Yesterday I finally booked my practical driving test. Interesting some may think, but I have been meaning to book it since the end of October….A couple of weeks ago, someone asked me to put together some figures for them. I got waylaid that day and then the weekend arrived, so I thought “Screw it, I’ll do it on Monday” and then it turned out that I didn’t need to provide them till the Wednesday so I did it late on the Tuesday night. Now bearing in mind that I had been putting it off for five days, I was ashamed when I realised that it took me all of ten minutes….

A few years ago after realising that my five month relationship actually wasn’t one, I had a life changing epiphany moment when I was realised that I was my own weapon of mass destruction in relationships. Last week I realised that even though I am loved up and no longer commitment-phobic about relationships, I am a procrastinator and sometimes commitment-shy when it comes to Getting Sh*t Done. I don’t want to be superwoman, I don’t want to be a military alpha-mum, but I do realise that I will spontaneously combust and mainline crack if I don’t get a handle on my time.

I am trying everything which of course takes even more time but after scribbling hundreds of to-do lists which I forget to look at, inputting tasks into a PDA which I forget to charge up, and putting reminders in my phone that I tend to dismiss and promptly forget, I have now turned to the trusty t’internet because surely someone who spends a significant amount of time online should organise herself there, right? Hmm, I don’t know. The jury is out on whether Google Calender and Remember the Milk will save my life…which reminds me I need to actually remember to buy some milk….

People always say to me “Ah..but you’re a mum. Sure this is all part of it” and that’s partly true but I’ve come to accept that if I continue to fly by the seat of my pants with this Getting Sh*t Done mallarky, I will struggle to have proper decent quality time with the bambino, which is the whole point of being around in the first place!

I got home from a driving lesson last Thursday night and saw two loads of washing to be hung up, one to be put away, washing up to be done, three baskets of things that I have been meaning to sort out and put away in their appropriate places, plus various things I had been meaning to tidy and something snapped. I replayed the previous ten minutes where I had been making mental notes to do things as I walked past them and I realised that it’s no wonder I don’t get anything done. I’m totally disorganised and I spend more time thinking about things and writing lists about them than I actually spend DOING them.

Actions speak louder than forgotten mental notes and misplaced to-do lists!

So everything I saw, I did it. I went to bed late that night but I accomplished more in a couple of hours than I often do in one day! It’s annoying in some ways because there are so many things to do but as I tackle things, they will dwindle. A couple of days later I started the ‘Think It, Do It’ rule which is how I ended up booking my driving test and finally responding to about twenty overdue emails yesterday!

Am I a changed woman? I’m getting there… Rome was not built in a day and you’d be shocked at how many things I have to do! But I will get there.

I’ve got my mum finishing the painting in the two bedrooms tomorrow and I dropped twenty shirts off to be ironed at the weekend. Delegation certainly helps…

And I think that therein lies the contradiction of motherhood. You want to do everything but you actually can’t. It’s frickin impossible. Unless I get a machine that will clone me and send me out to work, clean the house, be a wonderful girlfriend, and basically do everything that I would like to do, sometimes I’m going to drop the ball.

This maternity leave will come to an end and if I don’t get into good habits now, my arse will be toast as I combust at the multi-tasking overload.  So I, Natalie, of fairly sound mind (hush) am committing to being better organised and managing my time better. Right I must go as it’s after 1pm and I am still in my pyjamas…Ooops…Jaysus…it’s like procrastinating about procrastinating…

This is my column that appears on Dollymix each Tuesday