Wednesday, April 13, 2011

New favorite life tool - Kitchen timer!

I know the blog is sporadic...I've kind of run out of exciting food news lately since I'm moving into another improvement project. I have made a few discoveries and will share them soon though!

But, today I want to talk about a kitchen timer. My new improvement project is this: http://www.flylady.net/pages/FLYingLessons.asp.
See, I've been feeling like I'm living a really unfocused life and it started to frustrate me. A long time ago, a girl friend that I admire a lot, told me about FLY lady. I kind of checked it out and decided it wasn't really for me. See, I don't have a husband and kids so keeping my house in order should be pretty straight forward and easy, right?
Then, a couple weeks ago I was looking around my house and realized that I had 2 piles of papers to shred, piles of papers to be filed, hadn't vacuumed in way too long and had a growing stash of dishes that needed to be hand washed (I won't even tell you for how long!). FLY lady memories drove me to her website and I signed up for everything, copied down all the baby steps and signed up for her cozi calendar and started in on it.

Hard for me right now because I want to do everything all at once - it's my nature to go fast and furious then quit. But, she's all about pacing yourself - so I'm pacing myself.
Back to the subject...I bought a kitchen timer. She has activities that are times, 5 - 10 - 15- 60 minutes even.
At first I used my eye on the clock - well let me tell you, that gets old fast. First it's, "what time did I start again?" Then it's checking the clock every couple minutes, which is totally distracting. So I tried the microwave timer, but that only works for the kitchen tasks and it just keeps beeping until you turn it off...so annoying!!
Alas, I went and dropped $4 on a kitchen timer and it has changed my life! It's totally the one in the picture above - it's cheap, light, and just counts down to a short ring, which I love.
I set it for 15 minutes of shredding every day this week and when it dinged - I quit. Brilliant! No clock watching, no running to the kitchen to turn it off... yay!
Last night, I tried it during meditation. I like to med before bed but I'm always checking the clock for some reason and it's not terribly effective and I've been pretty random about how long I sit - 5 minutes some times, maybe 15 before I'm so distracted I give up.
I get all warm and happy just thinking about this... last night I set it for 20 minutes and sat meditating. I was able to totally relax and concentrate because I could hear it ticking down and knew it wasn't going to let me go over and I knew that when it dinged I could still take a couple minutes if I needed them without having to jump up and turn it off. It was AWESOME!!
I'm thinking of all sorts of uses for it now... the natural planner in me can think of dozens of timing opportunities! LOL
Does anyone else use a timer like this?
Bonus, it's also let me figure out how to work a 15 minute workout in every night. It's all about mindset - I used to think I had to do 30 minutes and that seems like a long time, but when I gave myself permission for a 15 minute jaunt (ala FLY lady's recommendation to go for a 7 minute walk then turn around and come home to have a glass of water) it made all the difference!
My life is a series of dings now :)

Also, even though my house is only for 2, FLY lady has definitely been useful - I'd totally recommend it to anyone.



9 comments:

  1. You've renewed my ambition to tackle things with a timer again :)

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  2. Thanks for the inspiration to use a timer!! I agree the flylady.net system is a good one that I've been trying to follow also. On a side note, I've created a blog through google blogspot, however how did you get your layout to look like this and include the label links? Eg. allergies, cheap etc. Did you have to pay for this layout, or was it still an option somehow as a free blog through google? Thanks for any help.

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  3. Flylady has changed my, and many many other peoples lives. Helped us get to grips with our homes and feel peace and not be overwhelmed. Helps in so many other areas of life too - give it a go, you won't be sorry. susan_lily

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  4. Nice blog! I am also new to flylady and loving it.

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  5. Mikey, Not sure how to contact you since your profile doesn't list an email or anything. I got this format by googling for free blog templates. There are a ton of resources that you can borrow free HTML from to build your blog. Then under "Design" in blogger you can paste the html to personalize your layout. Good luck!

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  6. I love my timer! I use the one on my smartphone but I got my daughters a cute little pink one that they use to follow their FlyLady routines.

    Good luck, FlyLady will turn your life around, 15 minutes at a time!

    On her Facebook page, we also play Bingo where we write down 6 tasks that we want to accomplish and someone randomly calls out numbers until we get them all done. I like to toss a die and work on my list of 6 every day too.

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  7. Great read, I can totally relate to your "everything all at once" mindset. FlyLady has helped me realize how much I can accomplish in a short amount of time when I just focus on the task at hand.
    Now I'm going to go poke around your blog! (saw your entry in her daily email I receive. how fun!) ...oh, but I'll limit myself to 7 minutes for now! ;)

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  8. Hi, I'm another FlyLady fan, but what really caught my attention was the name of your blog, since I, too, have Celiac Disease. I'll be bookmarking this page so I can check out your other posts.

    I have the old, "original" FlyLady timer, and I use it for everything. Just started a running program, and I have to walk 10 mins, then jog/walk 30 seconds alternating for 15 mins, then walk another 5 mins. The timer is my companion all the way - works like a charm!

    Looking forward to checking out more of your blog.

    - Liz

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  9. Hi, I'm another flybaby with gluten sensitivity that will be checking out your blog ^_^. Great blog on using timers. I know I love mine ^_^. Also cute blog layout =).

    Amber

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