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A SLOB COMES CLEAN

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Do it Now or Do it Later

October 23, 2013 By Dana White | 9 Comments

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Do It Now or Do It Later at ASlobComesClean.com when should I do daily tasks

I’m pretty sure “Do it Now or Do it Later” was a phrase my mother said to me as a child.

So I guess I should give up on the dream that my children will take all of my motherly advice to heart and avoid life’s struggles.

The phrase came to my head on Sunday afternoon as I vacuumed. I had procrastinated as LONG as I possibly could.

I was leaving in less than an hour to direct a rehearsal, and within minutes of returning home, our doorbell would ring.

Last week, all week long, I used the excuse that I was behind because we were out of town on Monday.

Missing Monday? Doing laundry on Tuesday?

Can there be any better excuses for letting ALL other housework slide???

Except that it has to be done. At some point.

I waited until Sunday afternoon when I had less than an hour. We ran around and picked stuff up and I wasn’t 100% kind and loving to my family.

Do it now or do it later. Doing it now is my goal for this week. I cleaned bathrooms yesterday because it was Tuesday and Tuesday is Bathroom Cleaning Day.

And doing it Tuesday was doing it “now.”

So later (on Sunday afternoon, the ONLY time I allow myself to take a nap) I can just do a little wipe down of the guest bath and I’ll be ready to open the front door.

Do it now or do it later.

“Later” is such a lie.

 

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--Nony

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Filed Under: figuring myself out | 9 Comments

Comments

  1. Kristy K. James says

    October 24, 2013 at 3:04 am

    That’s a good saying. So much better than the ‘why do it now when I can put it off indefinitely’ saying I tend to like. 😀

    But this post just confirms what I just told my son yesterday. Thanksgiving is about a month away. We can either work on the Hospice donations, and getting rid of other stuff we don’t need a little every day…or we can bust our butts for the few days before the holiday. Either way, we ARE going to be ready for company.

    Reply
  2. Erika says

    October 24, 2013 at 10:06 am

    This is such a hard concept for me….although I’m always so glad when I choose “now”.

    Reply
  3. Sandy says

    October 25, 2013 at 4:00 pm

    I once read a suggestion to think about what Future You would want Present You to do. So I can either be a jerkface to my future self, leaving her with all the work, or I can just take care of it now as a gift to myself in the future.

    Meh, sometimes it works!

    Reply
    • Kristin says

      May 29, 2014 at 2:48 pm

      I like that. I’ll have to keep that in mind. It can apply to many different situations besides cleaning, like eating healthy and working out, which I also need help on…

      Reply
    • Jean Diehl says

      January 2, 2018 at 11:11 am

      This is a great idea and I love your wording. I like giving gifts And I like getting things done.

      Reply
  4. alesiawillis says

    October 26, 2013 at 10:40 pm

    This week I planned on the grands kids coming ;over and do do so i have to clean my ;house and mainly their bedroom. Full of 2-3 year old toys, they are now o4-7 year old Socleaning house of toys not played with in a while. I have a laundry basket puiled double; going before the kids get there.
    I am so proud of myself. Now the really hard stuff, my clothes…I don’t out grow them, but don’ want to wear out i public;,so they become work cloths, but how man pairs of work clothes do you need.Can someone give me the number to cut off at. The shoes are going, if they hurt my feet then they are yard sale material.Made some progress, then had to stop and go collect honey bees. jThat shot that day and tomottow will bextracatin and jarin the honey. Th;en a week to clean up after this weekendlalesiae

    Reply
    • Jean Diehl says

      January 2, 2018 at 11:33 am

      I’m glad you made me think about this as I need the streamline too. I think Number of work clothes = 5-7 outfits. But it depends on what you mean by work. I think of work as things that I need to do around the home and yard therefore I have Junkie outfits with paint or Rips Etc. I figure if I have to “work” every day and I want to wear something different each day, that should about do it. Sometimes I have days where I don’t wear something different because the work I will be doing will make me dirty- gardening Etc. If you are talking about employment, I think 10 to 15 should be good. I liked it when I arranged my closet according to outfits rather than pants here shorts there t-shirts here Etc. Most recently I had been doing the ladder. But with my disability I can only stand in front of the closet for so much time to hang up my clothes after laundry. So my husband does the laundry and hangs my clothes up for me and it’s easier for him to put like things together. However, he is really not doing that he’s just putting the clothes as he hangs them in the closet without checking where they should go. I believe I will be going back to the outfits. So much easier when you have to get dressed quickly.

      Reply
  5. RedheadedCyclone says

    September 25, 2016 at 8:27 pm

    As an Event planner, I have learned that there seldom is ‘later’. Don’t put those flowers down on the tables that already has linens on it thinking you will clean it up ‘later’. Don’t put that box in the way to be dealt with before guests get there. It won’t happen. There is no ‘later’. My hubby does this all the time. Deal with it ‘later’… which really means I will have to deal with it in a week when it’s really awful. ‘Later’ really is a lie.

    Be nice to your Future you… 🙂

    Reply
  6. Jolene Collins says

    October 24, 2018 at 1:03 pm

    Another good phrase to remember is, “Don’t put it down, put it away.”

    Reply

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