Are you the WAHM who maintains a to-do list daily?
Do you ever get the feeling that you are so tired with doing a lot, only to see your task list with so many unchecked items at the end of the day?
Well, I am that WAHM. Not so much for work-related items, but more on my home chores. Although I have all my office chores in Google Task, I still have this handwritten list on my desk with my Mommy tasks. I love doodling and scribbling, so having this handwritten list is a good excuse to scribble. Plus, I find that I retain them in my brain more efficiently when I write them.
But retaining and executing are two different things. So let me give you an example of how my home chores get accomplished. Or not!
Because I have homeschool hours in the morning, I try to complete my home chores before school starts. So breakfast and home chores, then homeschool, then lunch, and finally, I get to dig into my office work.
So my home chores would be limited to one hour to two hours, max. That means I don’t make it a goal to finish everything at one go. I allot the time, and whatever I finish within that time is good.
The other day, I set out to clean my office window, sort the kids’ clothes drawers and pack old items for giving away, and make a list of items that we need to replace so I can work on the budget. Realizable for the two hours allotted, right? First item: My office window. It’s that little window downstairs beside the garage.
Not much of a task, right? But it took me about two hours to complete. And here’s why…
I took out a wet rag, and started cleaning the glass. My system in cleaning glass windows is to use a wet rag first (not so wet, though) and then follow with paper. You can use old newspapers or pages from old magazines, but I use our waste paper from homeschool.
So, done with the wet rag. I went inside to get paper. Found the trash box to be full, so I decided to take it out for disposal. We have four sacks outside: one for dry cartons and paper, one for plastic bottles, one for cans, and one for non-biodegradable assorted trash. The one for assorted trash is picked up by the municipal garbage collection truck, three times a week. The other three, we just get them ready for the garbage man who buys them from us. Found the sack with plastic bottles to be almost full, too, so I went back in and checked the bathrooms for shampoo bottles that may be ready for disposal, so I can have them sorted along with the paper and cans. Garbage sorting done, finally was able to get back to cleaning the glass.
Then I went on to clean the grills. As I was cleaning, my eyes caught sight of the grass starting to grow below the window. I started weeding, with the goal of just finishing that small part below the window. Before I knew it, I’ve weeded the grass off half the front yard. Uh, not much of a yard, but I don’t know what else to call it.
After I’ve swept off the grass, I went back to cleaning the grills. And then it’s time to rinse the rag, before I give the grills another wipe.
Then I thought, wait, might as well wash the other rags, too, so I can maximize the use of laundry soap and water. So I collected the other rags inside the house, and went on to handwash eight of them.
I had a bubbly basin full of water with soap, and felt so bad about just throwing it down the drain, and I thought, well, the garage is so dusty, so I decided to use it to clean the garage floor. I did that will all the water that I used to rinse all the rags. So I have a bunch of clean rags, and a clean garage floor, too!
And finally, I was able to complete cleaning my office window. One item ticked off from my home chores list, and my time was up. One out of three is not so bad, yeah? Especially since there are items now that won’t even make it to the list.
But the other items in the present list will need to be transferred to a fresh sheet so I can schedule it for another time. And there’s another excuse to make use of my mechanical pencil. I’m happy!
How do YOU get your chores done? I do hope you will share!
Marge, also known as The Happy WAHM, is a virtual assistant who turned her passion for entrepreneurship into a worthy endeavor of offering complete business solutions to CEOs and business owners around the world. She turned her back on a thriving corporate career to become a hands-on mom and created a lifestyle that allowed her to build a homebased career, homeschool her children, and still have time to pursue her passion for arts and crafting.
She only posts her content on her website, TheHappyWAHM.com. If you see this content on someone else’s site then it is NOT by any means authorized.
Hi, Marge.
I’m glad I got to visit your site. Your house’s picture actually caught my attention (I’m a member of WAHM group also, saw it there). It looked clean and neat. 🙂
I can relate with what you’re saying: how one chore will lead to another one without even you knowing it nor the intention to do it. I guess all moms are like that.
I have a question regarding the plastic bottles that are collected/bought by a garbage man. How long have you been doing that? You think he has “friends” who can do the same thing for us? 🙂 We live in Quezon City, near Ateneo.
Thank you so much, Marge! 🙂
Hi Joy! Thank you for dropping by! I’m from Batangas, unfortunately, so I can’t refer you to our garbage man, or to his friends, for that matter. 🙂 I grew up sorting out our trash – bottles, plastics, paper, cartons… so we’re just passing it on to our kids. They get to keep the money we get from selling our trash. Oh, and by the way, we separate the bottles of spreads and milk cans. Those we bring to the paint store that sells paint in retail. They buy each bottle for 50 cents, so we get more yield. 🙂 Warm regards!
I started to smile right around the garbage sorting because I could tell how the rest of the thing will go 🙂 This is me, too! Ms Short Attention Span. That’s me in real life, and that’s me on my laptop. I’d be working on a document, then would go to Chrome to Google some information, see that there’s a notification in my ever-open Facebook tab, and it would be 30 minutes before I remember that I was supposed to Google something. Buti yung sayo productive! 😀
Ha ha ha! Oh, it happens to me, too! I would open my Facebook account to check on the pages that I manage, then I’d see a post with a link to something interesting so I would click on that, and then on that link, I’d click on another link, until I realize that I have not gotten round to my pages yet. 🙂 Thank you for dropping by, Rina! Will visit your blog, too!
Hahaha, at least you’ve finished the original task to be done. Is that what you call a mid life crisis? I don’t know what you call it but it happens to me all the time. And one more thing , I’m so forgetful that when I go to the market I can’t remember if I already paid them or not or did I get the change already or not. One time Elmer told me, you know what ,you always have to concentrate on what you’re doing and don’t wait for the time that when you are on the stairs, you don’t know whether you are going up or you’re going down… Lol!
Waaaah! I refuse to call it mid-life crisis! Can we just call it lack of focus? Or in my case, obsession to house chores. 🙂 But yeah, be careful on the stairs. It’s tiring to go up, only to realize you actually set out to go down. Ha ha!
hahaha. my husband’s like that in a way. one minute he’s taking out the trash, the next, he’s washing the car….but that doesn’t get done right away though, cause somehow,he’d end up putting together his popsicle project for Lukas! 😀
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment, May! For as long as he gets back to taking out the trash after washing the car and finishing the project, right? Ha ha!
How do I get my chores done? by having white boards, 2 planners, and stickies.. and I still don’t get to finish everything..LOL…
Hi Millie! Interesting! You have two planners? Are those both physical, both digital, or do you have one of each? I keep a digital planner, but I like to satisfy my love for scribbling by maintaining a handwritten to-do list. 🙂