Me, Disorganized? Inconceivable!

I have been having a Mediated Learning weekend in review!

I have needed to go through all of my papers and organize them. And I've had tons of ideas coming at me at once, so it was time to have a little mediated talk with myself:

"Self, why is it important to be organized?"

"So you can find what you are looking for when you need it."

"And how do you think that helps your family?"

"Eliminates stress and unnecessary whining from me that I never have time to gather my thoughts."

"Yes, exactly. How do you think your family will feel in the future knowing there is calm and orderliness where your paperwork is concerned?"

"Everyone will breath a sigh of relief and feel calm and orderly."

"Exactly."

"In my defense, I haven't had a lot of spare time."

"In the words of Vezzini in The Princess Bride,'I do not accept excuses. I will just need to get myself another giant."

"Huh? Wha-?"

"Oh, nevermind."

So after that little talk with myself I went through my papers and sorted them according to my liking and put them here:

In my binder book which I cleverly entitled: Mediated Learning.

Then I wrote out the Mediation Core and Criteria.

Yes, that's right, I wrote it out. Our printer is on the fritz and rather than way lay this project one more time I decided to handwrite out the most important parts to me.

And that turned out to be very good because I immersed myself once again into all the great information I've gathered over a course of two workshops. It also helped me crystallize my thinking on why I am writing this all out and taking the time to stick it onto the door.

It also allowed me to pick two or three areas to hone in on this week, as well as write up all the questions I want to ask my children to kick start thinking.

John, a workshop presenter, mentioned writing up the various questions and sticking them on a key chain for quick reference. Here are mine before they go to the laminators.

And then I breathed a sigh of relief. Because I was organized and ready to sit down with my hubby and talk to our kids about using mediated learning in our home and what that is going to look like.

It was a day that made me feel good and accomplished.

"Self, how do you think this will affect your organizing skills in the future?"

"Well, I realize that if I make time for what's important and put things in place right away, I won't feel overwhelmed by wanting to do something but not feeling prepared to do it."

"Exactly. You don't want to fall prey to classic blunders. As Vizzini said in the Princess Bride, 'You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line"! "

"Huh? Wh-?"

"Oh, nevermind."