Why 15?

So a friend asked why I picked 15 minutes of housework three times a day as my goal, and not something like one room a day, or two or three parts of the house each day. My answer was that it was something I read on a website once, that "anyone can do anything for 15 minutes". Sometimes, though, the idea of doing a whole room is overwhelming. But you physically set a timer and work for fifteen minutes. And wheither the room is done or not, at fifteen minutes you are! There were a lot of other good ideas on that web site, and I have hopes of putting them into practice eventually, but what I've taken away from it for now is that 15 minutes of housework is something I can do even though I get out of breath and weak and overheated. And it's working!

So my room (or half of it anyway!) is still clean, and check out the before and after of the paperwork desk in my living room! (Well, by "before" I mean half way through...I forgot again to do a before pic.) The clutter was up to the top of the brown box on the back of the desk when I started.

Now it's clear, and the cool thing? It took almost four months to get as bad as it was before the "before" photo, and if I keep this up all year? It'll never be that bad again!

 
.....now I just have to tackle the mess in the background of the photos, too.

But that's a job for another fifteen minutes.