3 Keys Thursday: 3 Keys for Returning to the Real World

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

We had a lovely long weekend at the beach and now I'm back and completing Day 2 of Return to the Real World.

It's overrated.

While vacations, long weekends, and school breaks are a wonderful break from routine, they can often make it difficult to get back into a routine. Since my Return to the Real World adventure kicked off on a Wednesday, I've had my share of hopelessly confused, primarily of the "what day is this?" variety.

Here are three key things I'm doing to find my way back and to (I hope) make Return to the Real World be more of an adventure than a nightmare.

Start with my week-at-a-glance. It's tempting to think that since this is a short week I can forgo my usual week-at-a-glance cheat sheet, but that would be a mistake. Stationery hound that I am, I chose a different week-at-a-glance sheet for this week since I was starting my week in the middle. I opted for one that has more room for lists, and I appropriated the Monday and Tuesday spaces for my to-do list as well, which is good because it leads me to the next step....

Consolidate my reminder notes and to-do lists. Leading into the vacation, I made lists. During the vacation, I made more lists. When I got home...you guessed it. All of these random pieces of paper with reminders on them spell disaster unless I put them all together on one list. And, as an added bonus, I get to cross off the stuff I already did which means that the whole list will be smaller than the sum of its parts.

Use my styles strategically. As someone with an I need to see it personal style, it's tempting to just unload the reading material and things to do that came back from vacation onto the nearest flat surfaces, but too much unloading leads to visual overload. Yes, the mail I need to sort is on the dining room table, along with some of the reading material that didn't get read. Everything else needs to go away, and, if piles are inevitable, they need to be all in one place. My poor dining room table is my go-to at this point, so that means the kitchen counters and the mudroom surfaces need to remain clear.  Scattered piles on multiple surfaces leave me feeling frantic and edgy. If it's all in one place, I know where to look and I'm motivated to create more clear space, even if I can't do it all at once.

Our vacation was lovely. Now I'm working to make Return to Reality pleasant, too.