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Rock that timer: Using your timer to get started and keep going

Published by Rosie on September 18, 2012

Take five minutes. Just five. Set a timer. If you’re on the couch or in bed, look to see the closest surface to you. It’s probably the coffee table or your nightstand. For those five minutes, just focus on that one surface. Clear it off, throw stuff away, maybe even dust it. So when your five minutes is done and you’re back in bed, you have one clear surface to look at. You have an accomplishment to focus on. You did something. You don’t have to do everything. – Unf*** Your Habitat: The Depression/Messy House Cycle

Setting a timer to get started is a very motivating way to work.  If the world is falling down around you (or feels like it) and you have what seems like three week’s worth of work to do in one afternoon, it can seem much easier to just hide in a comfy chair or the safe place inside the computer.  That’s how it is to me anyway.  Or sometimes you just honestly can’t be bothered.

Either way, try setting a timer for a small chunk of time, and promising yourself to concentrate on one area or one task for that amount of time.  Merlin Mann calls this “Running a dash”

You might choose 2 minutes, or 5 minutes, or 11, or 15.

Once you get started (the laptop is put away, you’re on your feet, you’re doing things) it’s easier to keep going, just until the timer goes off. Then you can stop, and you’re ahead of where you were.

If you have a series of tasks to do, once you’re on a roll, you might want to alternate timed “working” blocks with timed “relaxing” blocks. You can do this anyway you like, of course.

Pick a time that feels good to you and suits the time you have available. Work for that time. Stop for a cup of tea when the timer goes off. It’s as easy (and as difficult) as that.

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Some Useful Links (Men’s Edition)

Published by Rosie on September 13, 2012

Jesper asked us a question yesterday on the HomeRoutines facebook page.

Why are all the articles linked to in pink, and with “romantic” typefonts, and the most frequently used word on this page “mom”? Can’t guys be home cleaning/organizing freaks as well? 🙂

Oh, how it pains me to be asked that, because I purposely didn’t make the app itself all pink and flowery because, seriously, everybody needs to do dishes and laundry. It’s not just for the ladies (even if the “likers” on the HomeRoutines page are 96.2% female as of today)  But there does seem to be a preponderance of “Mommy Bloggers” talking on the subject of the domestic arts and their own personal struggles with maintaining some sense of order and dignity in their household.

However, there are some male voices on the subject, so here are some writers that don’t have the words “Mom” “Lady” or “Housewife” in their blog names.

Kurt Vonnegut’s housework contract with his pregnant wife, January 26, 1947

I, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., that is, do hereby swear that I will be faithful to the commitments hereunder listed:

I. With the agreement that my wife will not nag, heckle, or otherwise disturb me on the subject, I promise to scrub the bathroom and kitchen floors once a week, on a day and hour of my own choosing.

…

Furthermore, while I am undertaking these tasks I will refrain from indulging in such remarks as “Shit,” “Goddamn sonofabitch,” and similar vulgarities, as such language is nerve-wracking to have around the house when nothing more drastic is taking place than the facing of Necessity.

Leo Babauta, The Habit of Starting at Zen Habits

The biggest reason people fail at creating and sticking to new habits is that they don’t keep doing it.

That seems obvious: if you don’t keep doing a habit, it won’t really become a habit. So what’s the solution to this obvious problem? Find a way to keep doing it.

When you look at it this way, the key to forming a habit is not how much you do of the habit each day (exercise for 30 minutes, write 1,000 words, etc.), but whether you do it at all. So the key is just getting started.

Let me emphasize that: the key to forming a habit is starting each day.

Zen Habits is one of my favourite websites. You might also like to read his older articles:

Plus, pretty much his entire archive.

UnFilth Your Habitat

UnFYH is great. (The site doesn’t use the word “filth” by the way, rather another word beginning with F. It’s just their euphemism to allow their app to be in the app store) It is a categorically non pink, romatic, mom-ish blog, but it does happen to have a female author. Nevertheless, anybody, bloke or otherwise, who gets cringy at too many shabby chic, distressed-chalkboard, homemade muffins, kale chips and vintage apron posts when they just want to work out how to even start to clean their [filthy] bedroom – Unfilth Your Habitat is a great place. With copious swearing. And celebratory animated gifs. On Tumblr.  The community built around it on Tumblr is inspirational as well, with lots of tagged pictures and posts with befores and afters.

OK, now I have a problem

I thought I remembered two other guys.  One of them turned out to be just a screen name (he called himself “Hearth Master” on a bulletin board, and I thought that was pretty sweet) and the other was a guy who I swear wrote about keeping his house clean and referred to “Crap avoidance strategies” for avoiding the creation of piles of mess, but I can’t find him on the internet and the keywords I remember are a little problematic.

(I remembered: it was at a site called “Dad is In The House” and he talked about “Doom Avoidance”

There will be plenty of time for wax-resist and lace dyed eggs when you are done staring down doom.  It doesn’t matter if you can make a pretty egg if you toddlers’ poo balls are still ground into the carpet–stay strong and keep focused, with laser-like precision. Take care of your dirty secrets, and then worry about Martha and the lifestyle gurus. I’m all over making cool and useful and even pretty things. But you must avoid doom first!

– it’s not online any more but it’s in the magical internet archive.

 

Who else is good and not too pink-rickrack/vintage-apron/feather-duster? I will update the post 🙂

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Find your Most Important Tasks. Do them.

Published by Rosie on July 24, 2012

I don’t know about you, but I usually have about a million things that I feel like I should be doing.  The end result is often… not actually doing them.

someecards.com - The moment when you realize how many things you have to do and decide to take a nap.

I try and keep the regular, recurring tasks under control by corralling them into routines and zone tasks, but there are always one-off jobs and projects to keep under control.

You can follow all sorts of powerful techniques to identify what to do next; what is urgent vs what is important, and what is urgent AND important, and so on. But there is only so much list-writing and task-juggling you can do before it turns into just another form of procrastination.

How about this:

  1. Choose your three Most Important Tasks tasks to do today.
  2. Write them in your to do list.
  3. Try and do those three.

Even if you get just one of them done, you’ll be further ahead than if you didn’t do any of those extra jobs.   I managed to get all my Most Important Tasks done today.  (Showing off!)

My Most Important Tasks  for today:

1) Take the girls to buy new shoes, because Belle’s sneakers AND her boots had fallen to bits and having her walk into school like a bare-footed waif child isn’t a great look in the middle of winter.

2)Update my order for the  fruit and vege box to be delivered tomorrow to have veges and fruit because we managed to eat most of our veges this week.

3)Follow up the cheque that I thought was to pay the fees for Brownies, but it turns out was something to do with the renovations.  Whoops. Pay the outstanding fees for Brownies.

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Too many bricks on the lounge floor (or Why it’s easier to tidy up at playgroup than at home))

Published by Rosie on July 13, 2012

Twice a week I take my rambunctious boy-toddler to a local playgroup hosted in a church hall. It runs from 9:30 till 11:30, there is instant coffee and chocolate cookies, interesting toys and a sloping path for the kids to hurtle up and down riding on plastic tricycles. It is also securely fenced in, so I can take my eyes off him to make a cuppa without him making a run for the hills or the main road.

Around 11am, a mysterious force calls us and all the parents there begin to pack up and clean up.  There’s no great rush, no list of tasks pinned to the wall, but we all just pick a job and finish it, then look around for another one to do.  By 11:30, someone’s vacuumed the hall and we’re ready to lock up and leave.

I was wondering why I found it so much easier to tidy up after playgroup than at home, and I realised there are several reasons.

  • Working together is easier
    Many hands make light work and so on, but it’s much more encouraging when there are other people working companionably alongside you.  You can still chat, and ask someone else if you’re not sure where something goes. Furthermore, you can’t exactly sit on your bum fiddling with your phone while everyone else tidies up.
  • Everything is part of a set and has its own container
    I don’t like toys with bits at home, but here the Weebles come out of the Weeble box, and then at the end of playgroup they go back in the Weeble box and the Weeble box lid goes on top, and then it goes out to the storage shed ’til next time.
  • It’s someone else’s system
    It’s not my responsibility to justify the quality or quantity of the toys, the storage system, or the number of cups and saucers in the hall kitchen.  I have to focus on the task at hand. Wash the dishes, dry the dishes, turn the dishes over,  hang the tea-towel on the rack, wipe the bench and it’s done.
  • There is a limited number of possible tasks, and they are all correct
    The hall tea towels are magically washed and dried (I guess the church ladies do that?). The lady who runs the playgroup makes sure there is playdough made and that there are sufficient teabags and bickies.  All I can do is choose between stacking chairs, putting toys in containers, washing the dishes, wiping the children’s table, sweeping, and carrying things out to the storage shed.  Any job I choose is the right job.

At home, on the other hand, the possibilities are literally endless:

Right now, I can see that

  • the lounge needs a vacuum, again
  • there is a washing basket with the random socks in it that I hate to pair up
  • I emptied the dishwasher after lunch but didn’t reload it yet
  • It’s nearly time to put some pizza dough in the breadmaker for dinner
  • The shoe rack is overflowing
  • I still haven’t posted that one gift from the baby shower I didn’t go to
  • The cat thinks it is his dinnertime too
  • Someone has dropped playdough on the carpet

… and so on.

But I realised that if I apply my experiences at playgroup tidy-up time to my own home, I can step beyond the anxious overwhelmed feeling, put down Words With Friends and “get off my chuff and do stuff” (as one of the ladies on the Facebook puts it)

  • Working together is easier
    It’s companionable if there is someone else to work with. I find I am energised when Tim and I can work together for an hour on a Saturday morning and do a bit of a housework rampage.  The girls tidy up their rooms at the same time.  Everyone keeps moving and we have a brief moment when the kitchen, bathroom and lounge are all clean and vacuumed and all the rubbish bins are emptied.  Same goes for tidying up after dinner. It’s even better if we’ve invited someone for dinner. There’s nothing that makes you aware of the dust that gathers along the edge of the tiles in the toilet room than a guest going in there.
  • Everything is part of a set and has its own container
    Like I said, I don’t like toys with bits at home, but limiting the toys in the lounge to duplo, books and a big toybox to biff any remainders back into helps keep it manageable.  I know where most things go, I’m just not very good at putting them there.
  • It’s someone else’s system
    OK, this is the one I get hung up on.  But if I focus on getting my daily routine tasks done, that is the priority, with the added sidelines of getting the kids to and from school and wiping sticky faces as required. If I find myself getting distracted by the need to redesign my “system” and organise my entire life right now then that is just an insidious form of perfectionist procrastinating and doesn’t do a damn thing about the dishes.  (That’s pretty much the main reason I designed HomeRoutines, by the way – to get the system that I could use and not get distracted by “tweaking” the whole time and then having to print out again…)
  • There is a limited number of possible tasks, and they are all correct
    This point was the one that was an epiphany for me. If I’m feeling overwhelmed, I can set my timer, walk into the kitchen and start working. It’s the starting that is often the difficult thing, rather than sitting on the sofa feeling defeated. Furthermore, as long as I don’t get sidelined into decluttering a closed cupboard rather than facing up to the duplo bricks all over the lounge floor, or digitising CDs instead of making lunch, then whatever I start doing is the right thing.  Especially compared to not doing anything.

So if I am reading The Tiger Who Came to Tea, or straightening the bookshelf, or loading the dishwasher, or wiping the marmite off the face of Captain Sticky, or sorting out the school uniforms for next term, or baking lunchbox muffins, or sweeping, or starting the difficult part of peeling a banana, or putting crayons back in their bucket – or even digitising those CDs or decluttering a few things out of that one cupboard:

all of those are right when compared to playing Where’s My Perry on my phone to distract myself from thinking I don’t know where to start.

And I’m setting my timer now and going to Do Some Stuff.

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Bug fix for iPad version 2.0.4

Published by Rosie on June 20, 2012

An update for the iPad version of HomeRoutines was released to the store yesterday, fixing a crashing bug. Unfortunately, we managed to introduce a new bug while fixing the old one.

Due to this bug, if you open HomeRoutines for iPad in portrait orientation, the Home button won’t be visible.  Fortunately, if you rotate your iPad to landscape, the Home button will reappear, and will stay there after you rotate back to portrait.

We have also submitted an urgent update  to Apple to fix this, and it should be available within a couple of days.

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Power through your To-Do list with 6 tasks in two hours (“Flylady Bingo” style)

Published by Rosie on March 31, 2012

A couple of years ago, Lori (one of the regulars on the Flylady Facebook page) invented a collaborative game she called “Flylady Bingo” as a motivating way to get through her to-do list, completing 6 x 15 minute tasks in two hours.  This technique works very well if you have a couple of hour-long blocks to spare, and you can do it with the friendly people on Facebook.

You can also use a variation on this technique and go it alone, with a free dice app, a glint in your eye and a determination to get things done.

This is an excellent way of attacking tasks that are one-offs, or that perhaps got missed in their regularly scheduled programming and kind of need looking at now, before they are next “due,” or before anyone asks to use your bathroom.

Playing on the Flylady Bingo Page:

  1. Make yourself a numbered list of six tasks, and on the Flylady Bingo facebook page one of the fans will be calling out a number.  Usually they start a game on the “top of the hour” (I think that means on the o’clocks, when the big hand is pointing to the 12)
  2. Set your timer for 15 minutes, and complete the task that is assigned to that number on your list.
  3. After 3 tasks, you all take a 15 minute break.
  4. Do the other three tasks, again as the number is “called.”
  5. When you’re done you have a margarita yell BINGO! and feel suitably proud of yourself.

Here are the official instructions.

You can use the HomeRoutines To Do list to make your list of six. I used the Emoji keyboard to put the numbers in, but you know, regular numbers would do. I also put in a task for my tea-break, and one for when I’ve finished. For this one I’ve put the “¡We did it!” song from Dora the Explorer, because I am both a parent of preschoolers, and a massive nerd.

Dice Game for your To Do List

Alternatively, you can play all by yourself.  I’m not being totally antisocial; I live on the upside-down part of the world and my time zone is all out of alignment with yours.

If you want to play by yourself, you can either work through your tasks in order (fine, but boring) or you could download yourself a free dice app to add a little surprise to things.  I downloaded a few, and my favourite was this one, simply called Dice.

I just wanted to say, goodness gracious me.  There are certainly some interesting dice apps in the app store.

This one does what it says on the tin. You shake your phone, or tap it, and a dice falls in from the side of the screen with a pleasing dice noise.  I cropped out the advertisements on this screenshot.

  1. Make yourself a numbered list of six tasks, plus extra tasks for your tea break and your “Bingo” moment.
  2. Roll your dice.
  3. Set your timer for 15 minutes, and complete the task that is assigned to that number on your list.
  4. Roll your dice again for a new task.  If you get a number you’ve already rolled, roll it again until you get a new one.
  5. After 3 tasks, take a 15 minute break.
  6. Do 3 more tasks as dictated by the Dice Who Knows All.
  7. When you’re done you have a margarita yell BINGO! and feel suitably proud of yourself.

Some useful links:

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Useful Links (and a Useful Pot to Keep Them In)

Published by Rosie on March 14, 2012 1

Since I started working on HomeRoutines (two years ago!) I’ve discovered so many wonderful blogs that have useful and encouraging information, hints and tips, and the latest news from the science behind productivity of all sorts.  And I’ve read about them and sometimes posted them on Facebook and I haven’t put them here. Why, Rosie, Why?

I had an epiphany this morning while I was putting on the slow cooker for dinner.  I’ve been doing the perfectionist thing about posting links – I didn’t want to post one at a time, but I thought that if I was going to post links I had to make it “Monday Morning Link Fest!” or “Wonderful Weekend Links!” or something similar with a snappy name and a publishing schedule. And then I’d have to go back and post every.single.link I’d every found on the Entire Internet! This was resulting in me not posting links at all, which is an epic fail on my part as I want to link up to all the awesomeness out there, without exposing you to all my crazy angst.

So be it.  With a small amount of Winnie-the-Pooh inspired further procrastination to create a graphic, here are some Useful Links.

Useful Links (and a Useful Pot to Keep Them In)

  • Good Tools Have Verb-Based Interfaces
    Gina Trapani on Smarterware suggests giving your app folders friendly, verby names, rather than the generic ones that iTunes gives them. For instance, Watch, Listen, Read, Play.
  • How to Put Newsstand in a Folder
    From The Cult of Mac, a nice hack I found in Gina’s article above – so you can hide the Newsstand app away if you don’t actually use it.
  • Getting More Organized is Not the Goal
    Rachel from Small Notebook writes about finding the sweet spot in your organisation process where it is of most benefit to you, and stopping there.
  • How To Stay Motivated
    Marilyn from Marilyn’s Way (previously called The FLylady Way) talks about how to stay motivated working on the mundane routine tasks of life.
  • Read It Later
    If you ever have cascading layers of distraction because of opening Twitter or Facebook for “just a minute” and then seeing some awesome link that lo0ks the best thing ever, then Read It Later is very useful indeed. It’s an app/Firefox add-on/magic thing that lets you send off all those tempting articles and entertaining videos that might not be suitable for right this minute, so you can look at them later on.  The app works with twitter apps to directly send the links to it, and then puts them in an easily-readable mobile format for you. I like it, and it’s free.
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Imaginary railroads, stations, and zones

Published by Rosie on February 28, 2012

Back in Fall 1998, Pam and Peggy announced an update to their SideTracked Home Executive System. They had come up with the idea of dividing your home into Stations:

Break down your house into five stations and assign one station to one week (there are usually five weeks in a month).

Let’s say that:

  • Station One/Week One includes your entry, living and dining room,
  • Station Two/Week Two is your kitchen,
  • Station Three/Week Three the main bathroom, your office, a 1/2 bath and the laundry room,
  • Station Four/Week Four the master bedroom and guest room and
  • Station Five/Week Five is the basement.

Begin de-junking at the entrance of the station. You’ll work clockwise each day, cleaning out a closet, cupboard or drawer (sometimes for as little as ten minutes) and when the week ends on Sunday, you’ll move to the next station and do the same thing.

Granted, it will take several rotations (months) to get the whole house de-junked, but you will see progress in every room, you won’t kill yourself and life as you like it will go on as usual. Eventually every station will be streamlined!

Pam Young and Peggy Jones, Fall 1998 newsletter

Sounds familiar?  The Flylady adapted the idea of Stations, only she works from top to bottom instead of clockwise and called them Zones instead.

I really like the idea of calling them stations, though, because I can imagine a little train track going around my house, stopping at each room to move out clutter.

CHOO CHOO

With a small boy in the house, half the time I have a small “train” hurtling around the house shouting CHOO CHOO.  Only he seems to be spreading things around, rather than picking them up.  Note how the sticky fingerprints reflect the camera flash on that photo!  (PS: He is also obsessed with helping himself to fruit from the fruitbowl, and playing builders.  Yesterday I found him trying to bash in a small nail in the wall using a piece of fruit, leading to me having to tell him “A plum is not a hammer!” Yeah.  So that’s one of the reason’s I’ve not been blogging much)

Stations and Zones

What can I take from the SideTracked Home Executives’ idea of Stations and apply it to my personalised list of tasks in each of the rooms in HomeRoutines’ Zones:

  • I can put the list of tasks in a clockwise order around the room.  I’m actually starting to imagine an additional rail loop going clockwise around each room.  It’s like the Island of Sodor round here with the unexpected complexity of our rail network.  Having the tasks based in an order that is based on the physical layout of the room helps me keep track of where I’m up to.
  • Decluttering is a continual task. It’s worth taking a quick look at each storage area each month or so, because “you can’t CLEAN surfaces unless you HAVE them” so you need to clear the crap off your shelves before you can wipe them down.  I have been decluttering recently and it feels good, but it just keeps going on.
  • Pause after every station for a cup of tea. It’s good for the soul.
  • Sometimes you can get stuck in a plateau with any system or challenge; maybe all it takes is mixing up your lists again (and an imaginary train) to get back on track.

Soundtrack:  Peace Train by Cat Stevens

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How to fix the Timer and Reminders (not working after iOS 5 update)

Published by Rosie on November 8, 2011 2

Unfortunately, Apple included a bug in the upgrade to iOS 5.  This turned off local notifications for most apps, including ours, which means that the timer doesn’t work properly if you exit the app, and your routine reminders will not be working. This only affect customers who upgrade from iOS 4, not for new installations on iOS 5.

Here is how you can fix this by switching notifications back on for HomeRoutines.

  1. Open the Settings app
  2. Select “Notifications”.
  3. Scroll down to the “Not in Notification Center” section.
    You’ll probably see HomeRoutines in there.
  4. Tap the HomeRoutines line to enter its settings.
    • Turn on “Notification Center”
    • Set the Alert Style to “Alerts”
    • Turn on “Sounds”
    • Turn on “View in Lock Screen”

Sorry for the hassle – but it seems like there’s nothing we can do to correct this for existing customers who upgrade to iOS 5.0 at the moment except ask them to manually fix it. Apple are working on a fix, though.

Please let us know if we can help with anything else.

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Morning High Five for the kids and myself

Published by Rosie on October 6, 2011

The daily rhythm of my home is changing soon, and it will be more important than ever to make sure our mornings run smoothly.

I remembered reading on Life As Mom about the idea of a Morning High Five for her kids. Picking the five most important chores, she made for them a colourful chart, like this:

Morning High Five chart from Life As Mom (click through for a printable and other awesomeness)

I decided to be creative and/or mysterious, so I mysteriously traced around the girls’ hands on coloured paper before school this morning, and whipped up my own version of the chart while they were away:

This is Lilly

This is a list for the girls, but there are kind of two lists in it for me.

The early morning list

So, there is literally nothing more important for me in the morning than making sure these things happen before 8:30am, for not only Lill but for Bella, Henry and myself. We all need to get through the full cycle of toilet, breakfast, dress’edness, teeth and hair, and the girls backpacks need to be packed. It’s nice if more things get done (a la breakfast dishes, made beds and so forth) but those can wait until after the school run. We must be realistic about these things. So I’ve split my school-morning routine into two. One is my own “High Five” list, and the other is all the entertaining (ha!) “extra” tasks that aren’t as mission critical as those that Get The Kids Out The Door.

The School Night Preparedness List

This is the most important, because nothing, nothing ruins the feng shui of a morning like the echoing cries of “Mum, I don’t have any clean knickers!” and frantic washing of yesterday’s lunchbox in order to fill it with today’s lunch. Horrible, stressful way to start the day, rummaging through the un-folded washing to find a uniform top and the right kind of undies and socks.

Well worth the effort, even when Bejewelled is calling to me.

What’s on your Next Day Preparedness List?

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