Hi, I wanted to share something I saw on "Clean House" the other day - having to do with motivation. The husband in the couple whose home was being cleaned out has Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder. He has lots of energy, but it's shooting out in all directions. I can relate, but in a different way. I havee ADD, without the H part - I tend to space out and/or get overwhelmed. Well, Neecy Nash, who is the show's host, set a timer for the husband - I think it might have been as little as 15 minutes, and gave him an area to sort through. Once he had something to focus on, and knew there was a limit to the time he was going to spend on it, he just got cooking and did a great job of tossing stuff. I think that, especially if you are raising a little one, if you wanted to tackle things in 15 min. increments, that would be plenty. 15 min. is better than zero minutes. 

 

I do something similar with my dishes. I really hate it when the pile up in the sink, but sometimes I look at them and feel so unmotivated, especially if they've been there a couple of days and there are pots and pans. What I do is take everything out of the sink and sort it all into piles on the counter - dishes together, bowls together, weird shaped things together (i.e. spatula, colendar, tongs). I then tune to a show on TV that looks interesting -- sometimes it's Clean House! -- and everytime there's a commercial, I get up and wash some dishes. I usually start with the pots and pans and weird shaped stuff because, next commerical break, I dry them and put them away. The next break, I wash the plates and all the forks and spoons and knives... and then next commercial, dry those and put them all away. Finally, I am left with the bowls. I wash them the next break -- ever notice how many commercials there are in an average 1-hr show? -- and if that's the end of the program, they sit in the dish dryer till morning. (For some reason, in the morning, I find it easier to put dishes away than later in the day.) I also wash down the sink after I finish that last bowl.

 

So, all of this is to say, when you don't want to do something -- or anything, for that matter -- it can help to pick something that's particularly irking you, and break it into little bits of time.

 

I also sometimes "race" with myself. For example, I may need to take all my recyclables out to the car. I will wait until 15 minutes before my favorite show is coming on, or before someone is coming to visit, and then run around getting that done. Then, it's like a reward when the show comes on TV or the friend arrives.

 

I suppose this all sounds kinda wacky, but sometimes we have to play games with ourselves to get out of a rut - because I find that "nagging" myself almost never motivates me. Better to make a game out of it. I notice that those British ladies on the BBC-America program, 'How Clean is Your House" wear rubber gloves with things like crystals or feathers or flowers stictched around the opening... I think one of them even wears a tiara now and then -- so they've got the right attitude. And God Bless those ladies for even going into some of those houses! (I am thinking of the artist who let her cat poop all over the place and never cleaned it up)

 

Nice thing about warmer weather, by the way, is opening the windows!