Training: 1.50 miles in 31 minutes and 29 seconds

Still following the recommendation of my physical therapist, I only walked one mile today. My venue was a park that I’ve passed frequently, but never walked through. As today was one of the first 60 degree days of 2010 in Milwaukee, the park was packed with people in good moods.

Scheduled training: 1 easy mile
Actual training: 1.01 miles in 22 minutes and 27 seconds

My physical therapist advised me to go no more than one mile a day this week, and it was frustrating to stick to that, but it was great to walk with no pain.  It was 60 degrees out, and I was sweating even in short sleeves due to the sun.  As I walked along Lake Monona, I thought there can be no better time of year than when the rollerbladers and ruuners in shorts are circling the ice fishermen. In case you think I’m exaggerating, here is another photo from this afternoon.  
 
Scheduled training: 1 easy mile
Actual training: 1.00 miles in 21 minutes 41 seconds

The article, Focus on 8-Minute Increments to Beat Back Chores, suggests setting a timer and seeing how much you can accomplish in the eight minutes.  I decided to try it out that day.  I have seven rooms in my home, and so I decided to do one “round” of eight minutes per room, which would come out to just about an hour.  I was amazed how much I accomplished in the first round.  I’ve previously done 15 and 20 minute segments, but I’ve never tried eight.  With the eight minute blocks, I discovered that I maintained a sense of urgency throughout the designated time.  That urgency continued when I switched rooms at the sound of the timer.

Here are the things I like about using this system over any others I’ve tried before:

• After one hour (or one “round”), I can see improvement in every room of the house. In the past, I’ve had a meticulous bedroom, but an embarrassing dining room, for example.  I’d feel great when I was in the bedroom, but overwhelmed by the rest of the house, which remained unchanged.  With this method, no matter where I go, I see signs of progress.
• Goals are easier to meet. Most of my systems in the past involved one room or major activity (errands, for example) per day.  That’s fine when everything is already well-organized, but once chaos has set in, completing a whole room can be too large a goal to reasonably complete after a long work day.  On the other hand, if I make my goal seven 8-minute rounds, I can be satisfied that I have met my goal even if work remains for the next day.
• The system itself doesn’t take up much of my time. As the Lifehacker article points out, it isn’t logical to spend more time making lists, assigning priorities, and checking off tasks than the chore itself would take to complete.  It took me less than 30 seconds to switch from one room to another and reset the timer with the 8-minute method.  The lack of wasted time allowed the sense of urgency I wrote of earlier to continue.

It astonished me, but it took only three rounds to clean my house to a point that I felt in control again.  That means just three hours.  For nearly nine months, I lived in chaos that didn’t need to happen.  I guess I assumed it would take me the equivalent of two 40 hour work weeks to get things back in order, but it was nowhere near that.  There are still things to do in the kitchen and spare room, but I would guess that would take less than 5 hours to do everything that I would like in those rooms.

My house isn’t back to the state of perfection that I kept it in for the first several months after the kids moved out, but it doesn’t need to be.  It is clean and tidy to the point that when I enter my home, a wave of calm comes over me.  As I start training again tomorrow, I will continue to incorporate the 8-minute method into my weekly schedule.  Some days will feature one or two full “rounds,” while others will have only one or two 8-minute session.  I haven’t given up list making entirely, but now the lists are reserved for tasks I might not remember without a written reminder.

I’d love to hear from anyone else who tries this system.  How did it work for you?  Let me know in the comments!

During this time off, I’ve been continuing physical therapy for plantar fasciitis and seeing a chiropractor for neck issues aggravated by a fall down the stairs.  This week, I reached physical milestones with both my feet flexibility and my posture.  My physical therapist did throw a wrench into the works with my idea of starting with the 15 week schedule on Sunday, though.  He said that I should not walk more than 1 mile per day for the first week.  Maybe it’s the peace from the lack of chaos in my home, but I’m not agitated by this unexpected plan change.  As soon as I have a new training plan set up, I will post it.

I never used to leave the house w/o spare keys in my pocket and my house clean. For the last 7 months, I’ve been unorganized. It has to stop. I’m sitting in a diner locked out of my car. A family member has a spare key, but she’s working. When I do get in the house, I’m not even sure if my spare car key is there, or in my gym bag *inside the car*. Pray for a snow/organizing day for Monday!

Although the incident was certainly an inconvenience for me, my daughter who was waiting at the hospital, the family member who needed to pick me up and take me home, and even the waitress at the diner who couldn’t clear my table, it wasn’t any of that which upset me most.  It was the realization that being disorganized had again become normal for me.

For me, there is a strong association between depression and a messy home.   In the past when a depressive episode would start, I’d stop caring about being clean and tidy.  Eventually, even if the depression might have lifted, I would come home to such a mess that it was overwhelming.  Looking around would bring on feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and hopelessness that fed right back into the depression.  Eventually, I got control over both my environment and my mood.  For a long time, my whole house looked like this:

It was minimalist, tidy, and clean.  For a good while, I had a reputation at work of keeping a perfect home.  So when things began to deteriorate for me again, when I stopped using the systems that had worked for me so well, it was easy to make myself believe that it wasn’t the way I usually was and that disorganization was only a temporary problem.  The thing is, I started to get disorganized a little bit toward the end of my training for The Overnight last year.  At minimum, it’s been seven months.  So when I didn’t have a spare key with me yesterday, when I would have been extremely embarrassed to have a family member come upstairs and see my house, and when I wasn’t even sure where to look for a spare car key, I had to admit that disorganization was now status quo for me.

That was scary as hell.

It was also the best thing that could have happened.  Well, maybe to me.  I’m pretty sure everybody else who was inconvenienced by my blunder had better things to do yesterday.  But my mistake gave me the gifts of clarity and some time with no distractions to figure out what I could do to fix the situation.  Before depression sneaks back into my home under the pile of papers on my dining room table.

I think there are people who don’t need a plan.  I am not one of them.  Years ago, I worked with a wonderful woman named Marion who was the most organized person I have ever met.  She wasn’t the smartest, fastest, or hardest working staff member in our crew, but it didn’t matter because she was the most efficient.  Marion and her systems kept me from looking stupid on any number of occasions and allowed her to be promoted to the highest position she wanted in our company.  Whenever she was complimented on her organization, which happened frequently, Marion would say, “Oh, but I’m not organized at all.  I have to do all these tricks just to keep up.  If I didn’t do them, everything would fall apart.”

It took me years to understand what Marion meant, but as I was getting organized the last time, I finally got it.  Like me, Marion was not inately organized.  I suspect at one point, her disorganization got her into some of her own bad situations.  When she finally had enough of it, she figured out some ways to keep track of the world around her.  Years later, Marion still felt like an impostor among people who are naturally organized.  Just like Marion, my organization is real, but a constructed reality.  I need to have a plan.  Sitting at the diner yesterday, this is what I came up with:

The Plan

• Suspend my workouts for three weeks and start again using the 15 week training schedule instead of the 22 week schedule
• Use the time which would have been devoted to training to get back to the organized state that was once my routine
  • Week 1:  Straighten up one room of the house/day (remove excess stuff and put everything in its place)
  • Week 2: Clean and organize one room/day (including closets, drawers, cabinets, etc.)
  • Week 3: Develop systems (daily schedule, meal plans, workout plans, revise bill paying/tracking system, etc.)

Why this will work

Last year, I would not have been able to use the 15 week training schedule.  It advances quickly, and my fitness level wouldn’t have been up to it.  This year, I haven’t gotten that out of shape from the “off season,” so I’m not worried about the schedule being too difficult for me.  There are also a couple of things that are taking up my time that may not be an issue in three weeks.  Since my fall down the stairs, I’ve been seeing a chiropractor twice a week.  Those visits should soon be down to once a week.  I’m also seeing a physical therapist weekly for plantar fasciitis, and that’s only scheduled to go for another four weeks.  Four days a week, I go straight from work (south side) to pick up my daughter from her college classes (east side) and drive her home (south side).  That commitment is likely to end in three weeks when she will start getting paratransit services.

My major goal is to get everything back in order before I start training again so that I don’t always feel like I’m playing catch up (and trying to outrun depression demons).  So far, so good.  I started with my bedroom, which is now nice and tidy for the first time in awhile.  I chose the bedroom as my starting point so that when I wake up tomorrow, the first thing I see will be positive reinforcement of my progress.  Tomorrow:  my nemesis the dining room.

It was still light outside, and I was anxious to get a daytime outdoor walk in. When I got to the track, I was disappointed to find it was still covered in Tuesday’s 11 inch snowfall. If you live anywhere south of about Chicago, I suppose it would seem natural to expect the snow to still be there.  This is Milwaukee, and snow gets cleared pretty quickly around here. Fortunately, the residents of the neighborhood had all shoveled, and I had a great walk in the neighborhood. 

After my walk, I didn’t have time for the strength training portion of my workout before my chiropractic appointment. No problem. I would just come back afterward. Well, that didn’t happen. I sailed past the YMCA exit on the return rationalizing that I would do the toning bands at home. That didn’t happen, either.  Sigh.

Scheduled training: 2 easy miles; strength training

Actual training: 2.27 miles in 45 minutes, 56 seconds

Scheduled training: 1 easy mile; strength training

Actual workout: None