There’s nothing glamorous about taking out the garbage or loading the dishwasher. It’s even hard to relate that to making that trip to Italy happen or retiring to Baja. But. not getting them done, at least the basics, does keep you from achieving those goals. Partly because the rest of your life doesn’t flow as smoothly and partly because the guilty part distracts you from those projects every time you walk by the dishes on the counter or that pile of unironed laundry.

I’m as guilty as most of putting these things off with an easy excuse until they grow overwhelming and turn into a project of their own. In the past, it’s worked to assign a chore to each day of the week instead of doing everything on the weekend. That won’t work with my current schedule so well so I have another approach. Simply finish what I start – if I run the dishwasher that means putting everything away when it’s done, laundry gets done, folded, ironed and put away the same day adn so forth.

That may seem simple but it’s a committment none the less and designed to root out the ‘I’ll do it tomorrow when I’m not so tired.’ If you’ve never ever said that then I’m pretty sure you can ignore this entirely!

Next week: Keeping up relationships with family and friends

Holding Myself Accountable

First off, I made myself a chore chart – not that different from the one when I was six that resulted in a trip to the toy store when I got enough stars.  Most of life relates to when we were six.  This one I did in Excel but this way I’ve got a single point of reminders of what I’ve committed to.

• Gardening: This one is going smoothly; hanging baskets planted and everything fertilized
• Losing weight: funny how that chore chart made me hit the treadmill immediately – all in all, better
• Photography: next set of pictures selected for the book
• Jewelry: working on improving some techniques, a little low on the marketing efforts
• Romance: well, I’ve enlisted someone else to keep their eyes open so I guess that’s a start.
• Treasure hunting – found a new hunting buddy so that may help get me out there a bit more…

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