I was watching the Real World this morning and the most random thing sparked a thought. The roommates were having issues because of a dirty kitchen (don't they always?). The kitchen sink was piled high full of dishes and the amount of mess called for the cleaning to become a huge task. I immediately asked myself, "why don't they just clean up immediately after themselves?" I mean, when I go into my own kitchen to prepare a meal, I clean up as I'm cooking; I wipe off the counters and when I sit down to eat, there are no dishes in the sink. After I eat, I only have to wash the plate, glass and utensils that I ate with. This process does not take much time at all.
I say this to make this point: when you take care of tasks when they are small, you do not have to deal with unnecessarily large and overwhelming tasks later on.
Too many times do we allow things to pile on our to-do lists. We see small tasks and toss them aside to do later and when we finally get to it, there are many tasks at hand. We end up in situations where we feel overwhelmed and stressed out because we have so many things to do, when simple time-management would have avoided those feelings. When something seemingly small arrives on your to-do list, do it then. It will make for an easier and less stressful life. And possibly even a cleaner home.
