The
10-Minute Solution
Susan
Meier
A
few years ago, in between fiction projects, I got a bug to write a non-fiction
book on time management. I did this mostly because I’d struggled through a lot
of years before I came up with a system that worked to keep me on track (and
sane) and I realized there are a lot of women out there who work, raise
children and manage a home.
Lots
of us also have a great love. Mine is writing. My sister's is crafts. Our
passions are usually the things we neglect when time becomes tight and I didn't
think anybody should have to give up on her dreams or passions!
I
wanted to share the wealth so to speak and I wrote the book.
Unfortunately,
when I submitted the idea to a publisher, the editor told me that my book was
too short (horrors!) and that it was dedicated to an audience (working women)
who weren't known for buying nonfiction books. (I would argue that.) Though she
loved the idea, she didn't think she could sell it to her superiors.
I
thought about it for only a minute before I realized that I hadn't written this
to make money. I had written it to help people, so putting the book on my web
site was a no-brainer.
The
only problem is that I don't have time to change the format. It is a book. Not
a workshop. It was originally intended to be read one chapter a night for eight
nights.
But
we can't put up a new chapter every day. So, you have the choice of reading
this one chapter a week and taking lots of time to do the assignments or not
doing the assignments until all eight chapters are up on the web site, when you
can do them in the eight days as originally intended.
I'm
pleased to offer you my time management insights and hope you not only enjoy
them, you use them to enhance your life!
The
only thing I ask is that you respect my copyright of The Ten-Minute Solution
and its contents and give me credit for it if you quote it.
Happy
reading!
Susan
by
Susan Meier, Copyright 2003
Chapter
1 — Introduction
For
fifteen years I worked full-time and wrote popular fiction novels. After the
first six (years and novels), I was published. Unfortunately, I quickly
discovered this didn't mean I could afford to quit my day job. But I also
wasn't willing to give up my dream – not when I had finally opened the door to
publication! So I kept writing.
Working
and writing.
Working
and writing.
Notice,
there is no life in there. Only work of one kind or another. It seemed like a
never-ending cycle.
Does
that sound familiar? Probably. You may not have two careers running
simultaneously, but if you're reading this you probably have children, a
spouse, commitments to your community and maybe your aging parents.
Even
after I quit my day job and became a full-time writer, I was still overwhelmed
with work, including public relations and advertising tasks for my books, and
family demands. And let's not even talk about housework. It simply wasn't
getting done.
I
tried scheduling. I tried prioritizing. I made lists. Nothing worked. How can
you advance-schedule a doctor's appointment for a sinus infection, a cold or
the flu? How can you even know how long you will be sitting in the waiting room
when you or your kids need those appointments?
I
found myself running around like a fool during the day and collapsing on the
sofa at night, feeling that I hadn't done enough, but without the strength or
energy to do anymore.
Then,
one night, when I realized I was wasting a valuable block of time flat on my
back staring at a television show that really didn't interest me, I asked
myself if I couldn't just do one thing. One thing. One little thing. Maybe one
thing that wouldn't take more than ten minutes.
I
did. I cleaned the sink in my bathroom. The next morning, when I brushed my
teeth before going downstairs,
the clean sink cheered me. So, while waiting for the coffee to brew I washed
the eight or
ten glasses, dessert plates and utensils from snacks the night before, then
wiped off the stove
and
countertops. That, too, cheered me. Not because I had accomplished something,
but because that
little thing made my kitchen appear cleaner. I didn't have to fear that I would
get company who
would see I wasn't doing my housework and to whom I would have to render excuse
after excuse.
I
was tired of excuses.
The
moderately clean kitchen bolstered my spirits enough that my morning's writing
went more smoothly.
It seemed hard to believe that a few clean glasses could do that much for me,
but they had.
My house wasn't "spotless" but I could accept company or at least
open the door to the UPS man
without worrying that he would call the Board of Health.
Analyzing
how my house had gotten to such a state of disorder that a couple clean glasses
made me
feel like I princess, I realized that to "save time" I was always
waiting to do things until they were
"worth the effort." But in my quest to task batch (saving similar
tasks to do together in order
to work more efficiently) work simply piled up. And the accumulating dishes,
dust and laundry
kept my house in a perpetual state of messiness.
Worse,
when I saved the dishes until there were "enough" to warrant using
dish soap, saved the laundry
until there was enough to fill a load and saved all the work required to clean
one room until
I could clean the entire room, I set myself up for procrastination. In my quest
for efficiency, I put
myself into the position of needing more time to do every chore, and I don't
have time. I don't have
two or three hours every day to clean. Some weeks I don't have two or three
hours to clean.
But
I have plenty of blocks of ten minutes.
After
that successful day, that happy day that showed me the value of ten minutes, I
made a list of ten-minute
jobs for housework, and within a week my house — though not immaculate — was presentable.
I didn't have to worry about the kids bringing in a friend. The commodes were
clean, the
sinks had been wiped down, and there were no dirty glasses by the microwave.
Vacuuming was
completed in sufficient rotation that nothing had gone more than two days
without a sweeping.
The
ten-minute solution worked so well for housework I decided to try it on
writing. It takes a long
time to write a chapter. It takes a long time to proofread a book. It takes a
long time to create
a synopsis for a new book. But you can proofread a page in ten minutes. You can
spiff up a description
in ten minutes. You can tighten a paragraph in ten minutes.
With
my housework getting done and my writing under control, I decided to try the
ten-minute solution
in my social life. And it worked. I would call friends and say, "I only
have ten minutes, but
I was thinking about you. So, quick, what's up?" It became like something
of a joke, but because
I held to the ten-minute time limit, people respected it, I kept closer contact
with my friends,
and I actually felt like I was in touch again.
I
would buy multi-purpose greeting cards, or boxed assortments of cards and when
the need arose I
would write out a card for a friend who had had a baby, had a birthday or
achieved a significant accomplishment.
People don't give a rat's behind what the cards say. They just like to get a greeting
in the mail that acknowledges them. So the boxed cards worked just fine. I
would write a line
to personalize the card, and voila I had made someone happy…in ten minutes.
If
you think the ten-minute solution sounds good, wait until you hear another
unexpected benefit.
It
ups your tolerance level for unpleasant jobs because you can do anything for
ten minutes. Hate to
houseclean? Hate to read? Hate to balance your checkbook, keep records for your
taxes, or even
write out your monthly bills? Give them ten minutes a day. Write a check for a
bill or two, file
a statement or two, make an entry or two, then walk away!
Before
you break into the dance of joy, I should warn you there are some
considerations — more like
refinements — you need to know about this system. I learned one or two of them
the hard way,
but that's why I wrote this book. So you won't have to make the same mistakes I
did.
And,
trust me, you're going to love this.
Even
the book is written in segments that can be read in ten minutes (or less), so
that this isn't one of
those books you're going to start and put down – and then never pick up again.
Because I promise
you won't be reading for more than ten minutes, you can pick up this book any time tomorrow
and read that day's portion with ease.
In
fact Chapter two is short enough that you can read it right now and still spend
only slightly more
than ten minute reading today. So turn the page. Read Chapter two and you will
be well on your
way to changing your life.
Chapter
2 — Procrastination: The peace of mind thief Or why you really want to do
this...
So,
really — just between you and me — what good are ten measly minutes?
Well,
with ten minutes of Tae-Bo everyday I've managed to keep my butt off the back
of my knees.
Ten minutes of Facercise™ has kept me from looking like a bulldog. Ten minutes
of reading
every day results in my finishing a book (or two) every month. Ten minutes of
cleaning keeps
my dressers, commodes, lamps and countertops presentable. Ten minutes of
advance work, every
day, gives me a jump-start into my future writing projects.
I
have an incredibly happy, well managed life. And aren't you jealous?
You
know you are. I know I would have been, too, when my life was chaotic and confusing.
So read
on.
Somehow
amid our multiplicity of titles and responsibilities, we manage to get done the
things that
we "have to" get done. When our phone rings at work, we answer it. We
feed and bathe our children
and even find time to read them bedtime stories. We put on make-up, mow our
lawns, rotate
our tires, and fulfill the duties of our job descriptions.
It's
the other things that fall through the cracks like the flower garden, the
pick-up wiffle ball game,
the well-ironed shirt (which we cover with a jacket and hope will straighten
out from body heat),
and the special project at work. Unfortunately, those are frequently the very
things that determine
our promotions and/or our quality of life.
With
quality of life and peace of mind in short supply these days, it's worth it for
me to do ten minutes
of housework in selected rooms of my house every day because it not only keeps
my house
surprisingly clean, it also boosts my spirits and my confidence. Ten minutes of
working ahead
on special projects at work got me promoted (back in the years when I had a day
job). Now those
ten minutes of working ahead in writing projects saves me from scrambling to
come up with new
ideas or new book proposals when my editor calls. (Or saves me from asking for
extra time, which
automatically makes a worker look ill prepared rather than exceptional. If it's
a choice between
looking ill prepared or exceptional, I'll take exceptional any day of the
week.)
Brian
Tracy in his motivational tape series, The Luck Factor, propounds the theory
that reading an
hour a day in your chosen field will net you a book a week or fifty-two books a
year. This, he says,
will put you so far ahead of the competition you will succeed virtually without
trying. But most
of us don't have an hour every day. We might be able to squeeze in ten minutes,
but not an hour.
So consider this: at ten minutes a day, which translates roughly to ten pages a
day, you will probably
read a book a month. Who do you know who reads a book a month in his or her
chosen field?
Probably no one. (Unless you know Brian Tracy.) So even at one book a month,
you would still
put yourself ahead of the competition.
Why?
Because the inherent, almost unseen, process in the ten-minute solution is
stacking.
Ten
minutes of housecleaning or working ahead on business projects every day might
not seem like
much, but in the same way ten minutes of reading each day translates into a
book a month, ten
minutes of work every day will eventually complete any large project.
I
experienced stacking firsthand one night when I was watching a Discovery
Channel program. It was
interesting enough to hold my attention, but not so interesting that I wasn't
fidgety. To force myself
to stay in the room and watch the entire show, I dusted the television wall
unit. I took out all
the knickknacks, dusted the shelves, and even dusted the television itself.
Since that only took about
ten minutes and the program was an hour long, I began removing the old
newspapers from the
end tables, then replacing videos, and straightening magazines. From there I
moved on to dusting
the tables and all the lamps in the room. Then I ran a cloth over the pictures.
Then I
dusted
the windowsills. Soon, the program was over and I was happily educated.
But
a strange thing happened on Saturday. I pulled the vacuum into the family room,
ready to start
my Saturday cleaning, but the tables were cleared and dusted. The lamps were
clean. So was the
wall unit...even the TV had been shined.
With
each of the tasks required to clean that room broken down and completed while
watching the
Discovery Channel, I had only two things to do to finish the cleaning in that
room — vacuuming
and spritzing the window with Windex — and finishing was a breeze. A happy
breeze.
A
sigh of relief. Which is another great thing about the ten-minute solution. The
sigh of relief.
Because I'm self-employed, I keep detailed tax records. But I hate it. I hate the spreadsheets. I hate having to sort through everything. I hate having to keep receipts in clearly marked files. But I also don't want the IRS to send me to jail, so I do it.
Because I'm self-employed, I keep detailed tax records. But I hate it. I hate the spreadsheets. I hate having to sort through everything. I hate having to keep receipts in clearly marked files. But I also don't want the IRS to send me to jail, so I do it.
Interestingly
enough, I discovered that when I applied the ten-minute solution, inputting
five minutes
worth of information onto my yearly income/expense spreadsheet and spending
five minutes
properly filing the receipts, the work was done quickly, almost easily. Because
the spreadsheet
was set up to do the math, at the end of the year, when the last number was
entered, the
spreadsheet did the adding, and I was done.
Sigh
of relief.
We
procrastinate on big jobs because they are big jobs. Sometimes in their very
size and importance,
they are daunting. We can never find the back-to-back four, six or eight hours
of uninterrupted
time needed to complete the task. And it's also true that if you procrastinate
long enough
on a big task, it may never have to be done…or someone else may be assigned.
Especially
at
work.
No
big task can sit around too long without attention. So if you don't do it,
someone else will have
to. This kind of procrastination has a payoff of sorts in that you get out of
doing work. It's even
used by some people as a way to manipulate their bosses. But, think about it,
if someone else is
assigned to a task that had originally been yours, haven't you blown your big
chance to prove your
competence?
Probably.
In my years in the workforce, I met a lot of people who thought that if they
couldn't fit "extra
projects" into their schedules, that proved they had enough work to do. In
some cases, they even
used their own ineptitude to make themselves look overworked.
I
also never saw one of them get promoted.
Part
of how you get promoted is by doing more work, faster than your competitor
peers. Management
doesn't promote people who can't even handle the work they have. They're
looking for
people to go the extra mile. And they are always setting things up to test you
— against the woman
or man in the desk beside you and even against yourself. Whether you like it or
not, you're in
competition with everyone. You're always being compared to the guy or gal next
to you in terms
of skills, ability and attitude. You're also being matched against your past
performance to see
if you are improving, stagnating, stopped or going backward.
Management
may not ever tell you this, but look around. Notice who gets promoted? Is it
the person
who steadfastly refused to learn Excel because he thought spreadsheets were
only for accountants?
Or is it the person who hunted and pecked for a few minutes everyday, learned
the software
and eventually used it to tighten up a segment of his or her workload?
If
you can figure out a way to divide a big task into several ten-minute tasks,
you can do the special
projects managers typically dole out to determine whom their best employees
are, whom they
can promote, and who really knows how to prioritize and organize a workload.
With ten
minutes
a day, you can take yourself from the torture rack to the fast track and even
make it look easy.
(Which is another quick way to get promoted. I had a boss tell me once that he promoted his
secretary because she made all her jobs look easy — which made her look
competent. Never pass
up an opportunity to make yourself look competent!)
So
today after you close this book, if only for your own personal enrichment,
resolve to spend ten minutes
reading in your chosen field ... or even reading a novel so you have something
intelligent to
talk about at the next party you attend or the next luncheon with friends. Be
ahead of the social game
for a change by being the one in your crowd to have read Patterson or
Connelly's latest.
Then
to prove this system works, pick out three housecleaning projects or work
projects (depending
upon where this solution best applies for analysis sake) that you can do in ten
minutes, and
do them. Diligently apply yourself for those ten minutes and see how much work
really can be done
in ten minutes.
If
you're feeling ambitious and want to use another ten minutes, make a list of
big projects you have
been putting off — again at work or at home, whichever applies.
If
you're feeling really ambitious, divide each of those projects into things that
can be done in ten minutes
or less and do one of them.
Remember
Brian Tracy, the motivational speaker? He has a saying: "Eat a live frog
first thing every
morning."
Ick,
right?
Not
really. Eat a live frog is simply a metaphor for doing something you normally
wouldn't do or wouldn't
want to do and doing it first thing in the morning, and then it's done. You
don't have to worry
about it anymore...
Sigh
of relief.
Chapter
3 — Those nasty caveats
If
you've been reading this little book closely, you have probably noticed that,
in a lot of ways, the introduction
of the computer made implementing The 10-Minute Solution possible. I
never could
have typed my tax records piecemeal. Not if I had to take the sheet out of my
electric typewriter
and reinsert it the next day. The end result would have been a mess.
In
the same way, there are a few other things you need to consider to fully
implement the system.
For
instance, just as a computer is a necessity to do ten minutes of your tax
accounting every day, a
good carryall for household cleaners is also a necessity to get your ten-minute
housecleaning tasks
done.
It
won't do you any good to implement The 10-Minute Solution if you spend
twenty minutes gathering
your household cleaners, sponges, rags and brushes every time you attempt to do
a project.
You will spend twenty minutes gathering and ten minutes cleaning, and then it
will be the
half-hour
solution and you will write to me as an unhappy camper.
So,
get a carryall. Put in your glass cleaner, cleanser, furniture wax, floor
cleaner (or all-purpose cleaner),
several cloths (of the dust, wax and washing variety), paper towels and
anything else you use
to clean. The carryall must be big enough to hold the things you need and not
so big that you can't
pick it up and move it with ease.
The
system works even better if you can make two or three carryalls. You can store
one upstairs and
one downstairs (and possibly one in your basement), so cleaning tools are
always handy. Plus, if
you consistently return each carryall to a designated storage area, like
beneath the bathroom
sink,
you won't waste precious minutes trying to remember where you last left it.
But,
to fully implement this system, you need more than cleanser and dust clothes.
You will also need
rubber gloves and aprons to protect your hands and clothes. Why? Because one of
the reasons
we don't take advantage of our spare minutes is that we don't want to mess up
our clothes,
soil our hands, or ruin our manicure. If you have rubber gloves and aprons
readily
available,
those things are no longer a worry.
But
even with an apron, you have to use common sense when you schedule and/or
choose your tasks.
An apron and rubber gloves don't give you permission to scrub your oven wearing
your best
white wool suit. You also wouldn't want to do your ten minutes of aerobics
while waiting for your
husband to finish dressing for church.
In
order to read books, you must buy them. In order to play a ten-minute row of
Yahtzee with your
kids, you must have a copy of the game. To spray your oven, you must have the
oven cleaner
available.
So
get prepared. Buy books, both business books and novels. Have games and puzzles
on hand. Buy
oven cleaner, home dry-cleaning sheets, glass cleaner, computer paper, printer
ink, index cards,
post-it notes, little notebooks, big notebooks, binder clips...and all that
"stuff" that you seem
to fumble for. Buy extra scissors. Keep one pair upstairs, one pair down. Have
two brooms, two
mops, two dust pans.
Right
now, you're saying, "Sheesh, does this woman think I'm made of
money?" No. But think this
through. Nine chances out of ten you have more available, disposable money than
you have available,
disposable time. It's a trade off. If you want more time, you have to be more
organized.
To
be more organized you must have some of this "stuff." So open that
squeaky wallet, tell George
Washington to hush when he squints and whines at the sunlight and just buy the
darned things
you need.
That
admonition is also your assignment. Buy your carryall (or two), supply it with
cleaning products
and tools, and find a strategic location for each unit. Buy your gloves. Get
your apron.
And
go buy some books. You decide which ones. Do you want to be a social butterfly?
(Read: Are
you so brain dead from reading children's books that you need to read something
else so you don't
accidentally talk about bears and goblins at the next party you attend?) Or are
you bucking
for
a promotion, looking for a few good ideas?
Whatever
the case, get your stuff ready. Put your book by your bed. Set up your
household cleaner
carryalls. Get yourself ready and stay ready.
Chapter
4 — So, where do you find these ten-minute blocks of time?
If
you've read this far, you're hooked into the idea that this can work. However,
if you're as backlogged
as I used to be, you're probably also wondering where a person finds these
ten-minute blocks
of time.
The
obvious places. Waiting for the coffee to brew in the morning. In the ten minutes
before your favorite
television show starts in the evening. (Actually, if you're honest, you could
live without more
than fifty percent of the television you watch. Even if you skipped only one
sit-com, you would
have 30 minutes, or three ten-minute blocks every night.)
Any
time you're waiting, you can be doing something. While waiting for your husband
to shower, you
can straighten your vanity. In fact, your bedroom is a place you'll find a lot
of ten-minute jobs.
Pulling seasonal clothes from the closet, making Goodwill bags, dusting
vanities, straightening
colognes, folding the clothes in a cluttered drawer. They're all simple, neat
jobs.
Tidy
things you can do — unlike cleaning the oven — while wearing that white wool
suit, even if your
husband is thirty minutes behind you.
If
you have a laptop or table, you can take it with you and work while waiting for
doctors and dentists
— and accountants, brokers, hairdressers and decorators. (Why everybody thinks
we should
wait for him or her, I couldn't say, but I spend a lot of my time waiting.)
If
you don't own a laptop or table, you can take a book to your appointments. (You can read
about interest rates
as you sit naked in your gynecologist's office.) Reading will keep you
entertained and educate
you while you wait, which reaps the secondary benefit of making you more
pleasant with your
doctor because you won't be impatient with her for having wasted your time.
Take
advantage of time driving to work to listen to books on tape, time management
seminars on tape,
and/or tapes by experts in your industry or profession. My sister listened to
cassette tapes about
vitamins on her way to work and now is healthy as a horse. You can even listen
to spirituality
tapes or a tape of soothing music, because sometimes calming down or relaxing
is
every
bit as important as accomplishing something.
You
can use your lunch hour or your break at work to run nearby errands, meditate,
make lists or read.
(Please read. I'm an author. I need for many, many people to read.)
Once
you actually start looking for ten-minute blocks of time, you will find them
everywhere. The real
trick to The 10-Minute Solution isn't so much finding the time, as using
it to your best advantage
and the way to do that is with goals.
But
don't think of goals the way you've been taught to. For the purposes of The
10-Minute Solution, think of them
more as broad and general, project-specific things you wish to accomplish,
such as keep the garden weed-free, keep the house presentable, spend time with
kids.
With
broad and general, but still project-specific goals like this you will make
more appropriate, more
efficient use of your blocks of time.
Why?
The answer is simple. It all comes down to being able to make quick choices. If
your goal for
the week is to keep your house presentable, every time a block of ten minutes
becomes free, you
will immediately think of your goal and look around for a task you can
accomplish to work toward
that goal. But if you don't have the goal, you could spend your ten minutes
trying to decide
what you should do.
Goals
take you by the hand, lead you to the jobs that make the best use of your time
and they're also
good for motivation. I'm a scheduling nut. It motivates me to know what I'm
doing and when I'm
doing it. I get a buzz knowing that to accomplish my broad and general goal of
having a
presentable
house, on Tuesday I'm going to take ten minutes to wipe out the fridge, clean
my bathroom
sink and dust the family room end tables. I like knowing my daily chores,
because I know
that if I do all of the tasks on my schedule, my burden will be lighter on the
weekend.
However,
I also know that theory works in the opposite. Which means any time I'm so
tired or bummed-out
that accomplishment of my ten-minute chores doesn't motivate me, I can flip
that theory
around and motivate myself with the truth that if I don't do my daily
ten-minute chores, the
burden
on Saturday will be greater.
Not
everyone is a scheduler, though. In that case, The 10-Minute Solution might
work better for you
if you take advantage of your moods. Set the broad and general goal of getting
the housework
done before Saturday, have a clear list of what tasks need to be accomplished
in order to
meet that goal, then perform the tasks you feel like doing and check off each
one as it is
completed.
I
know that might not sound very scientific, but if you work better by mood and
whim, picking and
choosing your tasks by mood and whim will accomplish your purposes better than
trying to brow-beat
yourself into a schedule.
Also,
if you're a person who works better by whim and mood, you might try doing two
"mood" things
and one "mandatory" thing every day. Remember how I told you that ten
minutes of anything
is tolerable? Even if you're not in the mood to vacuum, but you know all your
rugs won't get
swept if you don't do ten minutes every night, then vacuum. Do it first (eat
your life frog), get it
over with and move on to accommodate your mood. You can even use your
"mood" chore as a motivation
of sorts. You can say to yourself, "As soon as I'm done formatting this
spreadsheet, I get
to call Accounting and flirt with the fun guy in Accounts Payable." (Just
don't say that aloud, especially
not if you're married.)
Goals
can also be benchmarks. If you're taking classes at Community College, like I
was, every class
you take brings you one step closer to your ultimate goal of your degree. Also,
every class you
don't take is a goal yet to be achieved toward your degree. You can see exactly
where you are
and how far you have to go by looking at the list of classes.
Similarly,
if you've broken down a big work project or a big housecleaning project into
ten-minute tasks
— goals, if you will — then every time one of those jobs is complete, you are
one step closer
to the ultimate goal of completing the project itself. And, once again, being
on your way to
accomplishing
something should motivate you to keep going.
Your
assignment for the day is to look at your day. Realistically and honestly write
down everything
you do from the second you slide you feet out of bed onto the cold floor, to
the second you
close your eyes for sleep. If you stop to read the paper, lean against the
counter waiting for someone
to grab a book bag or get a forgotten lunch, strum your fingers against the
steering wheel
waiting for soccer practice to end, talk on the phone, talk to the neighbor, go
to the grocery
store, get stuck in traffic, watch the end of one program waiting for the start
of another or
watch a really stupid program after the good program that enticed you to sit
down in the first
place...write
it down.
Do
this for a day or two and soon your patterns will emerge and so will lots of
ten-minute blocks of
time in which you can do your ten-minute tasks.
If
You're Feeling Ambitious: Set your goals. Set broad and general goals like
clean the bedroom, read
a certain book or complete a big work project.
If
You're Feeling Really Ambitious: Break those goals down into ten-minute tasks.
If
you're a scheduler, take a look at that refined list and make a schedule, doing
three ten-minute housecleaning
tasks every night. If you're not a scheduler, do three tasks on your list of
ten-minute jobs
and check them off as done.
At
Work: Do an undeadlined ten-minute task. Specifically, work ahead on at least
one big project.
Personal
Enrichment: Don't forget to read something...(Sorry, the opportunity is too
tempting to resist.)
And take ten minutes to do something nice for yourself. If you combine reading
your book with
a bubble bath, you can actually soak (and read) for twenty minutes.
Have
at it. And check back tomorrow.
Chapter
5 — Using Ten Minutes to Coax Yourself Into an Hour, a Morning, or Even the Entire
Day of Doing Something You Really Don't Want To Do
Have
you ever known that your time was running out and you had no choice but to work
on a certain
project, yet you still couldn't motivate yourself to do it?
Of
course you have. We all have bad days.
Conversely,
have you ever decided to read for ten minutes, gotten engrossed in your book
and spent
several hours reading without even realizing the passage of time?
Of
course, you've done that, too. We all have.
Believe
it or not, both of those scenarios are about the same thing: motivation. In the
first instance,
there wasn't any. Facing an enormous project with a deadline, and maybe even
feeling that
you didn't have enough time to get it done, you couldn't motivate yourself to
work. In the second
instance, motivation sneaked up on you. You accidentally did something big
(read for hours)
because you were enjoying it.
You
tricked yourself.
Getting
your work done and fulfilling your home and family responsibilities are all
about motivation/trickery.
And that's another benefit of The Ten-Minute Solution. Inherent in the system
are three ways to get yourself knee-deep into projects and sometimes even the
whole way through
a project, almost before you recognize you're working!
The
first one is the easy one. You start off with the intention of fulfilling only
your ten minutes of responsibility,
but you become interested, or happily occupied, and before you know it you've read
for an hour, housecleaned an entire room or written a large segment of a
chapter or report.
That's
the easy way. You simply get sucked in. It feels wonderful. It is liberating.
It puts you on top
of the world.
The
second way to implement The Ten-Minute Solution to accomplish an entire
day's work or a big
project isn't so uplifting or, dare I say, glamorous.
It's
the "get yourself working on the project for ten minutes, then push
yourself into another ten and
another ten and another ten" method. Sometimes with nothing but discipline
and determination.
Other times with bribery.
I
use bribery a lot for my writing. When I'm unwilling or unable to work or just
plain hormonal, I don't
even try to pretend it will be a productive day. I say, "Come on, Susan,
we'll only revise that one
description in chapter ten, then you can watch tapes of West Wing."
Once
the description is mended, I may discover that beginning the project has
motivated me and I can
keep going. But if I haven't motivated myself to work simply by starting to
work, then I bribe myself
into another task.
"There's
a fudgesickle in the freezer with your name on it if you proofread two pages of
chapter one."
Note: At this point I would have to give myself the fudgesickle before I
could coax myself into
something else. West Wing I can put off until the afternoon or the end
of my patience with being
coaxed, but no one reneges on food.
As
soon as that fudgesickle was eaten, I would think of another reward to coax
myself to do another
small "housekeeping" task in a manuscript. Not something that could
result in my destroying
any part of the project — because in a foul mood I'm not very creative — but something
elementary, something ordinary, that needed done but didn't require the whole
of my
creativity.
(Since by this point it would be obvious I didn't have any creativity that
day.) And I continue
to coax and bribe until either the project or the day was done.
The
third way you can trick yourself into working when you don't want to is focus.
You fix your attention
on something fun at the same time that you work on your ten-minute project.
If
you remember the story of stacking, when I was watching/listening to a
Discovery Channel program,
while I cleaned my family room, you probably remember that I got a big project
done by stacking
ten-minute tasks on top of each other. And that's great. But what you might not
have seen
was that I also implemented the "focus" procedure that day. I moved
from one elementary housecleaning
project to the next, hardly noticing that I was cleaning because I was also
watching a
television show. My "focus" wasn't on the work. By taking my
attention off the housework and putting
it on the Discovery Channel, the housework passed with ease.
If
you listen to a radio at work, you know exactly what I mean. But from the
housecleaning-while-watching-TV
example above it's also easy to see that you can take this focus principle one step
further and actually do two things at once, maximizing the use of your time.
For
instance, while performing tasks like housecleaning that don't require as much
brain power as brawn,
you can listen to a book on tape. You can crochet while you watch television.
Listen to motivational
tapes while on the treadmill. Read while soaking in the tub. Straighten the
kitchen
while
timing dinner. Read in the dentist's waiting room.
Not
only do you get more done by focusing on one job while also doing another, but
also you can make
an unbearable job bearable or even pleasant.
So
motivation boils down to three things. Sometimes you motivate yourself by focus
— using something
pleasant to camouflage an unpleasant task.
Sometimes you do it by trickery — starting a project, tricking yourself into thinking you will only do ten minutes' worth (and you can tolerate anything for ten minutes) and accidentally becoming interested. Sometimes you give yourself rewards along the way.
Sometimes you do it by trickery — starting a project, tricking yourself into thinking you will only do ten minutes' worth (and you can tolerate anything for ten minutes) and accidentally becoming interested. Sometimes you give yourself rewards along the way.
But
no matter how you do it, you can motivate yourself to work and keep working
until you are done.
And isn't that the point? Accomplishing the difficult or unpleasant tasks that
usually go undone
simply because they are difficult or unpleasant.
Assignment:
Now that you know more about the specifics of The Ten-Minute Solution,
redo the
list of ten-minute tasks started at the beginning of the week and mark the ones
that are problems
for you. Try to figure out if you need to use focus, trickery or rewards to get
them done.
If
You're Feeling Ambitious: Trick, bribe or focus your way through one of those
difficult projects.
If
You're Feeling Really Ambitious: Get serious with your workload at your place
of employment, break
things down into ten-minute increments or if your workload is more accurately
categorized as a
group of large tasks, list the tasks then break those down into ten-minute
increments. i.e., If you
have a weekly report, is there a way you can do ten-minutes of the work every
day in order that
it can be completed with ease on Friday?
Personal
Enrichment: Get serious about your social life list. Do you have the box of all
occasion cards?
Is your email list current? Could you fix it in ten minutes? Do you have a
birthday list? Could
you make a list of friends to call on a weekly or monthly basis? Can you get
your mother or a
friend to watch for birth announcements, obituaries and/or achievements in the
local paper and then
touch base with her for ten minutes every week so that you don't miss anything
important?
You
don't have to organize everything today, but pick one thing to organize this
week, then organize
one next week and one the week after. Remember: Life is a process. Organization
time is the most important, most effective time you will spend. If you don't
believe me,
ask Steven Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Read the chapter about
sharpening the saw. The trick to being motivated is knowing you will accomplish
something and
not waste your time. You want to rid yourself of the feeling that the time you
spend is a drop of
water falling into the ocean and getting lost. And the trick to knowing your
time isn't about to be
wasted is organization.
So
go to it.
And,
if you must, feel free to trick yourself.
Chapter
6 — Do We Really Want To Drag The Kids Into This?
Yes. When my kids were in elementary school, a study came out reporting that
the average parent
spent less than fifteen minutes per week with his or her child. Less than
fifteen minutes. Per week.
I was shocked because I was still doing homework with my kids (about an hour a
night), helping
chose the next day’s outfit, and shuttling everybody to ball practice. I
couldn’t understand how
anybody spent less than twenty-four-hours a day parenting.
That
is, I couldn’t understand until my kids became teenagers.
Equipped
with TVs, CD players, and video games, your teens’ bedrooms become a sort of sanctuary
because, guess what, they don’t want to spend time with you.
So,
of course, when my kids tried to ditch me, I implemented the ten-minute
solution. From the time
they started to subtly slide away from me, I made a concerted effort to spend
ten minutes of quality
time each day with each one.
Now,
picture this: my kids were doing their level best to avoid me and I was
deliberately, purposefully
spending ten minutes every darned day with them. Sheesh. They wanted to shoot
me.
For
a while there it was more than a struggle. It was like strategizing for a war.
They would hide, I
would find them, take a seat with them where they were hiding (albeit under the
pool table in the basement)
and chat for ten minutes. They hated it, until they realized it was an
inevitability and
something
they had to abide. From there it wasn’t as much of an inevitability as
something they prepared
for. From there it became something they looked forward to.
Now
it’s me hiding under the pool table in the basement.
I
know ten minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, particularly not with grade school
kids. But it’s an incredible
tool with teens. Do you know what it means if you deliberately, purposefully
spend ten minutes
with your kids? First, it means they won’t be able to lie to you (or fudge the
truth) as easily
because you’ll be more aware of them and able to figure out when they aren’t
quite expressing
the truth. And what happens then? They become accountable for their actions.
They hear
your opinions. You hear about their days. Soon you start to hear their versions
of difficulties with
friends and teachers. Eventually, you’re giving advice. Yikes! It sounds like
you’re back to being
a parent! It sounds like you might have some influence again!
But
you can use The 10-Minute Solution with children in many other ways.
First, you can teach them
that ten minutes a day keeps a bedroom tidy. Ten minutes a day gives a jump
start on a paper
or report. Ten minutes a day gets ‘book report’ books read with ease.
More
than that, though, ten minutes a day is about all it takes to summarize their
class notes onto index
cards, which make fabulous ten-minute study cards that they can take anywhere
and use for studying
in their own ten-minute free spaces.
And
let’s face it. Though long study sessions are more productive, short study
sessions are more apt
to occur. With index cards and good notes, your kids can study while waiting
for the bus, waiting
for the dentist, waiting for you!
You
can also teach them that ten-minutes at night will get all their clothes ironed
for school the next
morning, giving them ten minutes longer in bed. Ten minutes at night to choose
the next day’s
outfit, gather books, and make sure they have pencils can also net ten minutes
in bed or ten minutes
of extra time with their friends at the bus stop.
Have
you noticed that there is a little motivator tacked onto all those ten-minute
tasks? When it comes
to kids I have discovered it’s very important to put a reward with a request
for something you
want done or something you would like to see become a rule. In fact, I used a
system called Rules,
Anchors, Rewards that I found in the 30 Days to Personal Power tapes by
Anthony Robbins.
(Fabulous speaker, by the way. If you get the chance, get his tapes.)"
Mr.
Robbins propounds the theory that linking a reward to a task is a good way to
motivate your children,
spouse, employees, or friends to do whatever you need them to do.
Right
now you’re probably saying, “I tried rewards and they don’t work!” Well,
unfortunately, I believe
you. Because I know why the system didn’t work for you. Your expectations and
your instructions
might not have been as clear to your child as you assumed. Rewards don’t work
when expectations
are fuzzy. You might have said exactly what you meant, but the stickler was how your
child (husband, employee, friend) interpreted it and then how you responded to
that interpretation.
Simply put, if your child thought she fulfilled your wishes, but you said she
didn’t and
withheld the reward, the system broke down and from that day forward rewards
lost the
power
to motivate.
So,
I used Anthony Robbins’s theories and techniques to the letter. I realized that
each instruction I
gave to my children had to be clear, it had to contain an anchor (a sure way
for them to know they
had fulfilled it, including but not limited to a time frame) and it had to have
a reward.
i.e.
Take the statement: If you brush your teeth every night you will not get
cavities.
The
request/rule is brush your teeth.
The
anchor is every night.
The
reward is you will not get cavities.
Simple,
right?
Right.
But that one’s obvious. So let’s try again...
If
you eat all of your broccoli at dinner tonight, I will buy you ice cream after
I’m finished cleaning
the kitchen.
The
request/rule is eat all your broccoli.
The
anchor is at dinner tonight.
The
reward is I will buy you ice cream after I’m finished cleaning the kitchen.
Or
how about: If you leave mom alone for two hours every night while she writes
this book, you will
get twenty dollars to spend when she gets the advance check.
Then
there’s: If you get all A’s on the next report card, I will take you to the
mall the following Saturday
and let you pick out an outfit that costs under a hundred dollars.
There
is no question about what is expected, the time frame in which you expect it to
be completed
and the resultant reward.
Also,
it sometimes it helps to write these things down. My kids didn’t mind contracts
signed by both
of us. In fact, that’s a neat little life lesson. When you make a written
contract with your child
you are telling him that his name on a piece of paper means something. He must
fulfill these responsibilities.
(This lesson will help your child when he signs for his first car payment.)
Interestingly,
though, the rules, anchors and rewards system actually teaches many life
lessons.
Like:
the reward of pay for work. Or: the hardship of no reward for no work. The
system also teaches
responsibility, reliability and time management.
There
are hundreds of ways you can implement this system to teach your kids. You
could use it to show
them how to work, the necessity for doing things (like the dishes) on a regular
basis, or the rewards
inherent in simply keeping up with life sometimes.
Take
the idea and run with it. Make it your own. Teach the way you wish you would
have been taught.
Trust me, some day your kids will thank you!
So,
your assignment for tonight is to spend ten minutes of quality time with your
kids, and really take
note of how long ten minutes is…especially if you have teenagers. If you can,
play Yahtzee or
rummy or some other game to distract them from the fact that they are actually
spending time with
you. Talk about school while you’re playing. Talk about ten-minute study
procedures.
If
You’re Feeling Ambitious: Buy index cards for them to use as study cards, and
resolve to infiltrate
one of the “ten-minute solution for kids” into their lives every week. Every
day won’t work.
It will overwhelm them.
If
You’re Feeling Really Ambitious: Do a ten-minute housecleaning project.
At
Work: Do ten minutes on your special project.
Personal
Enrichment: Give yourself ten minutes for spirituality (even if it’s only to
sit down and clear
your head. No TV in the background, please!) Or give yourself ten minutes for
beauty. Take a
bubble bath, give yourself a facial, or clean out your make-up drawer and take
inventory of what items
need to be replaced.
And,
don’t forget, … Read. Do this just because by now reading should
be becoming a pleasurable
habit. Pretty soon you’re going to be the smartest, hippest person in your
world.
Chapter
7 — The Ten-Minute Solution For Everybody Else
So
far in this book, I've spent a good bit of time showing you how you can get
yourself organized and
motivated to make the most of ten minute blocks of time to complete your daily
chores. You may
have even been able to accomplish a few special projects everyday.
What
we haven't yet discussed is using the alternate source of power at your
disposal…other people.
For
instance...
My
husband's brother and sister-in-law were scheduled to spend a weekend with us a
few years ago.
Unfortunately, at the beginning of the week I caught the flu, which bottomed
out as a really nasty
cold. I couldn't do the things I typically would have done to prepare for
overnight guests, and
I was so sick I didn't care. (Sad, but true.)
Anyway,
because our visitors were my husband's family and I'm sure he not only wanted
to make a
good impression, he also wanted them to be comfortable, he set about to clean
the house. And he
did a fabulous job for about an hour, but after the obvious was done, he was
lost. I also noted he
had a short attention span. ESPN frequently called to him. He seemed to have a
golf club leaning
in a corner of every room, and every bare floor longer than six feet somehow
turned into a putting
green.
From
my sick bed, I thought about the things that needed to be done. Wipe out the
refrigerator.
Straighten
cupboards into which guests would have reason to go (such as the dish cupboard
and medicine
cabinet). Clean bathrooms. Vacuum carpeting. Scrub tile floors. Wash throw
rugs. Wash windows.
I
listed the tasks on a sheet of paper, but another thought struck me. Well,
actually, two thoughts.
First,
if I read, "scrub tile floors," I would know that meant all tile
floors. I would also know that there
are tile floors in two of the bathrooms, the kitchen and the laundry room. I
wouldn't miss any
of them…but I knew my husband would forget at least one, most likely two.
Second,
if you give my husband "big picture" assignments, you will get
"big picture" results. If you
say, "Clean the bathroom," he will not think this means straighten
out the medicine cabinet.
He
will only "clean" those things that look like they need to be
cleaned. If he can't see actual chunks
of dirt or soap scum you may not even get the room swept or the tub scrubbed.
But if you hand
him a list that says:
Clean
the bathroom:
1.
scrub the tub
2.
clean the sink
3.
scrub the commode
4.
straighten the medicine chest
5.
sweep and mop the floor
Everything
will not only get done, it will get done right and well. (He's a very good
worker when he
knows what to do.)
Right
now, you're probably rolling your eyes, thinking, "If I have to tell him
all that, I might as well
do it myself." Not really. Not if you create the list on an index card,
title it Clean the Bathroom
(or living room, family room, den, kitchen), draw a column for him to put a
check mark beside
each completed task and reuse the card. Put 4 columns on the card and you're
ready for four
weeks of work sharking with only the effort of the first week's organization.
If you create the list
in your computer, you never have to do it again, only reprint it every time the
check-off columns
are filled.
Breaking
down "project-type" jobs into check off lists is also a good way to
find tasks for kids.
Every
child should have chores. But the common jobs of dishes, vacuuming and dusting
aren't merely
so dull they bore your kids into poor performance, they also don't teach your
kids anything.
Think of the valuable lesson a child learns if he or she cleans your medicine
cabinet and checks
off the task on your index card. Not only will he see how increments and little
bits get a bigger
job done, but also he will see that a cabinet isn't something that you abuse
just because you can
close the door on the mess you make. Eventually, the mess comes back to haunt
you.
More
than that, though, as a parent you will accomplish the big picture task of
teaching your child that
housecleaning is more than just doing dishes and running the sweeper.
Too
often, mothers take upon themselves the entirety of the responsibility for
keeping a clean house
and it isn't until the kids get out into the world that they see they know
little to nothing about
how to clean or how to care for clothes, carpeting and furniture. With
ten-minute tasks, your
children can learn all facets of keeping their living space habitable and
protecting things that are
too expensive to replace every other week.
They
will also see that a little organization goes a long way, at the same time that
they become familiar
with at least one method of organization — "the list." There is also
an inherent time management
lesson built into this system.
So
the check-off index card list is as good for your kids as it is handy to have
for your dear husband
when he steadfastly proclaims that he would help you if he just knew what to
do. (Not only
will you shock him into being more careful with his words, but also you will
begin the indoctrination
process of teaching him the simple, not necessarily time-consuming tasks that
he can
do whenever he really does want to help — because I'm sure he wants to help.
And,
the final plus, if you ever get so lucky as to hire a housekeeper or cleaning
service, guess what?
You are ready with concise lists that show your new helper exactly what you
want done.
So,
your assignment for the day is to create a few cards. Hand write them at first
so you can make notes
on them, fix and repair them, modify them and even allow for the fact that your
husband and kids
may try to destroy them. When you are satisfied with them, (when everything is
listed and you've
created a workable order and format), then you can input them into your
computer.
Your
second task is to give your kids (and your husband) an unusual ten-minute chore
every day for
a week. That's right. Every day for a week. Have someone cleaning a medicine
cabinet, linen closet,
shoe rack or dog bed. Have someone wiping down a door, dusting all the
windowsills, driving
bags of old clothes to Good Will, cleaning a section of the basement, attic or
den.
Remember
to keep the tasks small and easy enough to accomplish in ten minutes, but
unusual enough
to introduce them to a new facet of tidy living!
At
Work: Sort out your in-basket and give half your work away. Kidding. But, not
really.
Having
been in nearly every position on the office totem pole, it no longer surprises
me that underlings
will give their work to supervisors under the guise of "looking for
instructions" or that peers
can find all kinds of clever and devious ways to pawn their tasks off on unsuspecting coworkers.
You need to remember that if you're a supervisor, part of your job is teaching
and sometimes
you teach by forcing a subordinate to figure things out for him or herself.
Also, you don't
do your coworker peers any favors if you help them so much they grow to depend
upon you.
Sort
out the projects in your in-basket that are actually supposed to be done by
other people and return
them to their rightful owners. If there is an office flunky who is supposed to
do all the copying,
give any copying jobs you find in your in-basket to him. If it makes you
squeamish to give
away menial tasks, compare your salary to the flunky's salary and recognize how
much of your
company's money you waste if you do that other person's job. Remember, too,
(especially if the
flunky gets annoyed when you won't do his or her work) that if everybody did
his own copying,
that person would be unemployed. You might want to mention that to your copy
person if
he scowls when you dump your copying in his in-basket.
If
You're Feeling Ambitious At Work: Write your typical work tasks on individual
index cards as titles,
then list the 10-minute jobs needed to accomplish each task down the left side
as a column, then
make little check-off columns to the right. Then, if anyone ever approaches you
for work
because
they have none, you will be ready.
Personal
Enrichment: Sit in a bubble bath and meditate on the fact that you are not
supposed to do
everything. In some instances, you are to be monitoring the work being done by
the people you
supervise. In some instances, you are to be using the chores at hand to teach
the people
below
you (such as your subordinates and your kids). In some instances, you are to be
sharing the workload
equally. Just because you see more dust than your husband sees, that doesn't
mean you are
the only one who can wield a dust cloth. If it did, most of us would have
ourselves declaredlegally blind.
Share
the wealth. Monitor. Teach. Don't try to do it all. You're screwing up the teacher/mentor/boss
system if you do.
Chapter
8 — In Closing
If
you do one-fifth of what I talk about in this book, and only do it one-fifth of
the time you have available,
you will be further ahead this time next week than you are right now. And, as
far as I'm concerned,
you and this book will be successful.
But
before you go too far with this process, I have one final word of caution.
Don't mess with systems
in your life that already work. Use The 10-Minute Solution on those things that
you can't seem
to get done.
For
instance, if you study with your children for an hour every night and that
system works, don't screw
with it. If you clean your kitchen for a half-hour every night and you can
still find ten minutes
here and there to do additional 10-minute solution projects, don't mess with that.
If Saturday
morning is your time to clean your bedroom (and also your quiet time because no
one disturbs
you while you are doing it), stick with that.
Use
The 10-Minute Solution the way I have used it. I spent ten minutes a day with
my kids when the temptation
was strong to spend much less, because it was a struggle to get them to want to spend
time with me — in spite of the fact that they needed both my supervision and my
love.
I
implement The 10-Minute Solution when I'm having a difficult day and can't get
myself motivated.
I
use The 10-Minute Solution for big projects that don't fit into my pre-existing
schedule.
I
use it for work projects that are so far down the road they aren't even on my
one year schedule.
I
use it for housecleaning chores — like my bathroom — that aren't my favorite or
those chores are
too big for me to accomplish in one setting.
When
I can't be creative, doing eight-hours worth of ten minute tasks —
proofreading, fixing descriptions,
and re-writing small sections — is a way to accomplish something without worry that
I'll destroy an important passage or chapter that I shouldn't have touched!
The
beginning of anything is another candidate for The 10-Minute Solution.
Beginnings are the hardest.
But if you take ten minutes every day for five days and do a chunk of that
project, by the time
day six comes along, you'll find yourself far enough along that you're not at
the beginning anymore.
You've psyched yourself into stage two without ever feeling like you were at stage one.
You've psyched yourself into stage two without ever feeling like you were at stage one.
I've
already gotten my foot in the door for long, long projects like spreadsheets
for my taxes and letters
submitting proposals by doing only the document formatting to take away the
feeling "overwhelm."
So
it's clear the system works, but don't mess with your own systems that also
work. Or, more succinctly,
if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Your
assignment? Yes, you're getting one...Go back and do the undone assignments
from this week.
In fact, reading the book again next week and picking up those assignments that
you didn't complete
is an excellent way to stay on track with the system. You might be able to do
more of the
"If You're Feeling Ambitious" or the "If You're Feeling Really
Ambitious" assignments. Or maybe
you haven't taken this idea to your workplace yet. You can read through this
book as many times
as you want, because reading the entire book should only take ten or twenty
minutes out of your
day for a week.
It's
pretty simple. And it's also pretty simple to repeat. Especially if you don't
overwork yourself by
trying to do too much. The real goal of The 10-Minute Solution is to get and
keep you participating
in your own life so that it's fuller, richer and, dare I say, cleaner.
Because
life isn't lived in quantum leaps. It's lived in weeks, days, hours and
minutes. If you're not using
your minutes, you're wasting them. Wasted minutes turn into hours and hours
turn into days —
which turn into weeks. And those weeks ultimately become your entire life. Don't
waste your life by minutes. Do what needs to be done including pampering
yourself.
I
leave you with a quote by noted speaker Zig Ziglar on his Goals tape series.
When
you do the things you gotta do when you gotta do them, you can do the things
you wanna do
when you wanna do them.
Peace.