Recently I have been revisiting a technique I remember using when the kids were little: I am timing how long it takes me to do a task, especially a task that needs to be done frequently but that I tend to put off. The kids empty the dishwasher now, but when the kids were little and it was my job, I hated to do it and used to procrastinate, which just made things worse because now the dishwasher was getting half-emptied as I took things directly out of it, so it was hard to tell if it was clean or dirty, and dirty dishes were piling up on the counter. I remember timing it and finding it took a lot less time than I thought it did, and then finding I could use that information to motivate myself to do the task when it seemed overwhelming: “It only takes x minutes! In x minutes it will be done!”
One of my sillier examples is that I will sit around for hours and hours with freezing feet because it feels like too much trouble to go put on warmer socks/shoes. Yesterday I timed it, and it took 1 minute and 15 seconds to take off my shoes, add a pair of wool-blend socks, and put on warmer shoes. I will try to remember to tell myself that, the next time I have chilly feet: “It would take only 1 minute and 15 seconds to fix this problem.”
Speaking of motivation, I have recently found another little surge of motivation to attack the moving boxes still in the barn. You may remember that when we moved over four years ago, we first put everything in the barn, because the house floors were being refinished. I thought at the time that this would make a nice natural sorting system: I’d already gotten rid of a lot of things while packing, but I thought an additional filter could be something like “A year after we move, anything still in the barn can be considered a contender for discard.”
At some point, I started doing a thing where if I were bored and chilly, I would go fetch one box and deal with it. I made some considerable progress with that, but then stalled out.
Two nights ago, I got another little surge of motivation. It started because of that pipe leak, when in moving things out of the way of the water I found the box of miscellaneous stuff we removed from the minivan when we got rid of in 2020. My eye fell upon the box again two nights ago when I was apparently in just the right mood, and I brought it to the garage and started transferring things directly into the trash: pencils; combs that I used on the kids when they were little but we no longer have the daily frantic search for a comb that led me to tuck them into multiple locations; napkins from the glove compartment that were now dusty; a bottle of hand sanitizer that was weird and crusty; not one but TWO partially-full disposable water bottles. I took the baggie of change and emptied into a change jar. I took the ice scraper/brush and put it into the trunk of another car. I put a pair of work gloves onto the stairs to go up to Paul’s workshop. I put several single gloves into the laundry; all of them are the kinds we have multiple interchangeable pairs of. I handed Paul several things that looked like he would know what they were. I took the GPS and hooked it up to my computer to update it.
It was pretty satisfying, and I was still feeling energetic, so I went up to the barn and started poking around. I found a box of snowpants, and some of them were too small for anyone at our house, so I put those in a bag for Goodwill. I found a box of snowboots, and all but one pair was too small for anyone at our house, so I put those in another bag for Goodwill, and put the usable pair with the other boots. I found several Target bags of deeply-clearanced and EXTREMELY cute (bear/bunny-eared, pink and ultra-soft and fluffy with little pom-pom ears, etc.) children’s hats/mittens, purchased for a charity collection event that would have happened in the fall of 2020 but was canceled; I put those aside either for Goodwill or possibly for bringing to the original charity in question.
Last night, I was still a little high from that success, so I went up and searched for more boxes I could deal with. We’re into the really tricky-for-me stuff now: boxes of art and decor that worked well in the old house but not necessarily in this house. I brought down one box marked just “fragile/decor,” and started sifting items: if I could find a place to display it in this house, terrific; otherwise, it went either into the Goodwill pile OR into the box I will pack away in case these things work in the NEXT house. That box will need further curating, because I am not saving box after box of things I MIGHT want, but for now I don’t want to get distracted by that level of consideration: bulk sorting for now, with an emphasis on “unpacking and seeing what I even HAVE here”; further sub-dividing later. And there are an encouraging number of things that although I liked them a lot in the old house, I just don’t like them as much after a four-year break, so they were not very difficult to get rid of.
This task led to me taking a lot of “I’ll just put this here for right now” stuff (old calendars; a several-page receipt for Henry’s glasses, in case we needed it when we picked them up; some canning jars I need to return to whatever friends gave me food in them) out of a corner display cabinet in our kitchen, and instead filling it with lots of pretty little things that have been packed away for four years. The corner cabinet display isn’t DONE, but it’s MORE DONE than it was, and the cabinet looks MUCH better, and now I am enjoying those items, and also thinking “Ooo, I need something TALLER in the back there, I wonder what would work…” and so on. I think tonight I will try to tackle the boxes of wall art, which I expect to be more difficult.
Your timing strategy is so smart! So many undesirable things really don’t take that long but it’s so hard to motivate to DO them. I do a variant of the timing technique which is to pair a desirable task (like making tea, running a bath, microwaving popcorn) with an undesirable task (unloading dishes, sorting laundry, making the bed) and seeing if I can do the latter in the time it takes to do the former. Turns it into sort of a game (can I really clean all three toilets before the commercial break ends?) plus I can say, “You can totally fold this load of laundry while the pizza is cooking” plus I can feel productive for doing two things at once. It sounds very silly to type it out but it helps.
Yay for making progress on clearing out the boxes!
I do the timing thing with washing their kitchen floor. It seems a big job; take everything out; sweep and then vacuum; wash the floor on my hands and knees with a bucket of hot soapy water; wipe down the cabinets while I’m at it. But it’s a tiny kitchen! It takes 40 minutes. I can do that once every couple of weeks, especially if I have a glass of wine. (Thanks, Swistle, for the permission to do tipsy cleaning.)
My father died extremely unexpectedly on January 6th. The night of the 5th we had a belated Christmas dinner with all my siblings attending – even my sister from out of town – and then the next night he went downstairs to work out on his exercise bike and… didn’t come up for dinner. He was the healthiest, most active 84 year old I have ever known. In fact, he was probably the most active person I currently know of any age. Anyway, there hasn’t been a great opportunity to let the Swistle community know this until now, but I do have a point related to this post..
We are going through his stuff and it turns out that he was a closet hoarder. I mean that literally: his house seemed fine because my step mother would never have allowed it to get out of hand, but we’ve been going through the closets and hidden spaces in the house and the STUFF he crammed in there is jaw-dropping. It takes multiple hours to go through the drawers and shelves and bags of stuff he’s got even in just one closet or set of cabinets, and most of it is junk or recycling. It’s made me picture my own kids having to sort through the basement of boxes we moved 10 years ago and never opened and I am getting inspired to start going through it. I started yesterday with my closet and have a big box to cart to charity, a smaller box to give to a family near us, and a bag of fabric recycling. I’m off to my step-mom’s today and I’m sure the inspiration will continue.
I’m so sorry to hear about your father, Shawna. ❤️
So sorry for your loss. That’s an interesting description of being a “closet hoarder!” Good luck with all that ❤️
Oh, Shawna, I’m so sorry about your dad (and at the same time so glad you thought the Swistle committee would want to know, because we definitely do)
I’m sorry for your loss, Shawna. When my grandfather passed away it was very similar- he was a tidy hoarder. Raised during the Depression. Neat and clean kitchen with a cabinet full of washed aluminum foil. Stack of 20 detergent scoops in the laundry room. Huge, neat pile of broken down boxes in the garage (we used them to box up his stuff). Helping go through his house was a formative experience for me- it helps squelch the impulse to keep things.
My condolences, Shawna,
That’s so hard! Very sorry for your loss.
There are various reasons for a person’s behavior with keeping items and I try to keep kind thoughts in mind when cleaning out my parent’s home. Mom passed away 20 months ago and she held on to so much! On one hand, there was some fascinating stuff, but I hope I’ll be considerate to my kids and not keep decades of bank statements when I get to my later years!
Sorry for your loss! My SIL helped her dad sell /clean out the house after her mom died…. She said they were “well organized hoarders” because she was also surprised to see the packed closets!
I’m so sorry for your loss.
We moved into this house about seven years ago, I think. Although, I *think* I’ve dealt with all the boxes (who knows – there could still be a couple hanging out in the garage) but all the decorative things and wall art that worked so well in the other house just doesn’t seem to fit in this house. I should just get rid of all of it – despite that little voice in the back of my head that says, “Well, what about your next house?” Which is ridiculous because I am never going to purposefully move again, if I can help it.
I cleaned the silverware drawer today and felt absurdly accomplished.
I love the timing suggestion and will have to try it.
Congrats on the box emptying! Each one is an accomplishment! When we moved to our house in fall 2021, I really wanted to let some boxes langiush because I was 7 months pregnant. But… we had acquired a bed bug infestation from our temporary apartment right before moving and had to deal with everything right away. Now I’m glad .not dealing with boxes still with two small kiddos, but it was a lot in the moment.
I love the timing idea, although sometimes I get stupidly lazy about not wanting to go upstairs for warmer socks and I KNOW it would take less than two minutes, so sometimes it’s more about “just GET UP” than how long it will take. I had SO MUCH energy for cleaning/decluttering in the fall and it’s left me entirely. I really hope it comes back, because so many areas of the house are so much better, but there is still a LOT of room for improvement.
It takes three minutes to empty the dishwasher at our house, so we do it while waiting for our bagels to toast.
And thank you for the impetus to empty the boxes we still have not unpacked from our move in the summer of 2021
If my house is a giant mess, sometimes I will set a timer for 10-20 mins and just clean up as much as I can in that time. I feel like it’s better than nothing!