Sometimes when I have a big project, I find it helpful to think of it in terms of a boxing match. You know: Round 1, Round 2, etc. I'm not sure how many rounds boxing matches have, but whatever. The point is to break up the project into smaller parts, the better to celebrate small victories, which in turn provide motivation for more action.
Earlier in the week, it took over two hours to clear off the top of my old-fashioned vanity, so mid-week I was looking for an easy victory to cheer me up and give me a little boost without sapping too much energy. Using the Ground Zero Approach, I decided that now that the vanity top was cleared, what bothered me the most was the tiny masterbath counter. Apparently I'd decided to take the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach and apply it to the sink in the bathroom.
To minimize the effort of clearing the counter, I decided to use my Pass-By Approachby which I pick up one item every time I pass by a particular location (i.e. the masterbath counter) and then put that one item away. In this manner, the area was completely and painlessly cleared without dedicating more than a minute or two at a time each time I passed the counter. As you can see from the picture below, the "before" shot wasn't pretty:
After putting everything away, it took me all of 16 minutes to wipe the counter, scrub the sink, and polish the mirror. I don't have an "after" picture yet because I forgot to take one at the time and I can't take one right now, Alpay being an early-to-bed-early-to-rise type and I can only imagine his reaction if I broke out the camera, turned on the lights, and obsessively lined up the tubes and bottles remaining on the counter, turning them this way and that in the attempt to discover the most photogenic angle for facial scrub. Marriage is nothing if not compromise. Judging by the "before" picture here and elsewhere on the Quest, my guess is that Alpay would whole-heartedly agree.
