I've done so much this morning, and STILL haven't done the first thing!

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

This was the one job I gave myself this morning -

• Clean our bedroom.

So I went in there, and there was 5 million empty water bottles because when I'm hiding I eat in my bedroom, and you've gotta have a bottle of water with your meal, right? And I never quite get around to taking the bottle back out again. So I collected up all the plastic bottles and took them to the kitchen.

Then I realised the dishes hadn't been done, so there was no room for me to do the bottles. So my to do list became -

• Do dishes
• Do bottles
• Finish bedroom

So I start putting away the clean dishes, and then realise just how irritating the pile of plastic/tupperware stuff behind the knife blocks is, how it takes up half the bench, and how much extra room we'd have if it just was put away. And the list grew -

• Put away plastic/tupperware
• Do dishes
• Do bottles
• Finish bedroom

I got all the plastic stuff out and put it in front of the plastic cupboard. I sat down because the cupboard is close to the floor, and opened the doors to put the stuff away. AND THE LIST GREW -

• Clean and organise plastics cupboard
• Put away plastic/tupperware
• Do dishes
• Do bottles
• Finish bedroom

So now, I've been working for 3 hours because I can't keep still because my uterus is stabbing me, and I've only gotten the first 2 jobs done. Because I've kinda gotten distracted with cleaning up the tea/coffee area my mum has set up.

TELL me I'm not the only one who does this?!

[human bean]

It's the plastic cupboard I swear - it's EVIL! I went to quickly sort mine last week and ended up cleaning out every kitchen cupboard and rearranging everything, which in turn meant I had to rearrange my hallway cupboards to accommodate all the outdoor/picnic plastic I moved into it etc etc

It's a snowball effect isn't it? But such a sense of accomplishment when it's done

[Amity]

Start with one thing at a time.

Put down EVERYTHING.

Go and finish the bedroom.

Then... finish the SECOND thing that annoyed you.

Then... finish the THIRD thing.

One thing at a time.

I used to be like that, often! And I got SO annoyed with myself, until a girlfriend pulled me aside and said EXACTLY what I just said. One thing. First. Then another. Second. That way you don't get annoyed and frustrated, and end up in a vicious circle.

Huge soft and gentle hugs. And well done for getting rid of the bottles. And the plastics cupboard and the tupperware. Now go clean the bedroom.

[MrsFabuloso]

Nope I do it all the time. I feel like such a scatter brain because I have half finished jobs everywhere around the house, but nothing looks like it's been done beause it's all only half done!

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

Okay, done for the day. My body is absolutely screaming at me, but I've gotten the kitchen, plastics cupboard, bottles, dining and living rooms done, minus vacuuming and mopping. I can't do the bedroom because Professor's in there and he's annoying the gills off me at the moment, so I've officially declared that if I do anything else today, it'll be to move from the couch to the toilet and back.

By golly it all looks good though!

[ellasmummy]

Omg I do this every day lol. It actually works ok as long as I get to finish. If I get interrupted then I just have a heap of unfinished jobs that drive me even more nuts!! DH hates it lol

[Floweryfields]

What I find is useful, is to write a list. Work from the top to the bottom and cross off as you complete a task and only work on one task at a time. I find great satisfaction in crossing things off as I do them!

[briggsy's girl]

this is how our house is - all. the. time. ALL. THE. TIME!

i will ask if c can do one thing during the day while i work - usually the washing or tidying and vacuuming the floor. by the time he does all the throw away jobs that go with those two jobs (don't ask me how the washing has extra, related, jobs - it just does apparently) i get home and it feels like nothing has been achieved.

this week, my aim was to clean the house, spic and span, ready for rental inspection. it's become rather ordinary because of us being sick over christmas etc. it's started with the need to rearrange of electrical stuff so that we could put on a dvd for the poppet while we worked so she had something to distract her. we had to move the working dvd player into the lounge, the other bits and pieces elsewhere. to get it all to work, we had to pack 9 plastic tubs full of christmas deco's to make room (hadn't been done cos i'd been so unwell) - then i realised the rooms needed dusting, so i managed to get that done, which led to me NEEDING to know where some candle holders were because i wanted the nice smell, so we unpacked more stuff, but it all had dust on it too, so needed to be washed, so that meant doing the dishes to clean the sink - so dishwasher got emptied, reloaded, everything washed - oh crap, we have visitors for dinner, better cook, so that got done, plus another meal for the freezer, and then realised the meat we were supposed to use for yesterdays dinner (but couldn't cos of visitor) still needed to be cooked, so in the slow cooker with that. more dishes, cos i needed to still clean the candle holders, so may as well get it all done. set up the candle holders and got them going (yay) - then moved the old cd player in the bar, dusted some more, set up the other (non working) dvd player as a surround sound system cos the existing dvd player still works but has no speaker. need to vac - meh, floor is grotty, giving up for the night! that was my arvo yesterday. today has been much the same. still haven't vac'd, but now have music in the shed, and a lot of stuff in the shed has been moved around. tomorrow will probably be similar.

i tried lists - it didn't work for me - if i could see something else that needed doing and i was being regimented, i'd end up getting grumpy and doing nothing cos i wasn't seeing the results - all i could see was what i wasn't doing and could be kwim?


sigh, thinking about this, my day tomorrow is going to be horrible - but i should be relaxing so i have energy for work on Monday. sigh.


on the upside, we can have music outside without using c's dodgy old CD player that is even more tempermental than me!

[chody47]

This made me laugh, because I'm exactly the same. I start one thing (e.g. go to put toilet paper into the ensuite - no one else seems to know how to do it) and I'll walk past the pile of dirty washing in our walk in robe, so I'll take that to the laundry and realise I need to put on a load of washing. I'll go into DD's room to collect more and realise her bin needs emptying. I'll decide to empty the kitchen one while I'm at it and get annoyed at how messy the kitchen is. I'll start to clear things off the bench, but of course the dishwasher will need emptying first....and so the list goes on.......all the time the toilet paper hasn't even made it to the ensuite and the washing might not be on.....