Daily Chores and Me Take Two

Last I checked in with Mom, Mama Ree was responding well to the treatment and was due to move out of ICU for another room in the hospital. It's been a few days so I don't know if that has happened yet or not.

I spent the weekend, Lundi Gras, and Mardi Gras dealing with a nasty head cold. I'm still coughing, but I can breathe through my nose even if my voice still lives in another register (or maybe it's just my hearing). The achies are gone, which goes the longest way to making me feel functional again.

So all the chore changes I wanted to implement last Friday fall on this Friday instead. Which is all good, because I found Unfuck Your Habitat this week. Despite my Jerkbrain's insistence, my house is not a disaster area. I'm fairly good at putting things back where they go. My fall downs are dishes—that spills over into the rest of the kitchen—vacuuming, and dusting. So why do I keep having freak-outs over not following my checklists and staying on top of the chores? Third-generation packrat who knows just how nasty it can get if I let my ass fall into the inertia of laziness.

The second part of this issue is I have time scheduled for the chores in the morning before I leave for work, but I haven't been waking up on time so everything has fallen off schedule. I know the biggest issue with that is going to bed on time, which hasn't happened in a while, but last night it didn't happen because I was finding my kitchen again. Yeah, definitely time to have every chore on maintenance level, so I can use the free time to exercise and write and relax.

What I like about UfYH's tactics (besides the sighs of relief with the before and after pictures "I'm not that bad yet") is her insistence on breaks. You either work for 20 minutes and take a 10 minute break or work for 45 minutes for 15 minutes. It may have took four 20/10s to find my sink under all the dirty dishes last night, but giving myself permission to sit at the computer for ten minutes in between sessions was liberating. And I didn't cheat and stay on the computer longer after the timer went off.

So the goal for this shake-up is to keep all the chores at maintenance level (where a few minutes everyday equals done) and to move it back to the morning unless that's completely impossible. Currently, my chores are broken down into what must be done daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

Daily Chores

• Make bed
• Empty sink of all dishes
• Spend 15 min. on budget subtasks
• Worked on Writing Project #1
• Worked on Writing Project #2
• Worked on Writing Project #3
• Set out stuff for tomorrow
• Exercise for the day
• 30 min. on website maintenance
• Weekly chore for the day

This works—except for the minor fact of actually DOING them—so the only tweak I'm making is to change the time limits to 20/10s.

The goad attached to weekly chores that if you miss doing them, you aren't supposed to do them again until the days rolls around next week. That way two weeks' worth of ick factors into making you do it. Your mileage with this tip will vary; since I don't remember the last time I vacuumed, it's probably not working as intended.

Weekly Chores

• Monday – take garbage out to main can
• Tuesday – Update Fiction Tracker
• Wednesday – Vacuum whole house
• Thursday – Change litter and clean bathroom
• Friday – Pick up whole house and Post to blog
• Saturday – Laundry and Cook meals for the week
• Sunday – Weekly Review, take body measurements, add measurements to FitDay.com, and write Hot Bod post

This would be the stuff that's not being done in a timely manner.

Doesn't matter what weekday I put vacuuming on, it doesn't happen. And when it does, I'm cramming it into my weekend. So first thing is to officially move it to the weekend, Sunday in fact. What was on Sunday for diet and exercise tracking is moved to Thursday. Updating the Fiction Tracker works better on Fridays when I'm writing other blog posts, so that leaves Tuesday free to pick up the whole house.

Updated Weekly Chores

• Monday – take garbage out to main can
• Tuesday – pick up whole house
• Wednesday – change litter and clean bathroom
• Thursday – Take body measurements and add measurements to FitDay.com
• Friday – Write blog post, update Fiction Tracker, and write Hot Bod post
• Saturday – Laundry and cook meals for the week
• Sunday –Weekly review and vacuum whole house

The Kanban Flow looks a thousand times better with those streamlines. The only thing I have left to do is add in the Writing Projects #2 and #3.

Weekend plans: As much as I would love to see Bruce Willis blow up Moscow, I'm broke when it comes to movies. So I'll stay home and work on my taxes and see if I will be unbroken in the near future.

Read Free!
The BookWorm