>The habits themselves

>In case you are wondering what on earth I’m trying to accomplish every day, here goes:

1.  Workout.  I tend to put this off until later in the day, because the pregnancy workout videos are pretty lame, and going for a walk with Sebastian in the stroller up and down the hills in our neighborhood is more strenuous than they are.  Since I do this almost every day, I can postpone the workout task until the munchkin is awake.

2.  Put away dishes.  I know, putting away the dishes can happen whenever, but I find that if I get up and do it first thing in the morning, the kitchen tends to stay looking nice for most of the day as I can just put things in the dishwasher as we use them.  Otherwise they pile up on the counter or in the sink, and since I’m home much of every day, I find it irks me to look at the mess.

3.  Cat litter.  I never thought that I would love my cats any less when I had kids, and I don’t, but I do have far less patience for all the work it takes to care for them or put up with their neurotic behaviors.  Doing the cat litter daily is a real chore, especially when the smell is a bit much for my pregnant nose, but I noticed that this is one I did even on days when I didn’t manage some of the others because the litter is in the laundry room, and I cannot do a bunch of laundry while standing next to a smelly litter box.

4.  Laundry.  I give myself a smiley if I start a load in the morning and switch it when I get Sebastian up from his nap.  Getting at least one full load done a day makes for a lot less weekend work, and I usually do two loads since one tends to be Sebastian clothes or diapers and the other is our stuff.

5.  Task List.  This is one that is filled with various items I have to do, whether high or low priority.  The highest ones get done and the low ones rarely do unless I make working on this list a priority every day.  I try to get at least two checked off or spend 20 minutes, whichever is the longest.

6.  Weekly effective habit.  I have items like “meal plan/grocery shopping” on Monday, “put out garbage and recycling” for Wednesday, etc.  These are usually short tasks – 15-20 min. – that help keep the household running smoothly but don’t need to be done every day.

7.  Sort mail.  I try to sort this out, recycle the junk, add items to the Task list, and pay the bills all in under 15 minutes.  Totally doable if I do it daily, not so much if I forget about the mail for a week.

8.  Email sort/respond.  I spend 15 minutes going through my email and replying to messages.  Anything I don’t have time to reply to goes in a “To Reply” folder and is dealt with first thing the next time I deal with it.  I can usually keep my inbox empty if I do this every day, but… well, I don’t do it every day and so I’m often a week or more behind.  I do read the emails every day and reply to anything urgent, but people shouldn’t have to wait a week just because they didn’t ask me a question about the next day!

9.  Dishes/counter/sink.  This is a post-dinner routine I’m trying desperately to keep up, but by the end of the day I want nothing to do with being productive.  It’s hard, but the payoff comes in the morning when I walk downstairs to a clean kitchen.  I try to keep that in mind when I’d rather be sitting on the couch eating Chubby Hubby and watching “Friday Night Lights” on DVD (thanks, Jen!).

10.  Organize.  My main goal before the baby comes is to get our house organized and ready.  This involves a lot of decluttering (in other words:  throwing things out or donating them) and reorganizing.  I try to spend 15-30 minutes on this each day, often with my husband who is helping me work on our garage right now.

11.  Put things where they belong.  I give myself a smiley if the house is more or less in the same or better condition at night than it was in the morning.  I have a tendency to drop things when I come in the door or not pick up if I’m dealing with a toddler tantrum.  By the end of the day, all of this stuff adds up to more clutter lying around.  I try to put things away as I go, but I usually still have to spend 10 minutes or so just straightening the house at the end of the day.

So that’s it.  The house will not fall down around me, so it’s true that I should – maybe – cut myself a little slack if I miss one or two of these.  Then again, these tasks are the kind that should take a little time each day or they will add up to a long time on one day.  I’m hoping that making each of these a daily habit will help me to feel more in control of the chaos of being a mom of 2.  I also hope it will make me feel a little more like I earned the piano and/or the lessons that I’m aiming for.

We’ll see!  Today is shaping up to be Day 3 with 27 left to go.