Fifteen Minutes

I have been trying to follow "FlyLady's" pointers and wisdom about getting rid of the clutter and overwhelmed feeling of "I can't do it all!" and one of her mantras is to just do something for fifteen minutes. Set a timer and see how much you can accomplish. Break things down into small segments and don't allow yourself to become overwhelmed.

I seem to have the mentality of thinking that I need an entire day or weekend or holiday to accomplish "big things", when in reality all I need to do is start puttering away "fifteen minutes at a time".

I thought I didn't have enough time to stop and write this morning. Then I looked at the clock. I had fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to write whatever fell out of my fingertips. It might be good, it might be tedious, it most likely will be a tad boring. Maybe if I'm lucky I can make myself smile with my thoughts (I amuse myself easily).

I spent the weekend thinking I had to do impossible things.

Saturday I spun in circles. It was a one step forward, two steps back kind of day. I created my own backwardness. But I sort of enjoyed it. I love a day without a firm agenda. I seem to think I need that day in a weekend, I waste a lot of my time thinking this way.

But what did I do? I set myself up for a productive Sunday. I bought the tools I needed to do the job I set out to do.

Often the mere feat of thinking I have to move a mountain in a day overwhelms me. So I only shovelled the mountain little bits of a time, convincing myself that I could stop any time I wanted to stop. I bit off only what I could chew. In the end, I ate an awful lot.

I created a self imposed deadline so I had to stop at a specific time. I failed by a half hour but I didn't want to burn the midnight oil and pay the price this morning. So I stopped at a reasonable time, then accomplished one more dirty task before I hopped into the shower.

Cleaning up after a dirty day is so rewarding. I don't even think about how much I hate dealing with the whole "fixing my hair" thing when my shower becomes my reward for a day well spent.

I didn't incorporate the "fifteen minute mentality" into my Sunday. But I didn't overdo either. I took an ugly job (painting baseboards and door jams) and just did it. Now if I can just push through the week and take fifteen minutes at a time to "clear a hot spot" and just chisel away at the mountain, maybe that will energize me enough to think a one day weekend is too short to waste doing nothing.

My fifteen minutes are up. Now that wasn't so hard, was it?