Live to Love and Laugh: The Power of the Timer

Today's assignment from The FLYlady was to set my timer for 15 minutes and get to work decluttering. Okay, so I think I cheated, because I started setting my timer for 15 minutes since Day 1. When you have a toddler in the house, the living room floor tends to go from spotless to tornado in 2.8seconds. Before I had found it so difficult to keep it cleaned. It would get sooo messy that it would take me an hour (or more) just to clean the living room floor. But not anymore! 15 minutes twice a day is all I spend on my living room and that's it.
Sometimes it is so hard to find the motivation to actually clean, but this concept of setting the timer is amazing! I can't believe how much I can accomplish in 15 minutes. Setting the timer is away of committing myself to stay on track to get the job done, and when the 15 minutes is up - that's it - pencils down. I have actually found that I am either finishing putting away the last item as the timer is going off, or I have a couple minutes to spare to work on something else.
I set my timer twice a day - once after I put the girls down for a nap to clean up the morning of play. And the second time is either as dinner is cooking, or after I put the girls in bed. The goal is to eventually make these times Family Cleaning times. For 15 minutes we all pitch in to clean up, including Carissa and eventually Kathryn.
Setting the timer for 15 minutes makes the job so much less overwhelming. A quote by FLYlady is "Anyone can anything for 15 minutes."

We are also using the timer for Hot Spot Drills (2 minutes) and for Room Rescue (5 minutes). Baby steps!
Next time you need to do something but are dragging your feet about it, set your timer for 15 minutes and Just Do It!

Progress Pics:

Day 1 Shiny Sink