So you will either hate me or thank me for giving you a little push to get your life in order. Not like I am a pro and my house always looks like the clean kitchen in the picture. Yes, it's my kitchen as of this moment, just minutes after I picked up a few things off of it to document this monumental accomplishment in my life. Yeah for me!!! It took me a month of starting, stopping, getting lost in the piles that had overgrown the edges of the island. But I finally did it. And while on Oprah's website today, I saw my favorite declutter guy (Peter Walsh) on there with more awesome information to help all of us busy people get our lives under control. He said "Clutter is Decisions Delayed". How true. Sometimes those delays are valid. There are too many reasons to list as to why we delay, but they are real challenges and sometimes cleaning the house comes in last for good reason. It's boring, aweful, and just not on the top of our priority list unless something is stinking. SO, after I had my victory today, I wanted to help out my friends with a little challenge.
After talking to my wonderful sister-in-law about how much we hate unloading the dishwasher and folding laundry (1 dark load), we decided to keep track of how many minutes it actually took us to do that particular job. Then maybe it wouldn't seem so bad. It was kind of funny when I actually was timing myself, trying to do it "normally" so I'd have an acurate idea. No rushing! So guess what? It only takes me about 5 minutes to do each of those. Try this and see how long it takes you!
So why was I complaining so much? Is 5 minutes really that bad to do something I don't like? I realize that delaying my decisions (like returning the wrapping paper to the basement, taking clothes up to the laundry room, etc) all only take minutes, and sometimes seconds.
I hope you realize I totally understand those days, months, or years when this is so not what you're interested in hearing. But if this is something you are wanting to work on improving, try timing yourself! I'd love to find out how long it takes you and whether it helps you to conquer those jobs we don't look forward to. Share your ideas, thoughts, things that work for you, etc. I hope you enjoy seeing my pile of unfolded laundry as proof that I have that waiting for me as I'm writing to you to do this. I look forward to hearing what you think of all this and would love to help each other out!
So this is my kitchen on a normal day. Ha ha, okay, just without the chocolate sauce everywhere. I was on the phone with Eric when the bowl of sauce Katie was sitting next to on the counter somehow tipped. Katie caught the bowl, and about half the sauce on her lap. Phoebe didn't know what hit her! She just kept licking, but didn't know how to get the sauce from her head into her mouth. I'm surprised I didn't loose my temper. We wiped it all up and the kids all watched me bathe Phoebe. You would have thought we were having a party, they were laughing so hard! It must be a "Splash" season in my cleaning life. So far I've had grape juice splashed across my living room, the chocolate sauce splashed all over the chair and cupboard, and the day after that happened, I dropped a bucket of stain on my kitchen counter and that splashed across my messy counter on everything! So now when you see my next blog on my clean kitchen, you'll understand why I'm so happy about it.
