The 15 Minute Wonder, Your Timer and You - Getting Things Done

A few weekends ago my husband and I had a whole house full of family over for dinner. Once they were gone we were dismayed at all there was to clean up even though the majority of the dinner dishes had been done. There was several items of reading material, baby toys and couch pillows all over the livingroom. The dining table was covered with leftover glasses, crumbs a dirty table cloth and odds and ends of cutlery (I know some call it tableware). And the kitchen still had a number of pots to be cleaned and messy counters all around. At first I flipped my hand at the whole mess and said "I'll do it in the morning." But then I remembered my lovely timer and the things I had been able to accomplish in a few minutes. See my timer keeps me from burning cookies, dinner. It keeps me from being sidetracked and it tells me when I need to move on to a new task. I've had this timer for over 10 years and I have used it all of those 10 years. My husband actually uses it for his alarm clock but it hasn't been until the last year that we've used it to remind how little time it takes to right the wrong. Or the messy. So I said to my husband. Let's at least set the timer for 15 minutes and do what we can in that amount of time. Really that late at night the tasks looked insurmountable. He was not ready to give in but I pressured and he caved. For 15 minutes we wiped, and straightened. We moved and ordered. And then we were done, but the timer wasn't! My husband was flabbergasted but I was pleased. We had cleaned up what I would have sluggishly tried to in the early morning. We sleep well knowing that the 15 minute wonder, the timer and our work had done well.