So, for these past two weeks I’ve been working on my ambitiousness. (Is that even a word?) And I’ve gotten a lot done. (Cleaned out van, cleaned out closets, cleaned out storage room ,etc.)But the main thing that I’ll be carrying away from the experiment with this facet is “do it now”.
I am the queen of putting off tasks until they are completely unreasonable or an emergency but while I’ve been working on ambition I have been trying to do whatever needs to be done as soon as I see the problem/work/task. And while I should have realized this years ago I’m just realizing that when you take care of something the moment you notice it, you save yourself time, energy, and stress in the future.
Another thing I’ve learned from this is that I have a lot of work to do and it will be impossible to tackle all of my jobs at once so I’ve started to schedule out on a daily basis what items I am going to finish. This is keeping me from doing too much, burning out (another problem of mine), and then loosing all my ambition.
One last thing—and this may fall under the category of multi-tasking but I’m writing it here anyway–In trying to accomplish those things that need to be done when they need it I found spare time here and there that is perfect for squeezing in jobs.
For instance, my mini van is always a mess. Always. And I HATE cleaning it out. But I decided that I will do it on my week to drive the car pool. (When I remember to drive it, that is.) Here’s how it will work. On Monday morning I’ll take my car cleaning supplies and park them in the front seat. Then when it is time to pick up the car pool I will use the time I sit in the van waiting for the kids to de-junk, gather garbage, wipe down seats, and wash windows. By the end of the week it should be clean and after the final drop off on Friday we’ll head over to the gas station, vacuum, grab some sodas, and run through the car wash. Perfect plan eh?
I actually did it this week and it was perfect. I have to arrive at least 10 minutes early to get a parking spot so instead of watching crazy moms I’ll just clean out the van. (This will continue to work even in cold weather because I don’t even need to get out of the car to do it.)
So that is that. And as I’m writing this I’m dressed, and wearing make-up, and am happy that my kids are riding around in a clean vehicle, and relieved to have the majority of my daily list already completed. Now if only I could figure out how to unclog the drain from my fridge cleaning episode this morning…
PS–If any of you have any ideas on how to squeeze a job into a normally wasted time slot let me know. Heaven knows I can use all the help I can get.
