I wrote recently about being “in a slump” and how to get myself out of it. (When I looked at the “related posts” links at the bottom of the page I realized that I’d written almost exactly the same thing two years ago. Hey, at least I’m consistent!)
Anyway, two quick items for today. One’s the funny story mentioned above, but first a practical getting-things-done nudge, from the time management guru Laura Vanderkam (who at this very moment is home with five kids, one a two-month-old baby–follow this link and scroll down to see a priceless picture of her and her new baby in “family jammies.”). She suggested this week in her “Before Breakfast” podcast that we should follow something called “the 10-minute rule.” We’ve all heard of the 5-second rule (now dead as the dinosaurs b/c of the virus) that if you pick something up off the floor it’s still safe to eat if it was there for less than 5 seconds, and the 30-second rule (championed by Gretchen Rubin) that if something takes less than 30 seconds to do, such as hanging up your coat, go ahead and do it right away. The 10-minute rule is a little different: it’s not a time limit but more like a time nudge. Tell yourself, ‘I just need to work on this job for 10 minutes. If I don’t feel like continuing, I don’t have to.’ But most of the time, as the estimable Laura says, we just need to get started, and when the 10 minutes are up we’ll just keep going. And if you do quit, well–at least you’ve worked some. This is a similar idea to that of the “wedge action” that I talked about in that earlier post–anything to get you going.
Now for the funny story, which I read many, many years ago in Reader’s Digest, before it was the tabloid-y thing it is today. You’ll be able to tell how old this story is by the fact that it was back in the days when you, like, actually paid for doctor’s visits. So this one woman had a bunch of kids who were always getting sick, and she was always behind on her bill at the doctor’s office. One day she explained, “You see, doctor, every time I get my bill paid off one of the kids gets sick again. I feel like I have to keep part of the bill unpaid so that won’t happen.” The doctor sat back in his chair and considered this. “What we need to do,” he said, “is to figure out what the minimum balance is that you can carry here in order to keep your children healthy. We could call it the MHB–the minimum health balance.”
Well, I think it’s funny, but that’s mainly because I can remember so vividly that we always had an unpaid doctor’s bill hanging around when I was growing up. My brother had a tendency to get bronchitis and I’d get strep throat. Also the dreaded croup. We went in to the emergency room a few times because my brother was having a hard time breathing. And my mom had all kinds of health issues, too. At least my dad was healthy! Growing up on a farm gave him lots of antibodies, I’m sure.
I’d better quit for now. I want to share some recipes for making items you usually buy at the store, but I’ll save that for later. Everybody stay safe and healthy!