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'In the Mood' and FOCUS

t-bird
12 years ago

As some of you may know - I am in a 2012 "clean sweep" to reorg and paint everything....

My first project has been the parlor, and it is coming along nicely. Today's project was taking out the contents of the cupboards and drawers in the lower part of the built in shelf unit.....

so....

I go in to the kitchen to make myself a cup a tea....and before I know it, I've got a whole shelf ripped apart and reorganizing a drawer in there...as I was waiting for the water to boil....

When I am "in the mood" anything that isn't "done" bugs me, and I can easily have 5 or more projects going on at once. Now - I do try to be careful about having so much in progress that it ends up not finished....but if you're in the mood....

Do you go for it? Or run back to the original project?

What are the pros and cons of either approach?

Comments (4)

  • LuAnn_in_PA
    12 years ago

    My husband is like that... he calls it 'male cleaning frenzy'.

    Not so simple for me!
    I could be in the mood to paint, but not have the supplies yet.
    I could be in the mood to garden, but it could be raining out.
    etc.
    In the mood is not enough.

    I AM a visual person. So I can get sidetracked from the task at hand is something 'doesn't look right' to me. But that is okay, as things are still getting done!

  • t-bird
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    welp - on the con side, I got my shapely posterior handed to me yesterday....

    In the height of having two area ripped out for sorting, etc. Frist DS and I departed to register him for classes - which was planned, but he took a long time about it and I got a little too deep into the projects...

    We got home to the chaos - but plenty of time to get it all back together when DD comes home from school feeling very sick.....

    So - I didn't get it all put back! Unfortunately, DD is quite sick and won't be going to school, so another day off of work for me - but in a sad way....

    Still - tremendous progress! I did rip out and wipe down and get into stuff and areas that have been ignored for far too long.....

    For today - I'm just going to finish up what is started, and clean up the collateral damage - stuff all over the kitchen floor, Dining room table, etc. Didn't clean up after dinner last night :( - that is one of my cardinal no-nos!

    What I have done somewhat of, not a thorough job, is going through board games, art supplies, DDs grade school projects (the parlor cupboards) and in the kitchen, tools and pet supplies.....somewhat done. I didn't want to rip out and clean the toolbox, just scrubbed the outside of the box, and organized into some drawers what doesn't fit in the box....

    The other bane of my existence.....half measures.....

    Sometimes doing a thorough job of something - for example - the tools - would likely require something like 20 hours to figure it all out, clean up all the cases inside and out, organize all the loose bits into something logical (yes - my tools are a mess), but spending 20 hours isn't feasible given all esle, so I just have to settle with a modest improvement organization-wise, with the exterior looking acceptable....

    Now with DDs childhood art - what a heartbreak! How can I possibly discard anything!??!

  • leafy02
    12 years ago

    I tend to have multiple projects going at once--I got my whole kitchen emptied out and scrubbed down and reorganized in one day, while all the Christmas stuff took days to put away and is still sitting in Rubbermaids in the TV room, and while my sewing stuff is still spread on the ironing board in my bedroom...

    What I can't have a chaotic kitchen, but the TV room that is 90% for the kids.....I can let things slide there for a week or more.

  • jannie
    12 years ago

    I'm never in the mood for cleaning and organizing. But I force myself to accomplish one bit/bite of cleaning and organizing per day. I'll say, I'll clean off my dining room table today or store the Christmas decorations today. And that becomes The Project of the Day. My sister was a housewife with three kids (including one with learning disabilities). She used to keep a chalkbosrd in her kitchen and wrote out her daily chore on it. I remember once the chore was "bake pie". Teehe, she scheduled her baking, making a nice dessert for her family. Perhaps a chore chart or list of some kind would help.