Getting It All Done

It's not easy living with a family of five.  There's a lot to be done around the house.  It seems like there is a never ending stream of laundry.  Food goes somewhat quickly, and everything else.  Then there's all the dishes and everything else...  The work of a mother is never ending!

Today I decided something needed to be done.  While there is so much that I can't touch because my room mates don't want it messed with, there's plenty of other stuff that can be done.  I know some of it will have to wait.  I simply don't have the time or anything to do it properly right now.  Well, it's not so much the time to do that one task, but the time to do every layer that goes with that task to do it the right way.  In my opinion, there's no point in doing a task unless you're going to do it the proper way.  After all, if you leave something with "good enough", it's all to easy to settle for "good enough" all the time, and then it never actually gets done to it's fullest completion.  I'm tired of settling for "good enough".

I'm thinking in all of this, I need to stop considering things "not my responsibility".  I am reminded on a near daily basis that my family is not my room mate's responsibility and they will not clean up after us.  I guess I can't complain.  I haven't really been cleaning up after them either, though, that's probably in part because they spend all their time in their room.  I wash their dishes without too much of a complaint, and when I complain, it's just to my partner.  Still, there are other things that need to be taken care of that simply aren't getting done.  The cat box needs to be cleaned.  The rat doesn't get the attention she really needs.  Making the rest of the house safe for children simply isn't happening.  I'm not complaining, not really, but in some ways, these things are getting in the way of getting the house clean the way I feel it should be.

What can I say?  I'm finding that I'm getting picky about my home in my old age.  I like things to be a particular way.  Actually, I should be fair.   It's not that I like things to be a certain way.  I just like them to be neat, organized, and practical.  I can work around someone else's organization system, just as long as I understand it enough to find what I need and put things back when I'm done.  I like to look around my home and see clear surfaces!  I blame the FlyLady on this one, but I do.  I like to know that a coffee table can be used as a coffee table, with no more than a currently used glass and maybe a couple decorative books or a centerpiece.  Anything else is really just clutter.

Another thing I learned from FlyLady as this whole "not my responsibility" stuff.  I'm sick of hearing "I shouldn't have to" and "it's not my responsibility."  I know I've done it too.  Casting things off with "it's not my responsibility" and "I shouldn't have to" lays the blame on someone else.  In reality, is that getting the problem solved?  Is that getting the task done?  It really isn't.  All it's doing is passing the buck to someone else while complaining that it's not done to your satisfaction.  I mean, I can complain that the dishes aren't done all I want, but that's not getting them done.  Declaring loudly and to anyone who will listen that "they're not my dishes" and the person who dirtied them needs to go wash them isn't getting them done.  It's bothering me.  It's causing a problem.  Obviously complaining isn't making the situation any better, so I should just do it, right?  It's like that whole thing from Pixar's Robots, "If you see a need, fill a need."  In other words, if there's a task that needs to be done, find a way to get it done, whether it's doing it yourself or, in the case of the movie, inventing something to do it for you.

So from now on, if I see something that needs to be done, it's going to get done.  Why?  Because it needs to.  Because if I don't do it, no one else will, or it would have been taken care of already.  Because I want to get into good habits for when I no longer have room mates.  Most importantly, I'm going to do it because it's not fair for my family or anyone else who didn't cause the problem to be the one to suffer for it.  For sanity's sake, I'm only going to do do much on any given day, but progress must be made.  After all, if I wait for everyone to do their part, nothing will get done.  If I get into the mindset of not doing my part because no one else does theirs, nothing will get done.  The time has come to put away the blame and take action!