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Wednesday, June 26, 2019

You Did What In 30 Minutes?

I disappeared again. I didn't mean to. I probably need a tag.

May was very busy. Always busier than I expect or remember. We finished up school and then took a family vacation to Mammoth Cave. A series of children were sick over the course of about a month, which culminated in Marian being tentatively diagnosed with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. She actually had some other moderately less horrible tick-borne disease. All's well that ends well and thank God for antibiotics.

When June rolled around and the endless rounds of sickness decided to give us a break, I began, again, my continuing purge project that spent most of this past school year on pause. I have found that my ability to clean and keep up with Ella the toddler and chauffeur kids around and type posts and maybe read a book is limited. Right now I am in book reading mode so there is not going to be an in-depth post about the epic battle with my room currently raging. Unless I change my mind. We'll see.

About my room. My room is generally the resting place of any stray paper item that wants to be kept but doesn't currently have a home. Generally the procedure is I find something I want to keep, toss it on my dresser for safe keeping, and say I'll deal with it later.

It's later:



It took me three days to get to the bottom of the giant pile where I discovered that it dates to Christmas 2016. This is immediately before I got pregnant with Ella and my cope-er collapsed. Yeah, it's bad. I am not finished yet, but the bulk of the paperwork has been dealt with. I need to figure a better system so it doesn't get this bad ever again.



***

As I whittled the pile down I found a copy of _A Mother's Rule of Life_ by Holly Pierlot that I borrowed from a friend in the Fall of 2016. This friend now lives out of state. Oops.

I never read the book, but I know people have strong feelings about it. They either love it or hate it. I am not sure which I'd be. I like structure, but massively fail at time management.

I flipped the book open, and my eyes landed on this paragraph:

     Somewhere around 10:00 on most evenings, I prepped for the next day. I emptied the dishwasher, quickly tidied up what was left to do downstairs, put away my laundry if Philip hadn't already done it, and took care of personal hygiene. I'd spend a few minutes in prayer and reading before bed at 10:30.

Wait, what? My eyes popped out of my head. How do you do all that in 30 minutes?

Let's see:

Empty the dishwasher: 10 minutes
Tidy the downstairs: Assuming it's mostly tame, 5 minutes
Put away laundry: Is this laundry already folded? 5 minutes.
                              Is this laundry in a heap in a basket? 15 minutes
Personal hygiene: Rushing, 10 minutes
                              Normal, 20 minutes
                              Does this involve a shower? 45 minutes
Prayer: 5 minutes
             Am I totally unfocused and rambling in my head? 10-15 minutes
Reading: 10 minutes or why bother?

So in my experience, her last minute 30 minute round-up prep takes me 45 minutes when everything is firing on all cylinders. If it's more like my normal, I'd expect her quick routine to take me at least 75 minutes.

I am thinking maybe I am not the target audience for this book.



1 comment:

TARGET TALKER said...

Dear Jenny, glad to be reading you again. I am very tempted to buy Pierlot's book as it really touches a nerve. But I am hesitant to buy it, partly for the reasons you mention in your article. Indeed, I have a big problem with never getting to go to sleep before midnight and then being tired all day long. In the summer, when the days are longer and kids are fussier, I only manage to have them in bed at 9 or even 9.30. I might then sit down and rest, and this usually transforms into an hour of mindless internet search. around 10.30 I will do the evening routine-tidying up, bit of laundry and personal hygiene. I hardly ever have the time or energy to pray more than 5 min. It is usually midnight when I can really hit the pillow. I dont understand how some moms, Catholic or not, but especially the homeschooling ones would ever have time to incorporate quality prayer time, and even going to mass, and then-wow, manage to go to sleep at 10.30. I want to buy this book but am afraid the expectations will be too high for me to reach. I have to keep trying though....Good luck with your organisation project.I had to laugh when I saw your paper pile as it is not that difficult to get ti that. The Flylady system seems to be a good one for doing little projects and managing it all. I tried it for some time and it worked.