The Best 15 Minutes of My Day

A while ago, I got an email from my father-in-law. Let me start by saying that he is a wonderfully sweet man, who has a great way of giving me advice without it necessarily sounding like advice.

In response to an earlier post about my dirty little "mail" secret (read "Putting 2011 On the Shelf" for my confession), he shared this story from when he was a cardiologist in private practice...

Relevant to your blog, the problem (not your problem,  but the problem) is  that there are only 168 hours in a week, that is 10,080 minutes. When I was working 60-80 hours per week I learned how to make "concessions to reality" and was frequently called upon by our  office staff to do a procedure or take care of something that one or two of my inefficient partners could not complete because they knew I would and could do it. I learned how to work efficiently and make use of small bites of time.  I also do that in our home where I am CEO of domestic engineering, shipping and packing and use 5-10 minute intervals to accomplish small segments of these mindless, but vital, chores.

At the time, I didn't pay much attention to those words. But today, they conspired to change the way I look at time.

Yesterday I was reading an article that suggested finding something around the house that you have been meaning to do for quite a while that would mean something to someone else and just do it. It needn't be something large or time-consuming or even difficult. Just something that would bless someone else.

I guessed I had about 15 minutes I could devote to the task, so I looked around the bedroom, recalling that my husband had recently lamented how we had let the bedroom become our dumping ground. I saw a basket of clean sheets that had been sitting at the foot of our bed for a few days. 

OK. I have 15 minutes. Let's change the bed. It would be nice to have clean, fresh sheets tonight.

Well, that didn't use all 15 minutes. 

(Side comment here...why is it that when there's a job I dread to do — like changing the sheets on our bed — I have this idea that it's a long, arduous chore that will take aeons to accomplish? Seriously? I think I lost more time yesterday waiting for my Facebook timeline to load on my iPhone. Don't get me started on how much I love the timeline on a computer and hate it on a phone. But I digress...) 

So I found another basket of clean clothes (mine!) that were getting all wrinkly ... at the foot of the bed. I folded them, and put them away. Whoops! My 15 minutes were up. 

So I accomplished three good things in 15 minutes: 

1. I changed the sheets which felt oh, so good last night when I slid between them.
2. I put away clothes that I knew I'd want to wear at some point in the future.
3. I got to make a little dent in that nuclear waste dump which is my bedroom, thus making my dear, sweet, hard-working husband just a wee bit happier.

But here's the nagging question: Did I finish something? After all, this year is all about finishing, right? Well, the answer depends on how you view the question.

Did I finish cleaning up my room? No. It still looks pretty darned messy. 

There are clothes on the armchair. 

You can't see the top of my bedside table. 

The pile of books we brought up from the basement after Christmas is still there, untouched. 

The top of my dresser is still a catch-all for magazines, papers, mail (OH NO!) and jewelry that never made it that extra six inches to the jewelry box.

But the bed is made, and the laundry is put away. So yes, Virginia, I finished something. I may not have finished cleaning the room, but I finished something. And for a recovering starter, that's everything. 

Finish well.