Yesterday we shared some of our worst home habits. Mostly when we look at ours they have to do with procrastinating. It's not that we're lazy exactly, it's more that in our mind this particular task (opening the mail, putting away our shoes, making the bed with clean sheets after the laundry's done) can just as well be done later. Why we think we'll have the energy to do it later when we don't have it now, we don't know. But then we realized it was not really a question of energy or laziness, it was more a question of how much time we thought that task was going to take.
Putting away my shoes, opening the mail. Why those things will take hours and I don't have time to do it now. I'm too hungry. I don't have time to do the dishes, American Idol is on right now and I want to see it while it's happening before everyone starts talking about the good parts on Twitter. Hmmm, I'm seeing a pattern here. Time. So, I decided to see how long those things actually took:
Putting away shoes: 15 seconds
Opening the day's mail and sorting it: 30 seconds (that includes procrastinating while I debated on whether to accept a new credit card offer or trash it)
Washing dishes: 2 minutes (there were breakfast dishes to wash and I also whitened the sink with some Barkeeper's Friend)
Culling the magazines and tossing last month's: 30 minutes (Okay, not really. Pulling out last month's magazines took 30 seconds because I keep all my magazines in a rack so it was only a matter of looking at the spines and pulling out the December issues. The other 29 minutes and 30 seconds was spent flipping through Lucky to make sure I'd read everything, deciding I hadn't and then reading the parts I'd skipped)
Total: 3 minutes 15 seconds (obviously I'm not counting the part I discussed above).
Whaaaa??? My clock must be wrong, those things take hours. No. No they did not. And I even dawdled. Which sorta flipped my whole thinking over on its head. Maybe there is a reason to let the Tivo run through the commercial breaks instead of fast forwarding. Look what I could get done during a 2 minute commercial break!
[image via Laffy4's Flickr]
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Comments (13)
I think the reason I dont clean the small things is I feel like they will lead to bigger things. And I'll start these bigger things and never be finished.
Actually this happened to me last weekend. I asked my boyfriend what room of the house he would like cleaned most (most of them need cleaning /blush) he said the kitchen. I started cleaning it, realized the baseboards were icky, scrubbed them with a toothbrush, painted the walls because they also seemed icky, scrubbed the cabinets, bought new draw pulls to make the kitchen look together with the newly painted walls, scrubbed every stainless surface into submission and made curtains. While the rest of the house stayed mediocre.
Being obsessive can be a positive or a negative i suppose.
"Why we think we'll have the energy to do it later when we don't have it now, we don't know."
My problem is that most of the time I often will have the energy to do it later. I doubt there are many people who run at a near-constant energy level all the time. The last thing I want to do after a long day is clean the bathroom. However, it's a different story on a Saturday after getting a good night's sleep.
@dearly: I totally hear you on the small tasks turning into bigger things. It's really hard to not take advantage of the fact that I want to keep cleaning a space after I get going...which means that the next time the space needs cleaning, I'll remember how long it took the previous time and starting the task becomes not too appealing.
I have the same feeling about some of my hate-tos, so I also timed them. Unloading the dishwasher, I can do in 3 minutes. I discovered that blow drying my hair (no, not a housekeeping task, but it feels like a chore for sure) takes 4 minutes. I'm glad I timed these out so I can remind myself of the reality of the situation when I'm feeling grody. Granted, these are pretty self-contained tasks that won't lead to more like, say, reorganizing my t-shirt drawer after sorting laundry. Guilty.
A couple of other timing-related household tricks I've adopted are 1) If it takes less than a minute, do it now (from Gretchen Rubin) -- small stuff, like hanging up my coat or putting a glass in the sink, and 2) If I only have 10 minutes to clean, I set a timer to keep myself on task. It's less daunting when I know there's an end in sight. It also helps with the motivation. Maybe I clean a little more efficiently if I know I've only got 10 minutes before I've promised myself some hi-kwality intellectual reading material (Lucky, for example).
I have a nasty habit of putting things down when I get in the door, going to change clothes and just forgetting I should deal with the stuff hanging out in the foyer. I change immediately upon arriving home only if I'm in work clothes, though - the cats are tough on them - so that's only two days a week. The rest of the days I try to keep going when I get in the door and get things done.
Usually what happens is that a little mess starts and gets bigger and bigger during a bad week and feels totally unmanageble unless I just give over the day to it. The goal is to not let that happen but it's hard to keep moving when all I want to do after being out of the house for 14 hours is flop on the couch and read a bit.
One of the FlyLady things is to use a timer set on 15 minutes to do tasks. It was a real-eye opener to realize that even the most gigantic load of dishes I produce really only takes 30 minutes (no dishwasher, unfortunately). I was sure it must take hours!
Like many people who have already commented, the small messes multiply until it seems like one big mess. I know if I start to tidy up one thing I won't be able to stop so I end up putting it off again and again. My most hated chore is ironing... even when everything else gets done, my ironing pile continues to fester. I even prefer scrubbing my toilet to ironing.
There was a past AT post on how having company over motivates people to clean, and that's certainly true for me. I just completed a massive sweeping/dusting/scrubbing of my place for this reason.
Matchbookhymnal - I was just about to post about Flylady and how the "15 minutes" thing revolutionized my thinking! Frist Trxie Belden and now this - I need a "friend" button or something!!! ;)
I found my "never fail" method with 2 to 3 minutes cleaning action. I absolutely hate commercial breaks when watching House, American Idol or anyother of my beloved TV shows. Recently I discovered that if I stand up during the commercial break and put away or clean some things, not only I have almost spotless kitchen / bathroom / bedroom or whatever I decide to clean, I'm also not annoyed by the commercials! By trying to work rapidly I also have some sort of training. My DH and I do it often together and we have so much fun! Try it, it works like a charm!
As others have commented about the perception of time when performing a task, I sometimes give myself an hour to clean. I work for about 15 minutes and have been shocked to discover that it is only 15 minutes when it felt like an hour. It's not really a physical burden or an issue of time constraints...it's a psychological burden. When we may feel drained from the expectations of work and family having the option to avoid small tasks can be more than welcome (depending on your tolerance for mess).
It often helps to break things up into smaller tasks. Maybe cleaning the whole bathroom is just too daunting. So go in and scrub the tub, or the sink, or the toilet. If the whole place is a mess, go through and pick everything up. Later do all the floors, or dust. You get the idea. You are accomplishing specific tasks and can feel a sense of completion at least in that one area.
Great post -- I am good about the little things and don't have a clutter problem, but I dread doing regular house cleaning (you know, the whole vacuum, dust, mop deal) because I think it's going to take for evah, but when I finally do it, it takes WAAAY less time than I dreaded.
I need to keep this in mind this weekend and "just do it"
Occasionally I do dishwashing "sprints" during the commercial breaks.
I love to bake because I can do the dishes while stuff is baking and be done when the goodies come out. Warm treats and a clean kitchen.
Love the photo!