Dear Friends,

All we have ever known is crash and burn mode when it comes to just about everything we attempt to do! We are the queens of hyper-focus. We pride ourselves that we are better in stressful situations where the clock is ticking! This is just so sad that we have to be under the gun to get anything done! We do not have to live this way anymore.

You have been addicted to your own adrenaline. It is your drug of choice. You don’t know how to pace yourself because you have always been under pressure to get things accomplished. You think it takes marathon cleaning to get the house in order. You tell yourself that 15 minutes is not enough time to keep my house in order. You say this while you are looking around at every flat surface in your home piled up.

I remember as a 6 year old child, it was my job to clean the bathroom. Mother would not tell me to do it till it was so bad that she was screaming at the top of her lungs. I would go in there and do my best to get it clean. After hours of scrubbing I would emerge exhausted to get a small amount of praise from her, coupled with what I didn’t do right. I clung to those few and far between compliments. That was the only way I knew to clean.

As an adult, I would wait till the bathroom was so bad that I could not stand it anymore. Then I would spend hours cleaning. The only difference now as a “grown up” there was no one to burst my little bubble or to brag on what a good job I had done. All my first husband did was to complain about everything. It didn’t matter that I had spent hours cleaning HIS house.

When you have to spend hours cleaning there is no wonder we don’t want to clean a bathroom the next day. I finally figured out that these two people were never going to be happy with anything I ever did but that I was getting something out of their negativity too. I had permission to be the martyr. Just look how I have slaved over this bathroom to get it clean for you!

This was a rude awaking for me. I don’t have to play the martyr game. I don’t have to wait till my bathroom is so dirty that it grosses me out. I can clean something every time I am in there. My bathroom stays clean with a daily swish and swipe. I don’t need to fuel my actions with adrenaline of any kind. I can do this for me because I deserve to have a bathroom fit for a queen because I am the queen of my own home.

I have used the bathroom as an example but we use this crash and burn mentality in everything from cleaning to volunteer work and fun stuff like writing and scrapbooking. We take it to the extreme by hyper-focusing then we don’t do it again for months. We think we have to run a marathon to get things done when all we really need to do is be consistent.

Today I got a testimonial from someone who wanted to write her autobiography for her grand children. She had decided that 15 minutes was not enough time for her to even get ready to write much less go through her journals and photographs to get inspiration. She thought that 15 hours was just the right amount of time to get her started. This saddened me because you can’t run a marathon every day.

Writing a book has to become a priority. You have to make room for it in your routines. The most important part is the plan. When I wrote Sink Reflections I did it in two weeks. My plan was to get dressed to lace up shoes, do my morning routine, plan something for dinner, turn off my phone, my browser and my email and write for 3 hours or 10 pages whichever came first. I turned over answering emails to others (which was very hard for me) and I did what I set out to do. After three hours, I would stop because writing takes a lot out of you. That didn’t stop me from thinking about what I wanted to write. I needed to be kind to me though this whole process. This is really what FLYing is all about.

I had taken Robert’s suggestion of writing my last chapter first. He said when I knew where it was to end, it would give me a place to head for. He told me to think about what I wanted to leave YOU the reader with when you put down the book. Next I brainstormed bullet points that eventually became chapters. I had to look at each bullet point as a babystep to building the book that I knew had to be written. I didn’t even have an outline. My high school English teacher Mrs. Hays would have frowned on that.

Through the process I did not hyper-focused, I took the slow and steady route and the consistency paid off. Robert calls it project mode. Do a little every day and eventually you will complete what you set out to do!

Today I wrote this essay while I was on the treadmill. I was basically putting one foot in front of another walking and writing to my sleep music. I refuse to beat myself up because I didn’t exercise the “right” way. I did more than I have been doing. I don’t think there are any marathons in my future but there may be another book written while on the treadmill. I know you don’t see how this is possible but I have been doing it for years. It is the only way I will walk on that thing. I may get Demos to make a video of me writing and walking.

Next month we are practicing our habit of Swish and Swipe. Drink your water and every time you need to “go potty” clean something in your bathroom. The Queen in you is going to smile each time she sits on her throne.

FlyLady