Before you read this title and think it only takes you 5 minutes to succeed... let me tell you a little bit more about my idea.
Over the last few years my responsibilities have grown. From starting a family, having a house to take care of, running a business, and being a part of more than one church, etc... in order to take care of each of these areas of my life takes daily work. Aside from these responsibilities I have hobbies. In fact my husband once said: I have a hobby of collecting hobbies. (And he is right!) If I want to maintain any of these areas in life or start something new that takes time.
To start something new while trying to remain constant at other things I started practicing the 5 minute rule. This is something I learned nearly 20 years ago when started one of my first hobbies. The hobby later turned into part of my career: playing piano. My wise piano teacher didn’t ask me to practice hours a day at first. Just 5 minutes. In fact she suggested at first to not let myself surpass the 5 minutes to make me want to go back the next day. When those 5 minutes settled in as a habit I moved on to 10 minutes a day and with those extra minutes I tackled more advanced music. From there it went on to 15, 20 and then the skies was the limit not just adding time each day but having fun practicing! Little did she know what she started because after tackling those first few obstacles I could easily put in hours a day with this new loved skill! No I’m no concert pianist today. But keeping this part of my routine for over 20 I am blessed to make piano part of my job.
After having Arthur I realized it wasn’t going to be able to just go with the flow during the day anymore. So when Lucy was on the way I knew we needed some more structure. We started working to build what is now our daily routine. At first I had 3 things on my list. But very quickly those 3 things turned into about 20. Some projects are simple, some are more time consuming. Almost every one of them is a daily need for my home, family or business now. When I started implementing them it wasn’t easy. In fact I kept getting frustrated with myself because some tasks were always half done and others left by the wayside. All of them still needed to be done. Do you know what I did? Started the 5 minute rule up again! Some days I only have time to spend 5 minutes at the piano or washing dishes others it takes more. But right now it’s not always about hours a day doing things. Right now for the stage of life I’m in it’s about the consistency. Slowly but surely each of my tasks has been given more quality time and attention. Without the daily practice though, I never would have been able to get to where we are today and for that I am thankful!
There you go! One of my favorite life hacks! Hope it helps you. And you have more ideas for tackling life Id love to hear!