Ten-Minute Tasking

 

Part of #2 son's messy bedroom

The venerable Lazy Moms, aka Amanda and Leslie, have dubbed Tuesday as Ten-Minute Task day, and it makes a lot of sense. Chopping big chores into little jobs that can be done in 10 minutes makes the process less intimidating. Very important for someone like me who needs to get so much done but has severe stay-at-home-mom ADD.

Those of you who have it know exactly what I’m talking about: You start out working on one task, say, unloading the dishwasher. Right in the middle of putting the dishes away, you think about the grocery list and remember that you need to buy Lean Pockets (#1’s fave is pepperoni). You stop almost mid-plate and dash over to your grocery list (which for me is on my iPhone) and write or type in what you need. You stand there for a minute or so and write or type in any other items that come to mind. Then you walk into your office to check your e-mail, blogs, and the news. After 15 minutes or so, you walk back into the kitchen and are totally surprised to see that the dishwasher door is open and half unloaded. Or is it half loaded? Then you have to figure out if the dishes are dirty or clean and finish the job.

After all that confusion, you really need a nap!

Fortunately for me, I know the dishwasher is filled with dirty dishes, etc., right now, so I don’t have to deal with it. Hopefully, I can stay on task, because I have a couple TMTs slated for today. The first is to whip up a résumé in my desktop-publishing software for the #1 son, so he can apply for a part-time and/or summer job at the public library. As is typical of me, I’ve had this on my get ’er done list for several weeks. Sigh! But today it will get done!

The second TMT will take a boatload of 10-minute increments to eventually complete: Dealing with the mess in the #2 son’s bedroom. It seems like every time we tame the clutter . . . even going so far as to take everything out of the room except the furniture . . . things creep back in as if drawn to its blue-walled confines. Much of the stuff is sporting equipment, everything from discs to golf clubs to lacrosse sticks to baseball bats. The #2 son almost could open up his own sporting goods store!

And yet amid all the clutter and chaos is one shining star of hope: the closet. Look at it in the photo above; it seems neat! But don’t let it fool you. It only looks that way, because #2 doesn’t wear any of the clothes hanging there. The ones he likes are in dresser drawers (not shown).

#2 son is due to get a new double bed. But we need to empty out his room in order to fit it in. That emptying process begins today . . . for at least 10 minutes!