five minutes and the demise of productivity.

Over on Simple Mom today, they talk about simplifying your life by adding routine to it. Let me tell you, that is Kool-Aid that I drink. I believe in routine. I believe in it with every fiber of my being. Seriously. I learned the power of routine when S was a wee one, and I've not looked back. One night recently, she wanted to read books before brushing her teeth and using the potty, so I let her. We read oodles of books. Then after the bathroom portion of the evening routine she wanted more books. There was a meltdown when I explained that we'd already read all the books we were going to read because it was bedtime. In the mornings, if we ditch the usual get out of bed/make the bed/utilize the facilities/brush teeth and hair, things just don't go right. Dragon breath lurks. S's hair looks like Einstein's. Ten o'clock rolls around and I'll realize the child still hasn't peed and is probably doing serious damage to her kidneys/bladder. It's like that in our lives. There isn't a set schedule, but our routines are important. They keep us moving. We dig it.

So, Simple Mom had a link to someone's every morning five minute routine. Said routine was:

Minute one: make bed

Minute two: open blinds

Minute three: turn off porch lights

Minutes four and five: empty dishwasher.

That's awesome for that lady, but it ain't working for Ouiser. When I am able to pry my eyes open after I hear S moving around upstairs, this is my morning: groan about having to wake up, locate and don slippers and glasses, stumble like a drunk to the bathroom, open the curtains, pee, brush teeth, head upstairs to get the kid, then fake happiness until I am actually happy, which actually happens pretty quickly when I am snuggling with Little Miss Dragon Breath.

So I'd like to say that I understand that in order to make my personal routine happier in the mornings, I should shoehorn myself out of bed before my daughter wakes up. I get that. And sometimes I do because sometimes she sleeps an extra 15 minutes and sometimes I just can't sleep. On those mornings, I make the bed and brew the coffee before I head upstairs to slay the dragon breath. It's lovely. It is. But I'm no fool. To declare that I'm going to get up before the absolute last possible second is a lie. A big, fat lie. It's just not going to happen. No matter how much I like to have the bed made in a timely fashion. I am emphatically not a morning person.

Also, when I was reading that lady's five minute routine, firstly I wanted to know when her teeth got brushed. Secondly, I was amazed at the logistics of the routine. Bed to windows to outdoor light switch to kitchen. Her house must be laid out differently than mine because around these parts, those things don't flow in any semblance of an order. Thirdly, did she actually time her routine? I think it takes me longer than one minute to make my bed.

So that's the five minute part of the post title. Now on to the demise of productivity. I read Simple Mom pretty regularly. It's in my google reader. Of course from there I linked to the five minute lady. Then I realized that I needed to look at a bunch of her other posts because I was so intrigued by her five minute routine. Then I wanted to look at some of her sponsors. Now, luckily, I had places to be today, so I just made a mental note to visit all the links later and left that window open in my browser. Since then, I've thought about it. If I head down the rabbit hole of links, I will inevitably spend an hour looking at random stuff online this afternoon. And, peeps, when I say I've got a mountain of laundry to work on, I mean it. I've got lots that I need to be doing, but there's a good chance that I'll pop my head into the office to look at the computer (just for a second, I swear) and get sucked into the black hole that is the blogosphere. And I realized that I am less productive that I should be because the internet is the demise of productivity.

So there. That's my two cents worth for today. I must now tackle the mountain of laundry. I've got two loads done, and I've got about five to go. Yowsers.