I’m a huge procrastinator. I tend to overestimate the amount of time something is going to take so I put it off, because I don’t have time for it. That means that many things go undone and turn into even bigger jobs. Like the kitchen after dinner, I always think I’ll just relax for a few minutes and then I’ll get to it. While I’m relaxing I might read a while or work in the yard, anything but clean the kitchen.
At the end of the evening as I’m getting ready for bed I realize the kitchen is still a disaster area. I just can’t bring myself to do it because now I’m tired, and I have to get up early, and a million other excuses. I’ll do it tomorrow.
I come home from work to a dirty kitchen, I move things around, pile them up so I can make dinner again. Now after dinner I have two days of dishes and the stuff from last night is dried on. The kitchen might as well be Mt. Everest, it seems so intimidating and impossible to do in less than three years.
This is when a timer comes in handy. It’s such a simple thing but most of the time we overestimate how long something will take to finish so we never start. Now, as soon as dinner is over I set the timer for 15 minutes and usually before the timer goes off, I’m done. If I’m not, I walk away. The kitchen looks better and is mostly done and I only had to give up fifteen minutes of my life.
A timer is great for motivating kids to help around the house as well. Give them a job, give yourself a job and set the timer for fifteen minutes to see who can get done first. Your kids will love to show you how fast they are, and they are usually surprised that the toys they thought would take forever to put away didn’t even take the whole fifteen minutes.
Anytime I’m procrastinating, I get out the timer. I tell myself, just fifteen minutes and then you can do something you enjoy. Everything around here gets done, sometimes it’s only fifteen minutes at a time, but it really is amazing how much straightening up you can get done in fifteen minutes. Try it, you may be surprised.