accomplished more with less effort

I don't know if you remember when I told you about my idea to challenge myself last week with a simple "do a little now. to do less later" challenge. I decided I would try to see if I could keep up with my home for one week and keep it clean (clean for me means- the carpet looks recently vacuumed, the sink is empty, the bed is made and everything is generally in its place). 

I decided I would challenge myself to not ignore things just because I didn't feel like doing them. For example- to not mutter under my breath about the dishes but then go sit on the couch... I would actually do the dishes when I noticed something sitting in the sink instead of just grumble about how I can never keep the house clean. A lot of the time it really just meant- that I noticed a dish in the sink so I would put it in the dishwasher immediately or if I saw one of my husband's socks on the floor I would pick it up then and put in the laundry basket. The bigger tasks still came around (like emptying the dishwasher and folding the laundry) but they weren't as tiresome because I hadn't spent twenty minutes prior to them emptying a sink of disgusting dishes that had been there a while.Plus, I felt incredibly good about myself when I went to bed and the house was clean and lunches were already made for tomorrow. :D It was a very successful experiment. I never felt deprived of "me time" I still played a little Mario on the Wii and watched some tv with my hubby and got my jogs in... on top of that I also found time to make a couple batches of healthy, sugar free, flour free cookies and oatmeal muffins. I kind of felt awesome. On top of all that... we had guests over semi-last minute one night and I felt confidant and comfortable letting them into my house... because it was clean. Incredible.Note... I'm not going to start a new challenge this week. Its just too crazy. Tomorrow is my hubby's birthday... and we are driving out to see my parents and grandparents (its my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary!!!) and celebrate the Fourth of July of course. Its going to be a little nuts...