Yesterday when I was driving in my car, I got the sudden urge to clean my basement. I don’t mean just clean the basement, I mean purge. Get rid of all the puzzles that are probably missing pieces, donate the books that will never be read again, etc. Then today when I was in the car, I wanted nothing more than to be at home putting my latest vacation pictures into a photo album.
Guess what happened when I got home last night? I finished up the laundry from earlier in the day and collapsed. In my own defense, I did have a busy day filled with errands and driving far and wide to watch my son’s baseball game. But why did my motivation have to disappear? It seems that my energy level at night is all but gone, but I have all kinds of motivation at times that I can do nothing about it.
I think part of the problem is that when I am at home, I am so focused on the day-to-day things that must get done. Priority goes to getting dinner ready, driving things up to the school that the kids forgot, paying bills, balancing the checkbook, etc. There just doesn’t seem to be time to create photo albums or tackle a large job. But when I am in the car unoccupied and with a clear mind, it seems like anything is possible!
So I need to figure out a way to harness some of that motivation and act on it when I am at home. I think I need to listen to that voice in my head that tells me what I really want and probably need to get done. There is never enough time in the day to get everything accomplished, but I need to make big projects a priority once in awhile too.
Starting tonight, I am going to make a checklist/schedule of what I would like to accomplish the next day, and put some things on there that are not part of my usual routine. I will do this at night instead of during the day because I will not be caught up with my daily tasks like I would be in the morning. I think instead of scheduling ‘clean the basement’, I will plan to tackle a portion, like sorting through the books and taking some to the Salvation Army.
I will let you know how my new plan works out.
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Good luck with that! If it works out, bottle it and make a million dollars…. I know I would buy it.
But I plan on charging a million dollars for each bottle of motivation…
A friend of mine’s mother (I just found this out on Facebook) had a file box filled with cards for “unusual” chores, and would make her children draw from the box every once in a while and then do that task.
That’s a really good idea, because then the kids can’t whine over what they were assigned to do. They just get what they get!
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