This weekend wound up being one of those unplanned, crazy busy, too many things, not enough time kind of weekends. Since my weeks are so overscheduled (learning to schedule “me time” is a goal of mine that I’m currently trying to work on, but it’s an uphill work in progress at the moment), I try to schedule time on weekends for relaxing, destressing, and prioritizing personal care time. It had to go out the window this weekend, and I went into what I call “survival mode,” where all of the best laid plans go out the window, and you just do whatever sticks are the moment so you can make it through until things settle down.
Probably not the best time to implement this “1% plan” that I’ve been wanting to trial, but I did it anyway.
The premise of this 1% plan is that you realize you cannot do everything perfectly to reach a goal, so you do 1%. Really, just a little something that can get you closer to that end goal, since there’s no resource of time/ money/ motivation/ whatever that you can spare right now to do things properly.
For me, this meant that the dishwasher needed to be emptied, but there was no chunk of time that I could find to complete that task. So I put away one handful of the utensils and that was it.
We had piles of laundry that were supposed to be done this weekend, after putting off unpacking from vacation, and not doing a closet full of laundry prior to vacation. That was just not going to happen, so I quickly pulled out a few pieces that I’d absolutely need this week, added some necessary items from my son’s bin of dirty clothes, and washed enough for us to get through the week. It won’t get folded, but we’ll have some clean clothes to get us by.
I left out the vacuuming, dusting, and washing of the floors. At the end of the day, we all took five minutes to grab things that were out of place and put them back in place. Any leftover mess was left for another time when we could address it properly.
Over the course of the weekend, if I was going from one room to another, I’d take a quick look around and see if I could put something away. Leaving the living room and going to the kitchen? Let me take that empty cup on the table and throw it in the sink. Going upstairs? Let me take that sweater I needed this morning and took off as it got warmer. Heading outside? Let me grab that kitchen garbage and bring it out with me.
It was AMAZING at how all of these small things really added up! When things calmed down on Sunday night, I took about an hour to recoup and structure things for the upcoming week, but I wasn’t overwhelmed or overstressed. In fact, the whole weekend seemed ultra manageable, despite being in survival mode. Knowing that I was doing a little extra made me feel less stressed, and tackling what I could on Sunday night, without so many mountains of backlogged work, kept me on top of things without my usual sky high stress levels.
This 1% could be applied to any goal: not into doing a workout? Do five minutes of purposeful movement. Can’t cut your nightly dessert? Cut back a little. Instead of licking the plate clean, leave one bite behind. Have trouble relaxing? Take five minutes to breathe deeply. Even just two deep inhalations, filling your lungs up all the way and 2 slow, complete exhalations. Do something- just one small thing- if moving toward your goal seems unsurmountable. Where can you put in just a tiny bit extra? It doesn’t have to be a big huge leap. One small step is better than nothing at all. It’s also a great way to tackle a big scary goal in a way that’s not so scary and very do-able. It’s also great motivation when you see that a small thing is totally handle-able and do-able. So you can do a small bit more than that one step next time. Maybe it’s a big step. Or two small steps instead of one. The empowerment that comes from doing a little bit of something is a great motivator!
Make a 1% change on one small thing today. Plan it, do it, and reflect after it’s done. Then do it again tomorrow. See what big changes you’ve accomplished at the end of a week.
Small steps make big changes!!
Blessings,
Melanie
