Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Baby Steps

I know baby steps are not a new idea. I really learned this concept from Emilie Barnes, one of my favorite authors and then at http://www.flylady.net/ . This is how it works for me.

1. Never go up or down stairs without taking something that needs to go up or down.

2. Do one job or small part of a job during tv commercials.

3. Make a list of 5 minute jobs that you can check when you actually have 5 minutes to spare.

4. At work, every time I get up to go to the restroom, I file a few files. (the bathroom is beside the file room.)

5. Every job can be accomplished in small segments of time. 15 minutes a day for a week equals 1 hour and 45 minutes.

6. Doing things in baby steps makes it easier to beat procrastination. Its not so bad to start a job you dread if you know you are only committed to spending a few minutes. I find that once I get started, I actually don't want to quit. I start enjoying the progress.

This is what I did this morning in the baby steps area:

1. Went upstairs to get cell phone, so took box containing punch bowl set upstairs to storage area.

2. While in bathroom, took dirty towel and wiped down sink and counter.

3. Went downstairs, took basket of laundry, dirty coffee cup and bag of trash. Put clean trashbag on bottom step for next trip upstairs.

4. While in downstairs bathroom to get dirty towel for laundry, wiped down sink and counter with dirty towel.

5. Put load of laundry in washing machine. After it filled up and agitated for just a minute, turned off so it could soak until I get home.

6. While waiting for picture to load on blog, folded laundry.

If you do just a little bit every day toward a certain project, or just plain old weekly housecleaning, it gets done before you know it!

This is a wonderful tool for anybody, but a person with a job outside the home can really use this to MAKE HOMEMAKING DREAMS COME TRUE!

Have a great Wednesday!

Hugs to you, Debbie J.

2 comments:

Little Penpen said...

I think the fly lady is great! I used to visit her website and subscribe to her emails, but it became a little overwhelming at times. (all the emails) I agree that working women really need a plan! With me being gone 13 hours on the days that I work, I have to start completely over on the house on my days off. I need to teach my family the fly lady tricks!

Mom2fur said...

It all adds up! I've been working on my office here, and it's about 75% done. (It's my computer/crafting/sewing room all rolled into one.) If I'd tried to do it in one day, I'd have given up. But I do a little each day, and it's really starting to shape up. One task is shredding old papers. I have a big bag of them, and every time I leave the room I grab a few and shred them. Little by little...it all gets done!
BTW, have you ever heard of "Ta-Da Lists"? It's a free site where you make your own to-do lists. I have one for each room of my house, and the tasks are really broken down. There are almost 40 different jobs in my kitchen--but most of those take about 2 seconds to do! It is a really helpful tool.
BTW, you have a really nice blog!

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