Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Targets

As L can tell you I hate to set goals. I do not like the word "goal." It is a guilt thing. If I set a goal and don't reach it then the guilt eats me alive.

When I started thinking about the boys moving out I knew I had to have a plan or I would end up reading, quilting, or watching television and not accomplish the things I really want to do now that the house is mostly mine. However, I did not want to set goals and set myself up for days of guilt, so I set up targets.

My main target each day is to do at least one hour of anything around the house that does not involve reading or quilting. Some nights I clean out closets or drawers, other nights I might clean the bathroom or kitchen. Not all targets are about cleaning, some are simply playing a different game on the internet or Wii.

Tonight my target was to start on the laundry room. I worked on the laundry and cleaning out the clean clothes and sweeping the floor. Tomorrow I hope to start on the cabinets. I am setting myself up to be totally indifferent to everything in the each cabinet so that I won't keep anything because of an emotional attachment. There are cabinets in there I have not opened in years, so the emotional attachment can't be that strong.

The night's I meet my target I feel excited and successful. The night's I don't meet my targets I just think of all the fun I had doing something else.

It is funny how one word can paralyze me, whereas another lets me move on through life.

1 comment:

Laurie said...

Have you ever heard of Flylady? I love her. She calls them "missions" and her big thing is the timer. You can do anything in 15 minutes. Sometimes there at 5 minute missions. My family laughs at me with my timer. When the timer rings I go to the next item. It makes things fun and not boring. Flylady has a sense of humor too. She sends out a monthly mission to "check the girls".