The Biggest Time Suck for Moms: The Drop and Walk Method
The drop and walk lifestyle bites you in the clock, in your wallet, and in your energy level. It affects your overall well-being.
How many times do tell yourself, “I’ll clean it up later,” but, how often do you get back to it, before it multiplies in size?
Messes seem to hang out on every corner, loiter in front of every cupboard, and lurk in every closet.
Life feels like it’s stuck in first gear, plowing through yesterday’s messes to get to what you need today.
Messes create the biggest time suck for moms, because of how much stuff you have to move through to get to what you need.
Not finding what you need quickly keeps your stress level simmering on the back burner, and puts you in a mood… a not so good mood.
How do messes multiply so fast?
It’s easy with the good old “drop and walk” method.
One dish, two dishes, three dishes, and more!
You forget that the sink is supposed to be for washing dishes, not storing dishes. If the sink isn’t empty, you can’t keep it clean, which means fast-growing bacteria has a house party in there.
So, what do you do? Walk and drop some more.
You buy extra dishes, silverware, and cookware. That way you’ll have a big supply to use before you get to washing them. It’s no big deal to just keep pushing the stacks of dirty dishes backward, to make room for this morning’s breakfast dishes, and lunch dishes, and of course, the dinner dishes, too.
There’s nothing like the lovely smell of last night’s chicken dinner wafting through the top of the kitchen trash can in the morning, because you forgot to take the trash out before going to bed.
That’ll curb your breakfast appetite really fast!
But somehow, you manage to wade through the smell, turn on the coffee maker, while mumbling under your morning breath, “Ugh, I meant to take care of that last night. Oh well, I’ll get to that later, too.”
And here’s to waking up to a bathroom sink that looks like: #@*&%$
It’s covered with a hair brush, a blow-dryer, lotion, make-up pads, a half squeezed toothpaste tube, a tooth paste cap, 2 tooth brushes, 3 earrings, eye drops, hair pins, face scrub, a perfume bottle, a shaver, nail polish remover, a file, tweezers, wipes, hair spray, suntan lotion, deodorant, a pill container, and 2 half-full water bottles.
How the heck are you supposed to feel on top of your day, when your day is already on top of you?
Drop and walk in the bathroom not only creates a time suck, it’s a huge sabotage to self-care.
You think you might be saving time by just leaving your stuff out on the counter, but you still have to pick it up and use it, and then put it down again. So, why not put the lid on it, while you’re putting it back in the medicine cabinet, or drawer? Or even toss it in a basket on the counter. Then you can swipe up loose hair, wipe the toothpaste out of the sink, and clean the water dribbles off of the counter top.
It’s easy peasy, if you want it to be.
Does stuff fall on you every time you open a closet door? Are your hangers mostly empty… and your bedroom floor full of ever-growing mountains of clothes, shoes, socks, belts, jackets, and dresses?
“It’s okay,” you tell yourself, while you dig to find something to wear. You’ll get to “tidying up” this weekend.
Here’s a quick question… where do the clean clothes go after doing laundry? In a stack pile on the floor? Wait a couple of days, and soon they’ll be mixed in with the dirty clothes, and wrinkled at best.
You weren’t designed to be an archeologist in your own home, excavating for stuff you’re missing.
What if you used a few seconds to wash something off, hang something up, or put something back in the cupboard after you used it?
It takes 12 seconds to wash a coffee mug. It takes 4 seconds to wipe the bathroom counter off. It takes 10 seconds to open the closet and hang up your jacket. It takes 3 seconds to put the lid back on the toothpaste tube.
So, why do you let it build up to the point where it takes hours just to put things away, so you can actually start cleaning?
For those of you who dislike cleaning so much, the quick fix for your drop and walk habit is to:
Use seconds on the clock to manage your stuff, instead of hours.
If you do…you will have a fresh feel to life every day, and enjoy more time doing what you want to do.
Here’s another thing to keep in mind:
You are role modeling for your kids how to manage stuff.
It’s a monkey see, monkey do opportunity.
By not teaching the kids to clean up toys after they play with them, or at least before going to bed at night, sets yourself up for a fight whenever you get around to asking them to clean up their toys.
But you’re missing something bigger…
a life skill training opportunity.
Besides reducing conflict in your home, your kids will learn respect and responsibility through cleaning up their toys and tidying up their messes.
Do it for their sake, if that’s how you find enough motivation to change your drop and walk habit.
Where do you start to stop the walk and drop method of getting through a day?
It’s super simple.
One cup at a time. One pair of shoes at a time. One toothpaste tube at a time. One notebook at a time. One shirt at a time. One toy at a time.
Choose to turn over a new leaf, and walk yourself out of your bad habit, just like you walked into it.
Just one item at a time.
The things you use the most, you’ll pick up the most, so put them away. The things you don’t seem to get to… either you don’t really need them, or want them, so get rid of them.
The goal isn’t to make your home look like a hotel room, the goal is to value your time, money, energy, and your well-being by using the drawers, cupboards, closets, shelves, and cabinets to hold your belongings as they were designed to.
It’s about taking good care of yourself by managing your stuff as you go through the day.
It’s about gaining minutes and hours and days in your life.
It’s about stopping the biggest time suck moms deal with.
And it’s about saving money because what you have will last longer and work better.
Give it a try. Take a few seconds and put your stuff away as you go. Just one thing at a time! 🙂
