Quote of the Day - spare moments
"Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Okay, so I can't decide if I love this quote or hate it. I mean, some of the time I love it, like when I think I've done a great job maximizing my odd little extra moments of the day. But I'm afraid most of the time I hate it, thinking how many spare moments I had and how many of them were wasted. It's so hard to use those little windows productively, and so easy to just go look in the fridge instead while I'm trying to decide what to do next. I think I spend a lot of time sort of wandering around the house looking at all the mess and contemplating it instead of actually doing anything about it. You know what I mean?
Now that I've written this I feel freshly inspired to make the most of those seemingly useless 5-minute windows of opportunity.
What can I do in 5 minutes? Any one of the following...
*Put the dishes away
*Clear and wipe off the counters
*Sweep around the table (always the worst part of the floor)
*Put one load of laundry in the washer
*Hang up the clothes heaped in the corner of the bedroom
*Pick up the pillows off the floor and put them back on the couch (I think I do this approximately 60 million times each day...maybe we should just get rid of them?)
*Pick up the books off the living room floor (I try to have the boys do this, but if they're already in bed for the evening I'd rather do it myself than wake up to it the next morning)
*Clean off the bathroom counter (I am so bad about this!!!)
*...Running out of ideas...What can you add? Come on, help me out here!
*Ooh, new direction: how about, sit down and read a page or two in whatever book I'm in the middle of...Except it's too tempting to just keep going after 5 minutes, so I wouldn't normally dare try this in the middle of the day.
*Any other ideas? Anyone?
Okay, so I can't decide if I love this quote or hate it. I mean, some of the time I love it, like when I think I've done a great job maximizing my odd little extra moments of the day. But I'm afraid most of the time I hate it, thinking how many spare moments I had and how many of them were wasted. It's so hard to use those little windows productively, and so easy to just go look in the fridge instead while I'm trying to decide what to do next. I think I spend a lot of time sort of wandering around the house looking at all the mess and contemplating it instead of actually doing anything about it. You know what I mean?
Now that I've written this I feel freshly inspired to make the most of those seemingly useless 5-minute windows of opportunity.
What can I do in 5 minutes? Any one of the following...
*Put the dishes away
*Clear and wipe off the counters
*Sweep around the table (always the worst part of the floor)
*Put one load of laundry in the washer
*Hang up the clothes heaped in the corner of the bedroom
*Pick up the pillows off the floor and put them back on the couch (I think I do this approximately 60 million times each day...maybe we should just get rid of them?)
*Pick up the books off the living room floor (I try to have the boys do this, but if they're already in bed for the evening I'd rather do it myself than wake up to it the next morning)
*Clean off the bathroom counter (I am so bad about this!!!)
*...Running out of ideas...What can you add? Come on, help me out here!
*Ooh, new direction: how about, sit down and read a page or two in whatever book I'm in the middle of...Except it's too tempting to just keep going after 5 minutes, so I wouldn't normally dare try this in the middle of the day.
*Any other ideas? Anyone?
posted by gretchenemma at 8:33 PM
4 Comments:
Ah...yes...thank you for the inspiration Gretchen... You sound like my brain thinking..I have this much time..what can I get done?...Set the timer and go to!!
Ooops...that was from me-sorry to leave you hanging...meant to put my name there, and it didn't happen!
How about totally slacking off all household duties and instead picking up some knitting needles? Ha...
I know what you mean about the couch pillows though--how do they migrate to the floor so quickly?
Liane! I love that one! Ha! At least you have something not only enjoyable but productive to do in your slacking-off time...
I remember back to my evil dark days after Gabriel was born and I was so overwhelmed with life that I would sit at the computer and play Mah Jhongg (or however you spell that) for what seems to me now like hours on end...
It was just awful, not only because of all the mess piling up while I sat there in denial, but also because at the end, what did I have to show for it besides some really astounding record times that no one would ever know about anyway?...Sigh
So at least knitting is fun and you have something really cool to show for it at the end... : )
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