inspires and challenges you, how wonderful to be with your best friend… then he put his icy cold feet on my legs and I thought, “Well you have to take the bad with the good.” Actually what I thought was more along the lines of “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah freakin’ cold!” A moment later, after I’d managed to dislodge his frozen feet from contact with me, I was able to think about things other than spousal-induced hypothermia. I snuggled down, comfortable and warm again, drifting into a happy haze of romantic thoughts, and suddenly he whipped the covers back, letting in the frigid air, hopped out of bed and walked into the bathroom. There’s nothing like a blast of icy air when you’re almost comfortably asleep to make you think sweet thoughts of your beloved. I snuggled down again, gripping the covers firmly to prevent any more wintry blasts, but it was no good this time. There was a big empty space next to me.

Marriage ruins you. You’re no good for empty beds and single survival skills anymore after just a few months of marriage. Marriage gets to you. It changes you in ways you can’t foresee, and that’s probably a good thing. Too much foreknowledge just scares us. If I’d known ahead of time some of the roads we would walk, decisions we would make together, I would have balked. But each came in time and together we handled them.

Marriage reveals things about you that you’re not always sure you want to see. I was so self-assured as a single gal. Even during our engagement, I was sure that I would get this marriage thing right. No problem. I’d been watching and taking notes for a while. I knew what not to do. You know the rest of the story without me even saying it: then I got married and promptly did all those things I’d sworn not to do. Nagging? Yep. Whining? Yep. Crying for no reason? So many times. Getting mad over nothing? Often. Being hormonal, snappy, rude, insensitive, rushed, impatient, and irritated with my lover and best friend? Yes, yep, uh-huh, and no question. I broke all my own rules, failed at my own sure thing, and that’s when I started really learning about marriage. That’s when I started understanding how marriage shows us what grace is.

Marriage brings you face to face with your own unworthiness. You find out you’re not all that you thought you were. The testing, the stretching, the day-after-day of marriage bring out those weaknesses you tried to bury. You just can’t hide your flaws on a twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week basis. But when you see the love in your spouse’s eyes even after one of those moments, you start to get it. It’s not about your worthiness; it’s about his love.

Marriage shows you your own capability for graciousness, too. Your knight in shining armor hurts you, disappoints you, ignores you. You find yourself frustrated, angry, wounded but strangely enough, as you take a few breaths and calm down, you find out your love is still there. He’s still your knight, you’re just learning that he’s not a perfect one. And as your knowledge of him grows, your love doesn’t catch its breath in horror and beat it out the back door. Your love expands. You find yourself accepting, showing grace, and thinking it’s normal. And it is.

Marriage is not just an area in our lives, it is the very structure of our lives. If God is the foundation, then marriage is the support posts holding up the walls, the beams holding up the roof. That’s why taking time for our marriage isn’t a luxury but a necessity. You can do without a new coat of paint, but you can’t do without a sturdy, strong support system. If those beams are rotten, the whole house is going to fall down; it doesn’t matter how pretty it looks.

Taking time for marriage means making time with our husbands. It means sorting out our lives so the first things come first. It might mean saying no to friends over, because we need time to talk with him. It might mean saying not now to a child, because Mommy is doing some work for Daddy. But more than that, it means saying Yes to our husbands. Yes to sharing our lives, our dreams, our priorities, our vision. Yes to knowing each other and loving each other anyway. If we focus on saying yes to what matters most, we will find that our lives are full of what we love most.

Annie Mueller has been happily married to her childhood sweetheart for almost 6 years now. Together they have 3 children and live in a parsonage in St. Louis, Missouri. Annie’s background is in writing and literature, and she writes, reads, and teaches workshops as time permits. Her website is www.SisterWisdom.com.

Ever since seeing Angie Warren’s photography on her blog The Creative Mama, I have adored her work.  Seeing her work on her new photography blog Angie Warren Photography makes me wish I didn’t live half way across the country so she could take pics of my kids.  I was so excited when Angie started her etsy shop!  I can actually own  Angie Warren photo art!!

bridge by Angie Warren

the doors by Angie Warren

Aren’t these gorgeous? If you like these, you will love the entire collection in her etsy shop.  As we continue our Overcoming Busy Celebration, Angie is graciously giving a Overcoming Busy reader $30 toward a piece of their choice!!  Here’s how to enter:

1. Leave comment. Visit Angie’s etsy shop and tell me what your favorite piece is and where you’ll hang it.
2. Subscribe to Overcoming Busy via RSS. Leave me a separate comment telling me that you subscribed.  If you are already a subscriber, leave a separate comment telling me that you are.
3. Spread the word. Tweet, facebook or blog about the giveaway.  Leave a comment telling about each one.

Entries will accepted until 7 pm cst March 13, 2010.  Winner will be announced next week!

This is day two of our Overcoming Busy Celebration.  Each day, different voices will share ways to overcome busy and why it’s so important.  Thanks for joining us!

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Five years ago, I gave birth to an eight-pound boy who would rock my world. I had whimsical dreams of strolling through the park and singing him soothing lullabies in the dark of night; I was sorely surprised to find the strolling disastrous when I got to the park… sans said stroller, and the nights far from soothing as giant crocodile tears rolled down my chest into my newborn son’s face while we struggled through breastfeeding. You may say my expectations were unrealistic, when I saw them as romantic notions. I came to find that actually, I was comparing myself to moms I’d seen on TV, or perhaps someone the mom up the street who ’seemed to have it all together’. I was failing according to the standards I had set, and my family was hurting because of it.

I wish I could say a few months later I was good to go. Instead I struggled through the baby days, while my playgroup friends did things differently than I, and so again I felt as if I was a terrible mom for the way we were handling our new roles as parents. Toddler-hood came, seeing this friend’s son behaving while mine threw fits. I ended up not wanting to go anywhere because my worry about not being ‘good enough’ was paralyzing me.

It wasn’t until I’d decided to slowly step away from situations and people in my life that weren’t positive. I had to grow as a person and as a mother before I could finally see what was right in front of me. This beautiful boy that really wasn’t doing anything terribly wrong or out of the ordinary sat next to me for snuggles one day and as I breathed him in I realized… I am good enough. I’ve done my best. He loves me. So when his little brother came along I decided that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. I’d do what I knew best, I’d give it my all, and when I did mess up I knew it would be okay. Of course I still dreamt of the soothing lullabies in the middle of the night and when I was able to follow through on that notion, even if only a few times in his baby-hood, I was pleased.

Today I am still human, mama to two littles who keep me on my toes. I still struggle with typical insecurities as a mother, but I am able to face them head on with more drive and passion. I’m embracing this life, thankful to have the opportunity to make mistakes and keep on learnin’!

I hope that you are giving yourself some slack, realizing that you are good enough and you are doing your best – love to hear a bit about how you overcame (or are trying to overcome) similar obstacles!

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Angie Warren is founder of  The Creative Mama and Angie Warren Photography.  She is mama to two very rambunctious boys and married to a baseball-loving, hard-working man. She finds that whether it be with her hands, her lens, or her mouse – creating is soothing, liberating, and something she desires to share with the world.

One of the essential tools for overcoming busy is a good planner.  And, I am pleased to give you the opportunity to win one of the most complete, most well designed planners I have seen.  Busy Body Book planners and calendars feature a grid system that allows you to keep track of everyone in your family or various areas of your life.   As well as:

• yearly planning sections
• removable to-do/shopping lists
• a section for notes
• restaurant/take-out directory
• space for important phone numbers

This is the same planner used by Mandi Ehman from Organizing Your Way.  On her blog she writes about Busy Body Books:

As for me, I decided that one BusyBodyBook wasn’t enough, and I bought a second one as well. In the first, I keep track of business and professional obligations, to-do lists and goals, with a column for each consulting project I’m working on as well as one for my editorial calendar for Organizing Your Way. In my second BusyBodyBook, I write down our weekly meal plan, homeschooling schedule, family obligations and household tasks. It’s a system that’s working very well so far!

Busy Body Book has graciously offered three giveaways to Overcoming Busy readers!  One lucky reader will win a Busy Body Book planner.  Another reader will win a Busy Body Book Wall Calendar and yet another reader will win a Busy Body magnetic Grid Pad!

Here’s how to enter:

1. Leave a comment telling me how you would use your Busy Body Book planner, calendar or Grid Pad.
2. Subscribe to Overcoming Busy via RSS. Leave me a separate comment telling me that you subscribed.  If you are already a subscriber, leave a separate comment telling me that you are.
3. Spread the word. Tweet, facebook or blog about the giveaway.  Leave a comment telling about each one.

Entries will be accepted until 7 pm cst Saturday, March 13, 2010.  Winners will be announced next week!

Welcome to Day One of the Overcoming Busy Celebration!  We are kicking off the new, updated version of Overcoming Busy with a week of guest authors and giveaways.  Each day this week, there will be a new guest post and a giveaway post.  Keep checking in and don’t miss the fun!

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You’ve probably thought about the cost of various knickknacks, doodads and gadgets around your home — at least for a minute or two — but have you ever stopped to think about the time cost of these same items?

How much time do you spend moving things? Cleaning them? Thinking about them?

According to a statistic on Julie Morgenstern’s website, “Getting rid of excess clutter would eliminate 40% of the housework in an average home.”

40 percent!

The fact is that while stuff has an impact on our budget and our bottom line, we often forget that it also uses up one of our most precious commodities — time.

Have you ever noticed that organization and time management often go hand in hand? The reason is simple. Physical clutter and disorganization affect your ability to be productive and overcome busy.

It’s no secret that there are only so many hours in a day and that once they’re gone, they’re gone. Clutter doesn’t just impact your productivity by making it harder to find what you need when you need it; it also robs you of your time.

Tsh from Simple Mom lives by this mantra: “Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” (from 19th century architect William Morris).

If every item in your home has a time cost, then it’s important to evaluate which items you’re willing to spend your time on and, quite frankly, get rid of the rest.

Special artwork from your children, a family heirloom that reminds you of time with your grandmother, a beautiful sculpture that makes you smile or a kitchen gadget that makes preparing meals for your family easier — these things are worth the time that you spend on them.

On the other hand, every picture your child’s ever scribbled or colored, cheap trinkets from a family vacation, stacks of old magazines and even unused kitchen tools that take up space within your drawers and cabinets simply don’t stand up to the test.

Take time over the next week to consider how much time the things in your home are costing you? Only you can decide which items are worth that cost!

Mandi Ehman is a work-at-home mom to four spunky little girls. She believes that organizing only lasts if you do it your way – to fit your needs, your preferences and your lifestyle – and she shares organizing and time management tips at Organizing Your Way.

photo by D Sharon Pruitt

Like the new look for Overcoming Busy? If you are reading this on a reader, you are gonna wanna click on over to the actually site!  This is a whole new layout, but with the same practical insight on getting the busy out of your life.  The one thing you can now count on is even MORE great tools to help you on  your way.  We are still working out some bugs and I might need to tweek things here and there, but I can’t wait to throw a party anyway! All next week will be the

Overcoming Busy Celebration!!!!

It will be a week full of fun!  Each morning, you will be blessed by a fabulous guest author sharing their tips and insight on overcoming busy.  And, each afternoon, I will post a wonderful giveaway of tools to help you along your journey and maybe something just for fun.  Don’t miss it!  See you Monday morning!!!

Last week, on Start Overcoming Busy Right Now, I opened it up to readers to give their best ways to overcome busy.  I was so impressed!  I am posting these great reader ideas and words of wisdom  this week so you can learn from them.

I feel that lately I make these massive to-do lists and then I don’t get anything done. I am realizing that I have to just take one room at a time. Even if that one room takes me a few days. If I really focus on that room I can finally cross it off my mental to do list. Thanks for all of your great ideas for Overcoming Busy, I need every one of them.          —-Amy @ Girlfriends Get Real

I really have been working on this hard! I think a lot of it has come from others saying to me, Chele slow down, it will come in time… I’ve realized that baby steps are the most important thing to overcome busy. Stop making so many huge goals and do everything in baby steps. Even if it’s things like finding room for God in your days. If you plan to make 30 minutes with God in the morning, when it already is so busy in the mornings… then you will fail but baby steps like making a goal to 5 minutes to spend with Him every day will work better!——Chele @ The Bona Fide Life

I think the main thing I am doing to stop the busy is to try to do one thing at a time. If I multi-task, I get frazzled and everyone follows me down that rabbit hole. When I focus on one thing, that thing gets finished a lot faster and better than when I am scattered. I am trying to teach my kids to be uni-taskers rather than multi-taskers. —-Holly

One way that I overcome busy is by doing one big household chore each day rather than than trying to have a ‘cleaning day.’ I’ve found this especially useful with small children underfoot…you just never have 2 hours to devote to cleaning all at once. One chore a day is much more manageable in my mind week to week. And if I get it all done during the week I can really relax and enjoy the weekend with the family! —–Heidi @ Wonder Woman Wannabe

I overcome busy by simply shifting my mindset to a week that begins on Sunday, rather than Monday. It means our week begins with the whole family at home, going to church together and having a family dinner. If I think of my week beginning Monday, I am quickly overwhelmed with packing lunches, getting everyone off to school, worrying about everyone else’s business and schedules… We try to keep Saturday as a fun day, but do a little extra work to get the house tip-top so we don’t have to clean on Sunday.—–Kate

Aren’t they inspiring?  Have any other tips to overcome busy right now where you are?

I know!!  My Goal Gathering Monday post are always on Wednesdays!  It just works better in my schedule.

I have mentioned before that I hate New Year’s Resolutions.  They never seem to make it past January 10^th.  Instead of large sweeping goals, I like to break it down into smaller, attainable goals that build up to larger ones.  I have been pleased with the progress I have made this year making monthly goals.  So far this year, I have started a regular exercise routine, got back to better eating, established a earlier bedtime and cut down on my online time.  Making small goals and giving them a deadline has given me inspiration and encouragement.

It’s a new month.  Time for new goals.

My goal for this month is an example of building off smaller ones.  The goal was to launch a new blog layout.  Well, it didn’t happen in February, but I laid the ground work and it is happening this week!!  Finally!!  I have been wanting a new layout for months.  But, there is a difference between wishing and doing. I finally gave myself a deadline, put it on paper and made myself do it.  And it shall be done!  So, my goal for this month is to start taking Overcoming Busy to the next level. My ultimate goal for this blog is to encourage others (and myself) to make time for what’s really important in life and give them the tools to do it.

This month, I want to bring other voices in for you to listen to.  I want to give you new resources to draw from.  I want to give you new, fresh ideas.  And, we’ll start it off with a blog party!!!! Next week, Overcoming Busy will have a party to celebrate the new layout and taking our community to the next level.  I have lined up five fabulous women from throughout the blogosphere who will bring you their insights on overcoming busy in our lives.  You will love them!!  And, what’s a party without giveaways?!?!?  There will be giveaways all through the week!  You will not want to miss these fabulous resources and just fun stuff that could be yours!!

This is a huge step for me and I am so excited!  Come along and join the journey with me!  Stay tuned the rest of the week for more details!!!

I’m linking this post up with Goal Gathering Monday at The Bona Fide Life.

This article was on a friend’s facebook page today.  I just had to share.

TELL ME ABOUT IT ®

By Carolyn Hax
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Carolyn:

Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What’d you do today? Her: Park, play group . . .

Okay. I’ve done Internet searches, I’ve talked to parents. I don’t get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don’t do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I’m asking is: What is a typical day and why don’t moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I’m feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy — not a bad thing at all — but if so, why won’t my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest (“My life is so much harder than yours”)? What’s the deal? I’ve got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.

Tacoma, Wash.

Relax and enjoy. You’re funny.

Or you’re lying about having friends with kids.

Or you’re taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven’t personally been in the same room with them.

Internet searches?

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it’s validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm’s way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It’s needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It’s constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It’s constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It’s resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone’s long-term expense.

It’s doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything — language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

It’s also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn’t judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.

Write to Tell Me About It, Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, ortellme@washpost.com.