Ever felt so overwhelmed that you knew that you don’t need a
weekend but may be 10 uninterrupted days… to take care of home, kids, work,
other chores and not even counting a moment of peace with your own self!! The
problem is in that state of mind even [I know hypothetical] but even if you did
get those 10 days you wouldn’t have accomplished half of what you’d like to do.
Well as much as it is, it isn’t my Sunday evening anxiety. It
was like a – “eureka moment” this afternoon when I got more done in a few hours
than what I did all weekend!
Well mostly my Sunday’s are more productive because my Panic
monster wakes up at that time. Like how Tim Urban mentioned in his TED Talk, my
Panic monster wakes up at the right time, and truly takes care of all my procrastinations.
Well back to the real deal – the success mantra – 15 minutes!
So let’s start with a simple confession – I like lists. I like
to make lists about everything I have to do – work, home, chores… you name it. What
ends up happening there is I end up having many lists – soon perhaps a list to
manage my lists! Ouch... let’s hope it doesn’t go that far!
So, the thing with these lists is I always know what all is
due and I am constantly worrying about all that “still” needs to be done.
While I was making something in the microwave [ok, don’t judge,
I am a working mom, with an Indian husband – they don’t do household chores!! –
so I do “at times” cook stuff in microwave] – well anyways, when I set the
timer to 5 minutes I was just beginning to unloading the dishwasher – to my
surprise, it took me 3 mins to finish and I came back to the microwave with 2
mins to spare…! Kaboom! I just got more time to select what was I going make
tomorrow morning so I can do some prepping. The finish tone of the microwave led
me to this amazing game of timing all I do – so now I started timing myself for
everything I had to do.
Nothing – trust me nothing in the house was a job that took
more than 15 mins at once.
I tried this with every single household chores, activities
with kids, everything – well to be honest I have 2 boys and their attention span
is smaller than a goldfish!! So just lucked out on that one. Anyways, to my
surprise I did In fact, got more things done than ever before. I sat down for
15 mins slots during the day for my emails – better than constantly checking
them on the phone and forgetting or marking a flag and then worrying you have
to work on it.
My cooking prep – 15 mins, ironing for the week – 15 mins –
you name it!
The key is not to make everything a project of your life
time. I use to do that. Not being able to take things one at time and trying to
just get on with it – instead making it is the biggest project and a matter of
life and death is the biggest monkey business of all times. It gets in the way
of doing almost everything.
The truth is not everything needs 15 mins – there are so many
bigger projects in life that would need all your time, attention and dedication.
However, the magic lies in getting these 15 mins chores done so they don’t come
to haunt you while you are concentrating on your bigger more important
projects. When I was done with my 15 mins items from my multiple long lists I was
left with the few I really wanted to work on.
For those cynics reading this and getting tactical – yes not
everything is 15 mins, but If some are more than 15 then some are less than 15
mins J
Well like all good thoughts in life – some may apply to you
some won’t – If this one does, I’m glad to have taken the 15 mins to write this
one out!!
Happy Sunday!!
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