Marilyn’s Way Stepping Stones – How Much Time Does A Habit Take?

Posted on Posted in Flying with Fibromyalgia, Gardening, Kitchen, Marilyns Way, Organization, The Flylady
Marilyn’s Way Stepping Stones Series

This Stepping Stone is going to be a fun one.  I did this years ago before I found Flylady.  It worked for awhile.  The problem was I hadn’t established any habits and routines to incorporate it.

We get to use our SHEness in this stepping stone.  It involves making lists and we SHE’s LOVE to make lists!  This one is going to be a valuable one.  I was surprised at many of the habits I wrote down and how long they actually took to do.
As you go about your week I want you to TIME yourself as to how long a habit takes and write them down.  For example I know it takes 5 minutes to apply my make up.  So when I get that feeling I don’t feel like I have time to do it or want to do it I remember, just 5 minutes.  Do you know how many five minutes we can waste in a day?  Well it is true.  So why not use one of those 5 minutes and put some makeup on to feel good about yourself?
Now there is the other end of this.  It involves washing clothes.  Some say you have 10 loads of clothes to wash.  Did you ever time how long it takes to to wash those loads of clothes?  Did you take into account the drying, the folding and the putting away?  So think about this.  If you do 10 loads of clothes and believe you can do this in a day, think again.  Are you being realistic?  Each load is at least an hour.  That is 10 hours.  What about all the other habits we need to do to keep our home running smoothly.  
Have you ever timed how long it takes to make dinner, cleanup and put everything away including shining your sink?
The point that I want to get across is the one thing that we SHE’s are really bad about is “Being Realistic.”  We never seem to take into account how long some of these habits takes.  So let’s break this crazy cycle once and for all!
How are we going to do it?  We are going to work together on this project.  I would love for one of you or a couple get together and make a pretty sheet that has a list of our usual habits that we do from Flylady lessons and write the habit including the the time it takes to do it.  We can then all print it out and put it on our fridges so when we get the “I don’t wanna’s”  we can look at that list and find just something we can do.  Who knows we may do a couple more!  It is all about getting started and that has always been the hardest part of this all.
Keep FLYing! 
Marilyn
P.S.  I am sure there will be things that can be added on the list as time goes on and some of us time the habits will take longer than others.  That is okay too.  I want this to be a guide.  Let’s have fun with it!

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