I’ve had a large number of projects that have been nagging at me. They’re the kind of projects that you look at, try to break down, and end up breaking down yourself. These projects represent messes in and around our house that are driving my wife crazy. As the saying goes, “If Momma ain’t happy, nobody’s happy”. So by transference, these messes have made my life miserable. And they’ve been that way for a quite a while. As in years. They’re massive projects that will require a ton of work, cooperation, and buy-in from the whole family to resolve.

And there’s the rub.

My wife’s work is such that there’s not much she can do about them. She works a standard 8-5 in the office and then has a good three to four hours of work afterwards at home. Combine that with her workout regimen, and she doesn’t have much time or energy to devote to resolving these problems that have evolved over such a long time.

The kids simply don’t care. We’ve let them get away with having the house like this for so long that they don’t even see the issue. It’s just the way life is. Things are in disarray and they’re perfectly content to leave well-enough alone.

Bad parenting? Maybe. We all live the Hectic life here, and over the years I’ve tried to give them the freedom to excel in their academics and sports. That’s meant that some tasks have been dropped, and I’ve cut them slack on others. Unfortunately, it’s created a pattern where they’re now adverse to doing anything to help the family out.

But I poked the sleeping dragon a little bit too much this past weekend, and now I’m in the early-project, start-of-summer, spring cleaning mode. I’m all hyped up to get these projects started, middled, and finished. Unfortunately, I know that will mean some delegation of tasks, and I fully anticipate a lot of pushback from the kids. For whatever reason, I’m willing to face that. At least I say that I’m willing to face it today. We’ll see once they actually start pushing back.

For now, I’m home with just Hectic 21 and Hectic Grandson. Until a few minutes ago, both were sleeping, so it was just the projects and me. And I actually got some work done. In the past, I’ve started a project like this by creating a project list of all the tasks that need to get done. Then I sit and mull over how to actually attack them, in what order, and when. I end up spending more time planning and thinking that I do actually working.

Not today.

I decided on a different plan of attack today. I walked into our computer room (we call it the Nexus) and decided that I would clear the South 1/3 of the room’s floor. Some of the items have been sitting there for three years, so the accumulated dust was an issue. Some items need to be saved, but most are just trash that has gathered over time. Each of the kids has had a hand in the collection, but today I’m doing the sorting. Well, to be fair, it’s not really sorting…it’s mostly trashing. I pulled our 35 gallon kitchen trash can into the Nexus and started throwing things away. There were a few that I sorted into piles for the kids. A few items went into already designated storage areas…but the vast majority of stuff went into the trash can.

To help me stay focused, I used my Focus@will app on my iPad. That made a huge difference, especially since I set it to go for 25 minutes. I anticipated that I could make some progress in just under half-an-hour and then I’d be able to take a break. It’s funny, but using the 25 minute Pomodoro method not only helps me focus, but it actually causes me to work faster. In some ways, it’s akin to putting something in the microwave for a few minutes and then racing the timer to see how much you can get done. With food nuking, I can get the entire dishwasher unloaded. Remove the zapping food and it’d take me half-an-hour or more to do the same task. Weird, but effective.

I did three 25 minute sessions with a 10-minute break in between. I got the entire space cleared. The floor’s not yet cleaned and there’s still a long way to go…but it’s a start. And that’s really what I needed today…a started project that showed some progress!

I’m treating it as a win.