something to consider

once a week or so, we have breakfast for supper. scrambled eggs, bacon, home fries, toast, coffee. well, half of us has breakfast. the other half has tuna salad. but the point is, breakfast night is the night i wipe down the kitchen. just hot water and a tea towel, just a wipe down. no chemicals, not even soap. just a wipe down. takes maybe five mins, maybe ten if i do the cabinets. it's quick. it's just a wipe down.

thing is, every time, i remember it. i remember it's wipe-down night. and every time, i try to figure some way to get out of it. and every time, i don't let myself. did i mention it's like, five minutes? i spend more time trying to get out of it and talking myself back into it than it takes to actually do it.

if i ever skipped it, the whole thing would probably collapse. if i let myself slide once, i'd probably never do it again. that, and the fact that it takes like, five mins - that's what's holding the whole thing together.

it's a sobering thought: a quick, easy habit is all that's standing between me and cobwebby corners.

i am not a fan of housecleaning, but when we remodeled a few years ago, i decided to try harder. all this nice new stuff... i'd try harder to keep it clean. fast forward to now and you'll find the breakfast-for-supper-wipe-down is pretty much the last vestige of a stalwart plan. it's also the only cleaning action tied to another action that's both recurring and unrelated.

hmm.

recurring and unrelated and... and... oh. em. gee.

recurring and unrelated and enjoyable, desirable, sought-after, looked-forward-to, HA!! hell-oooooo psychology 101. tie the undesirable action that you want to have recur, to the already-recurring action that is desirable.

ta-dah!

taaaa-daaaaahh!!!


really cannot explain why that blazingly obvious relationship took me so long to figure out, except that the kitchen wipe-down occurred like magic and i didn't want to mess with that magic? i guess? looking behind the curtain might make it stop? and i don't want it to stop? maybe? i guess?

something to consider. that certainly is something to consider.