To schedule or not to schedule

Today's "Small Thing" is to write out a timeline of your day and see where you actually spend your time. I know where I spend my time. I'm online most of the day until it's time to make dinner.

I'm writing, I'm reading, I'm talking.

For the last several months, I've been making time to get up and do a Min Maint sort of thing around the house so it doesn't all go to hell. It's usually in the mornings after the first fires have been put out, but it could be around lunch time or sometime before the kids get home. Whenever the words aren't coming, or I'm stuck on a scene and just need to get away from that blinking, taunting cursor, I'll get up and get the dishes into the dishwasher, or swipe down the bathrooms or something.

Yesterday, the Small Thing was to write down all the stuff that we need to do to keep the house manageable. I did that, and discovered that, yeah, for the most part, those things get done as often as they should. Ok, not the mopping, but it DOES get done.

Today's Small Thing, however, seems to be leading up to something that makes me intensely uncomfortable. A daily/hourly schedule for cleaning.

I've been working on my housekeeping skills for the last...I don't know...five years? Every year, I made a schedule. Dust on Mondays, Clean bathrooms on Tuesdays, etc, etc.

I even did an hourly schedule. From 9:00-9:15, dust living room. That didn't even last a day, much less a week.

Last year, for the first time, I stopped doing that. I decided to work with what I really am, instead of trying to force myself into a mold of what I Should Be and Should Do.

I am 39, smart, funny, snarky and I'm ADD. I don't take medicine because, dammit, I don't want to. My life isn't perfect, but it's who I am. I screw up, I fall behind, I make mistakes, but you know what? So does everyone else. Including people who aren't ADD. And it has taken me this long to learn to start playing to my strengths and not focusing on my weaknesses.

I suck at schedules. There. I said it. Every time someone puts the word "schedule" up, I start to get twitchy.

So, I'm not going to do today's Small Thing. Today, I'm going to sit back and watch where it's going.

And even if it gets all scheduley, I'm not going to freak. I like the Company Girl concept and I like the Min Maint thing, so I'm keeping those. I don't have to keep everything. It's going to be okay.