Make it Count Monday

Ah, Monday. The beginning of the week. A fresh, new start to things. Theoretically, I love this chance to start over and try again. I find myself fantasizing about a week of wonderful meals, a clean house, fun family time, and chores that get completed as needed instead of piling up day after day.

Yeah. I said I was fantasizing. Well, enter the idea of goal-setting. I've written about this a little bit before, but I'm jumping on the bandwagon again. This week, my goal is to quit procrastinating. Oftentimes, I find myself so overwhelmed with things that need to be done - that I just don't do anything. Well, I don't do anything productive. I sit and play with the girls on the floor (when they are happy just playing with each other), or waste a few free minutes on Facebook or Twitter, or watch TV. Ten minutes doesn't seem like much, but over the course of the day, six ten-minute chunks add up to a whole hour.

This is significant because I frequently spend at least an hour getting the house sorted out after the girls are in bed. This is fine, since they usually go to bed around 8, but when I have also worked that day or it's just been a long day, I sometimes don't get to bed until close to midnight. The girls typically wake up once per night, around 4-6 am, and then get up for good around 6-7 am depending on their night feeding. I'm getting a lot more sleep than I was, but I'm still one exhausted momma most of the time! And then there are the nights that I just go to bed and don't do anything for the poor house...yeah. We won't talk about those nights (and the mornings that follow!)

So for this week, I've decided to make use of the 10-minute chunks as they come throughout the day. I've got a list of tasks that can be completed in just a few minutes whenever I've got a small amount of free time:

1. Clean bathroom sink

2. Load dishwasher

3. Load washer

4. Empty washer into dryer

5. Unload dryer

6. Fold basket of laundry

7. Eat a snack (I have trouble remembering to eat!)

8. Swiffer floor

9. Clutter sweep in living room

10. Clean up kitchen counters

11. Make a grocery list

12. Jot down blog post ideas

13. Stretch

14. Refill diaper drawer

15. Start dinner prep

There is a lot of laundry on that list, but since laundry is one of the most overwhelming and time-consuming tasks I have, I like to make use of small chunks of time so I can stay somewhat caught up. By somewhat caught up, I of course mean that I can dress two babies by digging through a pile of clean, folded baby clothes (still in their laundry basket) instead of digging through the dryer while holding a squirming, diaper-clad baby. I don't expect that I'll ever get all of these done in one day, but I think the list will help keep me focused and help me make better use of the time I do have.

I'm pretty excited about the possibilities here. I'll let you know if it works! If it does, I will probably make some sort of picture-frame dry-erase list for myself to make it fun. How do you make use of small chunks of time?

I'm linking up with Megan over at Positively (Im)perfect for Make it Count Mondays! Head on over and check out her goal-setting post for the week, and don't forget to check out all the other posts while you're there!