L for Lima, L for Labour

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Some days feel that loaded!"][/caption]

A lot of the work related to the dogs and house is labourious, some fun labour and some not so much, but either ways the labour has to be done.

Some days are just labourious days, on these days just the to-do list of the day makes me want to hide under the covers and not wake up. It's not about the length of the to-do list, it's about what's on it. Meat sorting day, mopping day, changing sheets day are just some of the day's when I hide under the covers wishing that the day would just miraculously happen without me.

Yeah right! Like that's going to happen, how I wish the floor would get mopped, the meat bought, sorted and boxed and the sheets changed, washed and dried without my intervention. But that's not going to happen anytime soon, so rather than push the chore to another day, I push myself out of bed to confront the day.

It takes a while for the grumbling in my head to fade away before sanity kicks in and I realise that times a-ticking. And I get to it. Some days I manage to get it all done without realising how much got done; some days just drag on and on, like they will never end.

Today was the former of days, I got a lot done and didn't feel like it was a lot. Some thing I've been trying lately is to not think to much about the job and instead just plunge into it. Thinking about it too much just makes it all look bigger and more than it is, it also brings in negative thoughts about the job and people around.

So I make a clear to-do list with a route map for all jobs in my head and just go at it. Breaks between jobs are monitored closely, so I don't slacken and kinda slip into lazy or too tired mode. I just keep attacking the list; along the list the route map gets realigned off and on but I work at it like it is a mission.

This seems to work coz before I've thought too much about it, the jobs are all done. And I have so much of the day for myself left. I even managed to have a leisurely bath after all that sweat and toil. And I feel great about getting all that done.

This method seems to be working for me, (thanks Vidya for the tip-off on long lists) and I'm going to keep trying to practice it. What do you do to help you on days when you have chores that are just physically draining? What do you use to get you though the day?