WEEK 1

Each month I pick a new daily habit to work on. I’ve practiced making my bed every day, drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day, logging all of my food on MyFitnessPal, and walking 15 minutes every day. Only once have I ever actually done my thing every day. I usually slip up at least once…a week. But that’s not the point. The point is to work on it and just improve and see the impact it makes on life.

This month, I am working on having an empty sink before I go to bed. Ideally, this means that the dishwasher is loaded and all the rest of the dishes are washed, dried, and put away. So, the counters should be clear, too. BUT I count it as a success as long as the sink is empty, even if that means I just set all the dirty dishes back on the counter! 😛

I set this goal Monday April 2nd (I took Easter off–I think that’s fair!) and immediately forgot about it completely! I’ve remembered since Wednesday, and taken pictures of the sink at the end of the night (or early the next day) to document my success or failure. I am confident that there will be plenty of failures, but I want to share them with you because this is my real, messy life. My kitchen doesn’t always look all shiny and new.

April 4th – WIN! Sink empty and all dishes are clean

April 5th – Technical WIN! Sink empty, lots of dirty dishes

April 6th – FAIL! Sink not empty, lots of dirty dishes. Oops!

April 7th – WIN! Sink empty and dishes clean! Look at that shiny counter top!

April 8th – FAIL! Dirty dishes in the sink, my toddler’s chair still at the sink from when he washed his hands after dinner. And my husband’s beer growler in the sink. (He didn’t drink it all in one day!).

 

Learnings from Week 1

Sooo….it’s hard for me. After dinner I’m usually pretty tired. I’m only sleeping around 5 hours a night thanks to my adorable 2 month old. I have a hard time napping, and I don’t like losing precious time during the day that is needed for laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc. On the days that I was successful, I made sure that I washed as many dishes as possible before dinner–sometimes even as I was cooking dinner–so that the last few were easier to do between cluster nursing sessions between dinner and bedtime. The benefits of getting it done is that I get to wake up to a clean kitchen! It eases my anxiety so much and just makes my brain feel clearer. AND see that chair pulled up to the sink? The toddler LOVES to play with anything that is left in the sink, which means the hand-washing process takes about 14 times longer than necessary and water may or may not end up all over him, the counter, and the floor. Less stuff in the sink means less stuff to play with and less to clean up!