Getting stuff done

Favourite spam e-mail subject line from yesterday's spam: "miffed drinking fountain". Oh noes! Beware, the drinking fountain is miffed!

This morning I decided on sitting down at my computer to deal with 5 things from my e-mail inboxes. So far, I have:
- e-mailed our church secretary to confirm that I'll do the prayer for the bread this coming Sunday
- ordered a plastic canvas pattern for my mom that she wants
- updated a piece of Palm software (Bonsai) I want to start using again to organize the to-do lists that overwhelm me (let's just say I had another one of those nights last night where I found it very hard to get to sleep with all that was swimming through my head)
- ordered QuickTax and Norton AntiVirus 2007 using special offer codes that supposedly give me discounts and such (I order these through the Intuit.ca website every year)

Not sure what the 5th thing is going to be yet; I have to go back to my e-mail after I finish doing the Palm software update (i.e., actually dig out my Palm from my purse and sync it up--going to do that after I finish typing this). I also wanted to listen to "Come, Now is the Time to Worship," but didn't like a bunch of stuff on the CD that I have that on, so I imported that and some stuff from some other praise CDs into ITunes, made a Praise playlist and then set up a Party Shuffle using that playlist as a source. Wouldn't you know, "Come, Now is the Time to Worship" was the first song that popped up in that Party Shuffle, with no need for interference on my part, the next song was another that I wanted to listen to but didn't bother to see if it was on the CDs I imported ("We Will Dance," which the Egginton sisters sang at my wedding), and the next was another that I wanted to listen to ("Light the Fire Again"--that's what's playing now). I'll put these all on my iPod later.

Yeah, like I said, I had a pretty hard time sleeping last night with a lot of things I wanted to do running through my head. I should know that trying to organize one's life solely by lying there thinking about it and not writing anything down is a bad idea, since it doesn't actually get the clutter out of your head, but I did it anyway. Thought about getting up to get my Palm and use the aforementioned Bonsai program but didn't actually do it. In my overwhelmedness though I did come up with a prayer for the bread for communion this Sunday and wrote it down so it wasn't totally a lost cause :). And God did touch my overwhelmedness when I let Him. I have a tendency to get overwhelmed and very stressed out very easily, and I always have. I'm trying to find ways to deal with it, but I think it will be one of those things that will bother me for the rest of my life and I'll just have to recognize it for what it is and put my coping strategies into place when I do recognize it cropping up again (and hopefully put some preventative strategies into effect as well so that paralyzing overwhelmedness doesn't crop up as much, as often or as powerfully, too). First, though, I have to develop some new coping (and then preventative) strategies. I am almost tempted to check out a book I've heard a little about called Getting Things Done, but really I know that is like, in Flylady's words, looking for a magic pill that will instantly make all my problems go away. It's not like I haven't read books and otherwise researched organization methods before. I know I probably already have all the tools in my head I need to tackle this stress problem I have; I just have to take the time and intentionality to experiment and find what works for me. Heck, it's probably just a matter of doing something consistently, rather than off and on now and then. Anyway, I have some ideas I'm going to start with, pulled from various systems and various thoughts I've had off and on. I'll let ya know how it goes.