I’m not a very tidy person. My room was always a mess, but I almost always knew where things were. My mom would beg me to clean it and I would refuse every time, making it into a huge argument. Most times after I tidied, I could never find my things again. I haven’t really outgrown this, but I have learned a few things about it (I always have more things than places to put them, which is why everything is a mess; I’m lazy to tidy until things get so bad and then I’m so overwhelmed and feel unable to fix it… These two things are probably worth a few blogposts in themselves).
Having an 18 month old has been teaching me about how much stuff I have and how much it is always out. Since he can now climb up on chairs and access the dining table (which is a notorious “hot spot” of cluttered items waiting to be put away), suddenly it seems there are no safe places for our junk.
I’m finally realizing that my “system” of “crap everywhere” is starting to cause me more grief than the small time it could take to put it away. For a solid 29 years, I got away with leaving my junk all over. As Dr. Phil always asked, “How’s that working for you?” It worked. But now my papers, books, wallets, purses are being put at risk of being torn, eaten, pulled apart, or coloured on.
To be sure, we haven’t mastered this; we still have quite a ways to go. And despite these #toddlerdays being really difficult and trying, things are a lot easier when there’s nothing for him to get into. And that’s on me!
Feed Jack (Willy gets Jack when they wake up and they play together until I’m done in the shower)
Eat breakfast With Willy, put on make-up (it makes me feel like a real person)
Unload the dishwasher
Jack goes down for his first nap and while he naps I do my first round of cleaning for the day.
By the time Jack is sleeping at 8:30, I have already accomplished so much, that I’m able to sit down and enjoy the silence. I’ve even CLEANED stuff. I’ve realized that I need to get something done like this first thing in the morning before laziness/ tiredness sets in. It’s really easy in the afternoon to “justify” not doing any cleaning because I’m tired or whatever excuse that comes up.
You know, I was really sceptical about the difference having my shower first would make. One day I was having a bunch of moms over and I had to maximize my morning so I hopped in the shower first since Jack seemed to be fine waiting to eat. It revolutionized my morning! Instead of waiting till his nap and showering, now I can use that time to do other things.
I’m very pleased with myself. Now I need to make sure I don’t get lazy with the cleaning because that’s been the best part of all: I don’t feeling gross about this apartment I’m sitting in all day long.
This is the final post addressing the three lies we believe that lead us into procrastination. See the introduction post here and you can find the first post here and the second here.
I clued into this one a few weeks ago. I had been putting off doing a task because I had no idea what I was going to use to do the task that needed doing. Then the task was “magically” done (thanks, Willy!). When I asked him what he used to do it, I was a little shocked and embarrassed. I was making this thing to be overly complicated and it really didn’t need to be. I really believed that I didn’t have the right tools to get the job done, when that was totally false.
I think there have been many cases of this in my life that meant something just didn’t get done. In my head these things require a super elite and specialized tool to get the job done.
This is the exact reason why a toddler’s forehead print is still on my TV from 11 months ago. Half the time I can’t see it because the light hides it, but when I do see it, I think “oh yeah, I should wipe that off.” Then I think “with what? What won’t streak, or mess up the TV screen etc.?” And then the moment is over and a year passes. Last week I went to clean it off in a surge of cleaning enthusiasm and I found that this forehead smudge was no longer just a smudge. It was hard thanks to 11 months of dust mixing with the toddler forehead oils.
“What should I use to clean that off?” I asked Willy.
“Windex.”
Life is so simple for that man. In my head I needed a microfibre cloth and a specialized cleaner. When I think about it, I can’t decide how much it’s me being a total idiot or it’s my brain exploding the situation to be 1000x more complicated than necessary so that I can sit on my couch a little longer. I think it’s probably 60% me being an idiot and 40% my brain being crafty.
What’s your excuse?
I’m sure you can think of various ways this works out in your life. You don’t start keeping an agenda because you haven’t found THE PERFECT ONE. You haven’t started taking pictures of pretty things because you don’t have your super expensive DSLR that you’ve been dreaming of. You’ve only worn your favourite outfit once because you’re afraid you’ll ruin it when you clean it because it’s some fancy material. You keep putting off starting your (mythical) home work out because you don’t have a yoga mat. You keep putting off starting to run because you don’t have good shoes or you don’t want to go out in public in the only workout clothes you have: your husband’s T-shirt and shorts that ride up with every stride (read: what I wear to the gym. I’m always the ugliest dressed person there but at least I’m going!).
So how do we combat this?
Think about it. Do you really need it? If you still think you do. What are the ways around this specialized tool? How would you do it if you were poor (rather than just too lazy to buy it)
Ask someone. If you’re too embarrassed to ask your mom, friend, brother, workout inspiration, do what everyone else since the history of the modern internet has done: google it.
This is the second post addressing the three lies we believe that lead us into procrastination. See the introduction post here and the first post in the series here.
When it comes to procrastinating, I think this is the most familiar problem. How many times have procrastinators chosen TV, movies, video games, Facebook, or Netflix instead of doing their essay for class? More insidious is when we do good things instead of the task we should be doing. At work I always have tasks I prefer over others, and sometimes the only thing motivating me to do the crummy jobs was the fact that I was being paid to do them. This doesn’t apply as well at home or in our personal lives. Even the idea that we’re paying for our courses isn’t motivation enough for us to do our work sometimes. This is all because of the lie we believe that this other more fun thing is more rewarding than doing the crummy task.
I was starting this lie in the face last week. Jack was down for a nap and I could watch TV or clean. The day before I felt AWESOME after doing some cleaning. As I was tempted to watch TV I remembered that this idea that I would feel better if I watched TV instead of cleaning was totally false. TV would be fun right now, but then I’d be left with the icky feeling that I avoided what I really needed to do AND left with the mess.
Until you’ve learned through experience that Doing The Thing is, in fact, more rewarding than Not Doing The Thing, it’s so much harder to believe that not doing It isn’t better. It’s also easy to quickly forget.
The way I deal with these lies is to remember the times I Did The Thing and felt GREAT. It’s an exercise that requires intentional thinking, but I find is fairly useful. The other thing that helps (I talk about this in my ebook) is building momentum.
How many times have you thought, “I need to do _____” only to “realize” you don’t have enough time. Let’s be honest with ourselves: 9 times out of 10 that is not true in the least. When I first started attacking this idea that I didn’t have enough time, I started timing myself. I would stare at the pile of dishes and think, “I should do this but I’ll be late if I start now.” After I timed it, I realized it was a 3 minute job and I often had 5 to spare. This was such a freeing realization because I sincerely believed both things: that I needed to do the job and that I didn’t have enough time. Soon I realized that this part of my brain was broken and I needed to acknowledge that the thought “it will take too long” should be treated as an unreliable calculation.
I’m not sure how this lie started worming its way into brains everywhere but it really needs to stop. If you think you don’t have time – try anyways and see how far you get. Half done dishes are better than never done. After you time yourself doing several activities that will “take too long” my guess is you’ll notice that they were a 10 minute job, not a 30 minute job your brain exploded the situation into.
Learning to better estimate time to task completion is a skill that needs to be developed by procrastinators who, for whatever reason, seem to fall short of its mastery.
There you have it. Next time you think, “I don’t have time to do that right now” call your own bluff and give it a try!
In the last little bit I’ve been needing a refresher on some of the stuff I’ve previously blogged about on the topic of productivity. These days I’m learning what it means to not procrastinate around the home. My problem at home is that I’m not a cleaner, and I’m rarely tidy for longer than a few days. I just slink back into my old slobbish ways. Growing up my parents called me Messy Jessy for obvious reasons: my room was always total chaos, but it was a chaos I understood. I could always find whatever I was looking for UNTIL I TIDIED.
Now that life with baby has mostly fallen into a recognizable routine it’s time I figured out how to keep this place in order. Thus the return to all the things I’ve learned about decision fatigue and habit development, productivity, and everything else. But before I remembered to pull up those old blog posts, I found myself Googling something like “help! I’m a slob” and found FLYlady.net which is a frightening website but a really good system. As I read through it I could identify elements of keystone habits, combating decision fatigue, and a whole range of other things I’ve blogged about. Basically, I was in heaven. In reading through the website and adopting (and adapting) the plan for myself, I noticed a few mental traps I always fall into when it comes to getting things done.
Over the next few posts I’m going to address each one individually. I’ve talked about some of these in my e-book and definitely in previous blog posts, but never as specifically as this. I hope it will be as helpful to you as the realizations have been for me.
