I’m sorry I didn’t post earlier today, I’ve been in training camp for work and without email access during the day. I’ll probably be spotty on the posts for the next few days for that reason. I’ll be lucky if I get to post at night.
The upside? I’ll have three No Spend Days. (Well, almost. I did fill up on gas on Monday night, but arguably that is mileage expense reimbursable this week, same for the tolls I spent.) One of the great things about training events are that meals are provided.
The other upside is that I got an iPod shuffle for free. It’s too bad since I hardly ever use the Nano I won as a blog prize a few years ago. Maybe I’ll give it a whirl and see if this suits my lifestyle any better than the Nano. I like that it clips to my clothes while I’m running.
Now, to respond to Deepali’s comment:
My problem is getting to the actual cleaning. I always find something else to do.
How do you get ruthless about doing it?
I use a trick I learned from Stephanie Winston’s old book Getting Organized
She says to set an egg timer for 15 minutes. Clean hard for the full 15. If you want to stop when the timer goes off, then stop. If you want to keep on going, then keep going. I find that I can kick off a good solid 30 minutes of cleaning this way, if not a whole 60 minutes. It works for me because I can do the 15 minutes and stop guilt free, or keep going once I’m started. I used this religiously when I was an admin assistant because I hated filing. I would file in 15 minute increments once or twice a day and usually, that got it done. I even told my boss to try it since I wasn’t going to file his stuff for him. And it worked for him too.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
For focused cleaning, I put a CD on set too loud to sit comfortably with. When the music is over, I get to stop.
Carol
In our family, it was called the “15-Minute-Company-is-on-the-Way-and-Mom-is-going-to-have-a-heart-attack-if-this-livingroom-isn’t-spotless” game. It’s amazing what even one or two people can do in 15 minutes with that timer ticking!
Great tip! I’ve actually tried it (with 5 minutes to start out easy). It works… but I think my problem is that I’m so easily distracted. I will find any excuse not to do something I need to do!
Anyway, Saturday morning, I’ll set the timer. Wish me luck!