Our organizational abilities are really tested when an out of the ordinary event occurs, like surgery.My housemate is having knee replacement surgery over the summer so I thought I’d share the organizing we have been doing in our lives  to pay it forward a bit.

Like other major events, while we’re dealing with nerves and emotions, we’re also reorganizing schedules, the house, and will be organizing the many people who have offered support afterwards.

What have we done that I can pass onto any of you looking ahead to a surgery? This will be a series as we work through the weeks leading up to and following surgery.

I’ll start a few months back — about February, so four months ahead of time.

Believe it or not, this was not the organizer in the household starting four months ahead of time!

Manufactured Deadlines

The surgery date, quite naturally, became a milestone or what I call in business a “manufactured deadline.”  Suddenly, the surgery date prompted all kinds of household projects that had to “get done before surgery.”

It’s like when you know you’re going on vacation, you want to get millions of things done before vacation. It becomes a deadline and we get more done.  It’s human nature. I see it all the time and it’s a very useful means to stay motivated to organize and particularly downsize. Even if the deadline is completely unrelated to the task at hand.

By household projects, I mean big ones. We did get outside assistance, but we did a lot of this ourselves.  The toughest part was scheduling the pieces of each project, since we had several going on at once.

• Overhauled the den office. Painted, carpeted, decluttered, got rid of too much furniture and created an inspiring home office.
• Overhauled a bedroom. Painted in new bold colors, new carpet, decluttered.
• Had a decluttering weekend and went through the rest of the house.

And I was a project myself. I got sick in late February, got better, sick again … three or four times, I’d be down and out for several days. Didn’t help much on the work weekends, so our schedule got pushed by a lot.  And we added to our household of two adults and one very energetic Entelbucher Swiss Mountain dog by dog sitting for two others.

Learn and enjoy dancing in the moment

The pain threshold for organized chaos is pretty high in my household. But I’m smiling because it’s exciting, all the time. You never know what’s going to happen until it does. Plans get made and they get changed oh, so many times before the final set. I’ve learned to ignore the first few rounds of planning logistics and let it go.

The more organized, structured or controlling you are, the harder it’s going to be for you to take this in stride and not go nuts out of stress.

Advice: Keep that “alone” time

Relax, meditate, walk, punch a punching bag, read, pray, listen to music. Keep that “alone” time. Whatever you need usually to keep your calm, have other people help you keep your daily commitment to yourself.

Advice: Use a calendar – even if you never do

Use a calendar. It will keep you sane.  The best thing we did was map out weekends, because it allowed for enough family and relaxation time, and told us just how many of these projects we actually had time for. We dropped or postponed several other projects we wanted to do because we could see on the calendar there was literally no time.

Advice: Block the weekend before surgery

Months ago, we blocked out the weekend before surgery. We will use some time to pick up family who will be here for a couple of the early weeks. But otherwise, nothing goes on that weekend.

We need time to get our heads straight. the ex-project manager and manager in me also knows that with all great planning, we cannot foresee the unpredictable. We know something will come up we’re going to have to deal with. So we’ve left some slack time.

Blocking the time on a calendar helps you remember more easily, too. Your memory will be stressed enough with all that’s going on in your head and in your heart before surgery.

For now, that’s the advice. In future blogs, I’ll write about winding down at work, organizing the house, how the hospital education program has helped us get organized and more.