Measuring progress... what have I done today?

One thing I'm learning as a new mom is that it's easy to feel like you haven't done anything, or done enough. It's easy to fall into the "to-do list" mindset of wanting to accomplish everything, but it's just impossible. I've read several blog entries lately, including a great one from a blog called New Mom Help, about thinking instead in terms of a "what have I done list."

Thinking like this reminds me that I can't do everything, but I can instead focus on doing what's important. It's nice to have everything clean and picked up and put away, but sometimes it doesn't all get done. But each task has lots of mini-tasks, and I can do the most important mini-tasks and feel like I have accomplished something.

In the past day or so, I've actually gotten a lot done. Sure, there is folded-up laundry on the table, and a baby bottle sitting in the living room, but I did manage to wash the cloth diapers (very important!) and put them away on the changing table, do another load of laundry and fold it up (it's not all put away yet, but I will get there), make the bed, get dressed (a biggie!), and Luke has been well cared for today (the most important of all).

If the only thing I do all day is feed and change Luke, then I've still accomplished a lot. We have a good stockpile of gDiapers, so if I don't manage to get to the laundry task and we run out of cloth diapers before I get them washed and dried, it's no big deal. If for some reason, I blew through two dozen cloth diapers and 120 gDiapers without stopping to do laundry, the grocery store is just next door and I can get some more.

Thinking in terms of what I have accomplished instead of what's left undone at the end of the day really helps to put things in better perspective.