is there anywhere in your life where you think you could do much better if you had some accountability? i know this is a problem for me in this homemaker phase of life...until about an hour before my husband comes home, i just do superficial chores or stuff i want to do, instead of what needs to be done. then i'll speed clean until he walks in the door. i'm pretty sure he's on to me by now, but he always says something nice about how clean the house is that day. he doesn't ask terribly much of me, and unfortuantely i haven't been rising to the occasion lately. sometimes, i will put off doing the dishes for as long as humanly possible. the other day i watched les miserables on HBO like, all day instead of cleaning the floors even though they were super yucky because we had just brought all of our gross muddy stuff in from camping. then right before the hubs came home i spent a few minutes tidying up so that the house looked basically presentable. but what if someone had stopped by mid-day? what if my grandma popped over from next door? what if the realtor wanted to show that house on really short notice? then i would look like a lazy slob, and i'd be up a creek without a paddle. yeah, them's the cold hard facts.
this doesn't just apply to cleaning but extends to other areas of my life as well. if i'm in my underwear at 9 on a weekday morning and someone's at the door? busted! if i eat cake instead of soup for lunch? not so good. if i go to the beach (or back to bed) instead of the gym? bad move. i'm not hurting anyone but myself, however i need to think about what this level of laziness says about me.
in high school and college, i worked really well under pressure. i was a very good student, but not until the last minute. i would write even the lengthiest of papers the days before (or the morning that!) they were due, and almost always received a good grade. but i knew i was going about it all wrong. once i started tutoring and later teaching, i had to tell my students NOT to do what i did, and in fact to do the exact opposite! i don't know how i could even say it with a straight face!
but in this new season of life at home with a little one, with very little that needs to be done besides keeping a basically clean house and everyone fed, there's really no pressure besides the self-inflicted kind. and putting pressure on oneself is sometimes really hard to do! so i need to find "accountabilibuddies" to keep me in line. if that means a friend to text me throughout the day to tell me not to eat cake, using a timer when i'm on the internet, picking an extra project to complete a week and then telling people about it, or inviting someone over in the middle of the day so i can be sure i'll clean before they get there, then so be it. i'll be all the happier for it in the long run. i've made facebook groups for others who have the same problem, and we posted daily to make sure we were on the right track. having someone else to answer to can solve the problem immediately, because you don't want to let them down! i also make a lot of to-do lists, because the physical act of crossing things off can feel oh so good!
how do all you other work-at-home or stay-at-home moms and homemakers out there make sure that you are being held accountable? do you have any accountabilibuddies?
i'm linking up this week to the spicy link-up party at It's just called Spicy...see you there!
No comments:
Post a Comment