Organize Your Life with the Y.A.H.O.O Method

I love the idea of being organized!  The concept has always intrigued me.  Loving the idea and actually being good at it, however, are two different things entirely.  I can't say that I am good at it, but there have been times (maybe for a week or two) that I have had a plan, stuck with it, and saw the positive effects of having an organized life.  It is something I always aspire to do.  If you share that desire, I think you will find this article to be beneficial to your cause.  And with the new year coming up, there is no better time to get started.

Although I was never good at school, there are certain aspects of Mathematics and Language that I have always found satisfying; mostly, they all have to do with simplifying complex problems.  I kind of enjoyed reducing fractions...and I even occasionally found that diagramming sentences made me happy.  The practice of taking things that seem overwhelming and complicated, and simplifying them, has shown up in many areas of my life.  It is basically what I do when I prepare a message (especially for Children).  It is what I do when I write out a program for a youth rally, or Vacation Bible School, or a Christmas program...or whatever.  As a second man, running in many different directions at the same time, I find it to be very necessary to keep it all (meaning basically... "life") in some sort of order.

So, several years ago, I came up with this little acronym.  I thought I would share it with you for an example.  Perhaps you would want to incorporate it into your own life.  The acronym is Y.A.H.O.O.  (Don't think of the web portal/search engine, think of the excamation.  "Yahoo!"  as in, "Yahoo!  My affairs are now in order!"): 

Y = Yard 
A = Auto
H = House
O = Office
O = Optional

Yard
Assuming your Saturday and Sunday are your "off" days, Monday would be "Y."  You would find some time in the day to make sure the yard is cleaned up, trimmed, watered...whatever you need to do on a weekly basis. 

Auto
Then on Tuesday, you would make sure your vehicle is clean.  Check the tires, make sure you are up to date on your oil change, etc.

House 
It doesn't necessarily have to be a major project, but you know how you have a thousand things on your "honey-do" list?  Attack them one at a time.  Find a few minutes on Wednesday to go to the store and pick up something that needs to be replaced.  Or maybe it is just a phone call to a repair man.  Maybe you just need to clean the filters on your AC, or vacuum out behind the fridge.  Just put something on the list!

Office
Whether it is a little desk at home where you keep all your bills and paperwork, or it is your place of employment, you have some sort of office work that is piling up and needs a little attention.  Use Thursday to clean up your desk or pay some bills.

Optional
I thought Friday would be a perfect time for a little more liberty.  You get to choose something you enjoy doing, or maybe something that didn't get done earlier in the week that you can't leave until next week.  You get to pick on this day what area you are going to focus on.

Obviously, this method isn't meant to organize your whole life.  There are many things left off the list that need their own little simplified system.  But this method is for catching those "little things" that you never find time to take care of, and so they always turn into major problems down the road.  Give it a try, if you don't already have a system in place.  And tell me what you think.

God Bless, and may your passion for ministry grow as you "addict yourself" to it (1 Corinthians 16:15).

R.R.