There’s something very peaceful about a kitchen that’s clean before dinner is even ready to eat.
You can have this kind of peace if you get in the habit of pausing, then finishing what you were doing before moving on to the next thing. Just this one simple little habit can save you hours and hours and hours of time later on.
Do dishes pile up in your sink? What if you got in the habit of quickly washing, then drying and putting away, each dish when you were finished with it? Would this extra few seconds of time save you a long episode of dish washing, and a resulting procrastination over putting them away later on?
Does your kitchen look like a tornado went through it when you’re finished cooking? What if you pulled out each ingredient, used it, then put it away and cleaned up after it before taking out the next one? Would taking this little amount of extra time save you the big headache of cleaning up after dinner?
Does your clean laundry stack up waiting to be folded and put away? What if you folded and put away your pants immediately when they came out of the dryer?
Do you have weeks, months, or even years of financial documents stacked up and junk mail filling your home? What if you handled each thing once, paying the bill, scanning the receipt, throwing away the junk mail before you get in the house and filing away the important papers you need to keep?
Delaying these small tasks is easy to do if you keep your mind focused on the future, always thinking about what comes next. But if you focus on living mindfully, being fully attentive to what you are doing right at this very moment, you will see the wisdom in completing one thing before you move on.
When you finish each small task fully before moving on to the next thing, you avoid the resulting big jobs later that take up large blocks of your time.
You also get the benefit of knowing that you don’t have to dread spending hours doing something you don’t particularly enjoy.
It isn’t that you don’t have the time to do these things as you go, you’re just currently in the habit of waiting and procrastinating. You can form a new habit today, by looking at each thing that you choose to do, then doing it fully to completion before picking up anything else to do.
Have a joyful day!
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