Something is better than nothing.

My house is always the messiest it ever gets on Monday. Even before FlyLady, I always did a big cleaning day on Monday. But, now that things don’t get that bad, I can do what needs done without spending the whole day.
But, it’s easy to get discouraged and overwhelmed when the house gets really messy.
It’s then that you have to set the timer for 15 minutes and just do it. Today I thought we’d address the “I don’t have time” excuse. Do you have 15 minutes? I bet you do. Let’s see what I got done in 15 minutes.
Over the weekend, I got creative. Remember the mom’s design studio in Yours, Mine, and Ours? That’s what my house looks like when I’m in a designing mood. This is what my house looked like this morning:





I forgot to take a picture of the kitchen counter, which was just as full. It’s spread over two rooms, because I don’t have a proper table in the craft room (because it’s my formal living room). It’s ransacked to the degree that it is, because I couldn’t find my elastic box (still haven’t found it). – you know what? as I’m writing this I realize that I probably took it with me the last time I sewed at my mother’s house and left it there.-

Anyway, I took these pics and then set the timer for 15 minutes. I started in the kitchen. I sorted, threw away scraps, put it the half finished projects in labeled boxes to finish this week, and wiped down the table and counters in 15 minutes. My son woke up and started talking which did distract me a little, and I had to feed the cats to make them stop meowing, but I basically kept focused on the job at hand.

This is what it looked after 15 minutes:



The living room did take me a little longer, and I did do some less stressful jobs before I tackled it. But, I decided to declutter while I was putting away, so there was some sorting involved. Normally, picking up is just putting something where it goes, not deciding where it goes.
This is what it looked like after 30 minutes. Not done, but a lot better. If you only had half an hour, wouldn’t that be better than, “I don’t have time”?






I set one more 15 minute timer and got to this point. But, a friend stopped by when I was only 5 minutes into the timer, and I was very distracted, at this point I was just putting things where they went.

There are still Ebay items in this room and some packing materials for them. I really have to make some decisions over where they will be stored in the future. But, that’s not today, don’t get weighed down with doing everything perfectly. Something is better than nothing.





Have a great week, and start it out with a great Monday!