Carrie Bartkowiak v. 5.0

I ran across some free mindmapping software tonight - Freemind.
As I was playing with it, I wondered if it could help me get control of this house. And I do need help (I could use about 4 extra pairs of hands!), so I gave it a try. Here’s a snapshot of what I came up with:

(Click on it to make it bigger.)

It’s not done at this point, but you can see that HUGE purple cloud that encompasses everything we’re trying to stuff into the Library. Ack. That’s obviously not going to work. Something’s gotta move somewhere else.

The method I used was naming the map “Get Control of the House”; then I added on a branch for each room in the house (like I said I’m not done, all rooms aren’t there). Then in each room, I tried to list off all of the activities we optimally wanted to use that room for. Then I started to break down each of those activities, listing off what we’d need for that activity. Like under Library -> Reading, you can see that the two main parts of being able to read in there is having the bookcases, and a place to read. I’ve gotta purge and organize the bookcases, and I need to make sure there’s a comfortable place to read with ample light to do so.

This was pretty interesting - you might want to download the software and play with it and see what you come up with. It helped me see that everything we were trying to stuff into the library by turning the family room into Mike’s office was just too much. Now I can move that around.

As for last week’s Disaster Area - I made great progress the first night and following day. Then Mike’s stuff started coming out of the family room and we needed room in the Library to start fitting stuff in, so I started tackling Disaster Area Redux - The Library. All forward progress on the utility room screeched to a standstill as stuff that we decided to permanently move out of the Library got temporarily put into the utility room. We’re going to sell this stuff in a yard sale later this month, so I’m trying to figure out a place to hold it for a few weeks. I’m thinking the back porch (it’s covered) is gonna have to be the spot.

On Sunday and Monday I…

• Retrained my concorde grape vine (I let it grow out of control last summer once it got intertwined with some gourd vines that took over our entire porch)
• Edged our walkway
• Edged part of the sidewalk out front
• Did a HUGE tackle in the Library, that of course isn’t done
• Calculated out how much mulch we’ll need to properly lay down the flowerbeds this year (just tilling and planting doesn’t cut it, especially with wire grass - ugh)
• Got the braces I needed to put up 3 wire shelves in the utility room
• Got some seed starter trays and windowsill trays so I can plant my seeds
• Handled 4 very energetic and attention-hungry boys for an hour during Cub Scouts - they exhausted me more than all the previous work did! LOL!

I hope the mind mapping software is useful for you. Folks apparently use mind mapping for all kinds of things, instead of outlines. Try googling it; maybe you’ll find your own use for it.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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