Oct 19, 2012

15-Minute Friday Maybe a new series?

Rita Fifteen-Minute Fridays 15 Minute Fridays, goals, time management 18 Comments

Yesterday I read a great post from Brooke McAlary of Slow Your Home. In it, she asks what I think is a great question:

What can you achieve in 15 minutes?

15 minutes seems like nothing. I can’t tell you how many 15 minutes’s I’ve Facebookered away in my life–because, you know, it’s only 15 minutes.

But Brooke does the math for us:  ”15 minutes a day gives you 11.8 working days a year in which to simplify and create the life you want.”

Brooke is writing about creating a slow home, but this principle could be applied to any goal you have–writing a book, starting a business, learning a language.

Maybe that doesn’t seem like enough time if the goal is a big, time-consuming one. Maybe 11.8 days in one year doesn’t seem like enough. But that reminds me of an old Dear Abby letter (yes, I know I’m showing my age), in which the writer expressed her desire to go to med school but some angst over how old she’d be when she was all done. Abby nailed the response:

“And how old will you be if you don’t go?” 

So, I’m beginning a new series here today. (Maybe. I’ve tried some earlier series that petered out, but I’m thinking this one might have some legs.) I’m calling it “15 Minute Fridays.”

In it, I’ll share one thing I did for 15 minutes to move me further toward a goal. And the real kicker for me–and the thing that might make it possible for me to actually do this series? I’ve gotta write the post in 15 minutes. No time for fussing writing, editing, photo-ing. Just down and dirty blogging.

I tried it out last night. For months I’ve been wanting to clean up my Pinterest boards. I started them before Pinterest became such a thing. I started them for me, not necessarily for you. I just bookmarked things I really wanted to come back to.

So, right now they’re a bit of a mess. My “Random Likes“ board has all the things that didn’t fit into some other board.

I didn’t get too far last night, but I did consolidate some boards and delete some others, and I renamed some and rearranged them so that the ones I think others might find most useful are the first ones you see. (Except the bedroom one is in the wrong spot. Next Friday…)

And that’s it.

Which is totally OK. Better than OK. It got me thinking about some things. It got me moving–and I know (because my kids were reviewing for a test last night) that objects in motion stay in motion. Just getting past inertia is sometimes the biggest step.

How about you?

Do you think this is something that could work for you? Do you have a Big Idea goal you’d work on, or (like me) just a lot of small things you never seem to get to because you think you don’t have enough time to start? And is this something you’d like to see us write about? We’d love to hear from you on this topic.

And in the meantime, happy weekend! 

(About to get started on mine because my 15 minutes are up!)

 

 

And if you liked this post, feel free to Pin it.