15 minutes

I have started a new habit - well trying anyway. I found this site though 74 Lime Lane and am jumping at the challenge. Most of what she said resinates with me.

The first question - Are you living in CHAOS? (Cant have anyone over syndrome?) Well its a big yes from me. The cleaning and organising drops to the bottom of my to do list, and when people are coming over, I fall into a flat spin and like a tornado clean the surface.

The concept of it is to develop habits that make cleaning and organising your home easier, but also de-cluttering and looking after yourself - not just everyone else.

How it works is the FLYLady (Finally Loving Yourself) sends me an email everyday telling me what to do. The first day was polish the sink and I have to do this every day. The second one was get up and get dressed straight away -right to shoes ready to walk out the door. Today I got additional emails about stopping procrastinating and doing a list of things - which I did because I was told to.

So today I have made all the beds, changed the sheets, washed and put away all the dishes, scrubbed the bathroom, washed and folded clothes as well as made myself presentable. Not only have I done this but the kids have helped!

Everything seems to be split into 15 minute blocks so we have been setting the alarm and going for it. There are even times you have to rest for 15 minutes. I have not been this regimented with my time since I was feeding!

The boys are also embracing the challenge - they all had to dress themselves, put out their dirty clothes and make their beds in 15 minutes today and actually they were pretty successful. Benji helped with the sheets and Xandy helped scrub the bath. The other massive success was at dinner. Normally we can sit for what seems like hours with the kids trying to get them to eat their dinner. They had 15 minutes and what wasn't eaten went to the dog. The timer seemed to take away the tears and the dog only got some scraps. Lets hope I can make these habits permanent.

Oh - and for the procrastination challenge I took photographs of all the boys artwork for the digital frame. Some has gone in the 'precious' cabinet and the rest becomes wrapping. Any extra goes to the bin and I have a clean space! My 15 minutes blogging is up!!!