Let me set the scene. It’s Saturday afternoon, and you are determined to power through your consistently mile-long list of tasks around the house. You decide that it’s FINALLY time to hang that holiday photo you had framed three months ago and that’s been sitting on a side table in the living room ever since, silently mocking you and your best laid plans to finally have a nice house, dammit. Well, no more. You will get this done TODAY.
First, you have to track down a hammer. You find the toolbox in the utility closet, but it’s too high up for you to reach, even on your tip toes. So you head to the laundry room where you keep the step stool. You notice that the dryer cycle has finished, so you pull the towels out of the dryer to fold them. The first towel you pick up has frayed and left a long string, so you head to the kitchen junk drawer to get some scissors to cut it off. When you get to the kitchen, you see the box on the table for an Amazon return you need to make, but it needs to be taped up, so you go off in search of some packing tape, which leads you back to the utility closet, where you realize you forgot the step stool and still can’t reach the toolbox. In the span of a few minutes, you’re now juggling FOUR unfinished projects in your brain (and around the house) where there was once only one. THIS IS EXHAUSTING. And also, very Phil Dunphy:
On one particular Saturday, when this particular series of events happened to me, I decided that there had to be a solution that could help me better focus on the task at hand and stop being so scattered. And try as I might, it was not going to involve some aspiration goal of “mindfulness.” So I grabbed a tub that was holding some cleaning supplies, emptied it out, and kept it with me as I worked my way through all the tasks that I had unwittingly piled on myself.
That day, as I finished task after task that appeared as I worked my way through the house, I added whatever tools I used into the tub. Once I finished hanging the picture, I put the hammer, a small box of nails, and some the 3M strips in the tub. Later, when I needed a pair of pliers to break the seal on a bottle of glue, I put those in the tub as well. And so it continued.
Here’s what ended up in my tub:
- Hammer
- Small box of nails
- scissors
- 3M velcro strips
- 3M hooks
- Labeler
- spray bottle of glass cleaner
- Microfiber cleaning cloth
- Paper towels
- magic eraser
- Packing tape
- Sharpie
- Box cutter
- cleaning gloves
- screwdrivers (both phillips and slot)
- pliers
- needle and thread
- notepad, to write down longer tasks I noticed but couldn’t finish that day (you COULD use your phone, but beware of distractions!)
- step stool (this obviously didn’t fit in the tub, I just kept it with me as I worked my way around the house)
The Saturday tub has changed a small part of my life in a big way. Now, whenever I’m in GET THINGS DONE mode (Saturday or otherwise), instead of passing by an item twenty times, and feeling that small ping of stress from an unfinished task every time, I can stop, pull out the tools I need from my tub, and finish the task.
The genius of the Saturday tub is not in what it adds, but what it takes away: DISTRACTION. Instead of trying to change the way my brain works, the Saturday tub helps me to keep my focus on one task at a time. It is a gentle nudge in the direction of focus. A tactile reminder that I don’t mind working hard, but the right tools can help me work smarter.
“It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.” -Samuel Johnson
Would you consider creating a Saturday tub? What would you put in it? I’d love to hear!
– Jenna
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