Why Small Deeds Done Can Make Your Day
“Out of sight, out of mind”. Do you know this quote?
There are these projects, jotted down on a piece of paper and dedicated to later. Later, when the right time arrives. But, when actually is the right time? Sometimes, you just have to get started. Start with one small deed to MAKE YOUR DAY.
THE START:
This morning, after kids and husband had left the house, I was in a fairly good mood and decided to go to my desk right away. A short detour through the kitchen to make myself a coffee and – CRAP – no milk. The milk is in the basement.
Can you see, what`s coming?
You have good plans, well-meant and easy to fulfill, then you take just a little deviation – BIG FAULT – as you end up doing something completely different.
Arriving in our storage, I had a hard time finding the shelf with the durable (soy) milk. (I normally drink plain milk, but due to a gastro infection, I had decided to skip cow milk for a couple of days.) I squeezed myself between the fridge and the kicker to reach the lower part of the cellar. Unfortunately, I wasn´t careful enough and had streaked the wooden chair, which leaned in front of the fridge. With a loud BANG it crashed to the floor.
The bang reminded me, that my plan was a) to clean up the cellar this week and b) remove the kicker table, currently blocking the whole space, to our hobby room next door.
EXECUTION:
Said and done. I let go of the milk, picked up the chair, stapled the shoe boxes, which had tumbled over together with the stool and started to remove the winter jackets from the kicker. Nobody else would have assumed, that there was a kicker underneath with piles of cloths on top of it. Conveniently, there was a huge wardrobe beside the kicker table, so I started to sort things out: winter jackets in use – closet, undersized jackets – old clothes bag, gloves and hats – box in the closet.
Finally, the kicker table appeared. I figured, it was the billiard table, not the kicker. The kicker was beside the billiard table on top of two table mounts. For your explanation: it is a “three-in-one”-piece. First layer the billiard, second the ping pong and third the kicker topper. Normally, you can store everything on top of each other and re-arrange for usage. Very convenient.
In our case, the ping pong table part had already been installed in the hobby room next door, on top of a couch table and a pouf. After I had emptied the billiard, I carried it over to the hobby room. I put the ping pong table on top of it (which hadn´t been used since weeks, as now basketball is the game of the hour) and went back to my storage. I released the kicker from swim gear and ice skates and carried it over to the billiard. UFF.
Plenty of space greeted me.
I cleaned the floor in front of the shelf at the back of the room, where someone had taken out one sleeping bag and another pile of sleeping backs and camping mats had found their way down to the floor. I found an unused news rack, which gave sight to a long-missed logic game for the kids. HURRAY!
The room looked way better now, so I pulled out the hoover from the laundry room (we really have enough space in the cellar) and cleaned the floor. Another 15 minutes later, I was done (of course, I also had hoovered the hobby room and the stairs).
Can you imagine the feeling I had, walking up to the upper area again (incl. the soy milk and the recovered game)? RELEASED, I made myself the well-deserved coffee.
“What is this story all about?”, you may ask yourself. A lot of words for nothing. Exactly: a lot of words for nothing. A profitless hour of work to clean up a storage. The point is: why can´t we put things in the right position immediately? Why do we make ourselves life so hard? Why tend these storage rooms to be predestined to concentrate chaos? And why can we just get started?
REWARD
Delayed by and hour, I am sitting at my desk now – including a nice cup of coffee. I know, that I have ticked one box of my “for-later-to-do”-list. I feel totally energized by the amount of space underneath my feet. Kids will be happy about the ready-to-use kicker and my husband and I can have a nice waltz in the storage tonight.
“Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.”
Let me know: What are your dead bodies in the cellar? Any projects lingering at the bottom of your feed, waiting for you to dig them free? Tell me about them.
Have you ever wondered, if meditation can help you to be more structured, than this article is for you: Meditation Is For Spirit Junkies – 4 Reasons Why It´s Also For YOU.