Every morning, I try to get too
much done before I leave for work. I
have 6 kids. And though I am really only responsible for a couple of them (4
take care of themselves in the morning), there is still plenty to do before I
am out the door. I have to dress, fix
breakfast, brush teeth, wake up kids, make sure kids are fed, make sure they
are not forgetting their book bags, underwear, or shoes.
Usually what happens is that I
think everything is good to go. So I take a 5 minute rest. It is somewhere around 4 ½ minutes into that
5 minute rest that I realize I have another 10 minute task that must be
completed before I leave. Perhaps someone
has swallowed a quarter, or forgot to do their year long science experiment, or sent their little brother into traffic.
So, I begin a mad rush hoping to
somehow pull off the miracle of bending the space time continuum by completing
10 minutes worth of work in 30 seconds.
I am ashamed here to admit this,
but somewhere in my life long quest for doing as little as possible, I have fallen in to the trap of
thinking it is ok to leave little messes around. Yes, I am smart enough to not leave vomit
splattered all over the bed from a sick child, or to change a diaper diarrhea
blow out. But, when it comes to the
little things like putting my fork into the dishwasher, I may temporarily go to
a happy place in my mind (like a
3D Imax showing of any Star Wars film) and completely skip putting the fork
away.
So, how do you get in the mindset of helping your spouse: Time how long it takes you to do
random things. It takes me 4 minutes to
put away every dish in the dishwasher.
It takes me 2 minutes to put sheets on our king size bed. Timing mundane chores really seems to help my
mind when I am asked to do a menial task.
Somehow knowing it will take less than five minutes to do it unlocks the
selfish pattern of thinking that I might just be the king of the universe.
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