I Don't Wanna Work! 10 Methods for Busting the Mood

One morning not too long ago, I could see my house needed work...but I was so not in the mood to attend to my home needs at all.  I wanted to sit in my chair and watch YouTube or read or go back to bed instead of doing what needed to be done.  I had one weapon though:  I have a whole list of things to do when I don't want to work.   So I pulled it out and found the inspiration to get busy and get the jobs done.    Would you like for me to share?

#1.  Get up a little earlier.  Often when I've gotten into the habit of sleeping to a certain hour each morning, I tend to take up this sort of vacation/holiday mood.  I ease about the house not getting a lot done and the next thing I know it's 10:45 and I've not even begun the day.   One thing I've found really helpful, if I know I need to tackle tasks, is to set my alarm and get up just a little bit earlier.  It's surprising how much more energy I have and how much more I can accomplish in a morning if I just get up an hour earlier.   I don't even have to do it every morning but I do find that if I do it once, I'm likely to wake just a half later than the previous morning and suddenly I'm back into my higher energy working mind set.



#2.  Shower and dress immediately when you get up.  Granny just hated the way we kids followed our parents' example and went about the house in our pajamas each morning.   I've noticed even now that if I slip out of the bedroom and get that first cup of coffee while still in my nightie...chances are I'm not going to hurry up to change and get busy.  I'm going to stick with that holiday/vacation mindset.   So when I've spent too many mornings lolling about and I know it's time to get busy, I push myself to shower and dress before I ever leave the room.

#3.  Another way to break that mood is to make it a point to do two or three smaller jobs before I have coffee.  I might straighten the bathroom and empty the bath and living room trash cans and feed the pets.  Even if I immediately stop after those three things and have coffee and Bible Study I've already established the day as a work day and I'll get busy again as soon as I've had my morning coffee.

#4.  Get back into a cleaning routine.  I've mentioned many times that on Monday mornings and Fridays I have routines I follow to insure my house if clean for both the week and the weekend ahead.  Well anytime I find I've fallen into that pattern of not working well, you can about bet I've gotten away from my routines and I'm doing things helter skelter.  I worked with cleaning routines for years and now that come naturally to me if I just stop and recognize that I've gotten out of routine.

#5.  If I've gone weeks and can't get my routines to work, then it's time to ask myself "Why?"  Has our schedule changed?  Is our household different?  Have I gotten bored with the same old way of doing things?  Often enough it's one of those three things.  I've struggled a little since John has been home full time and then the allergies affected my ears.  I got into a holiday/ailing mode and just stayed there.   Up and at 'em on Monday morning, falling into my routine once more and I find that the week has been well started.

That said, when John switched from working days to working nights: I struggled until I found a new routine that worked with our schedule.  Ditto when it started working 24/48hour shifts.  When Sam and Bess moved in for those six months I had to alter how I did things and then I had to find my way again when they moved out!   Households are seldom stagnant.  Something is always changing in them and it's our job to figure out how to make it work with the changes we must face.

#6.  Shake up your schedule.  If boredom is the cause of your reluctance to work, then sit down and make up a new one.  One year I was so stuck and so bored with everything.  I'd start my morning at the back door and work my way in through our bed and bath and had been doing it that way for two or three years.   I decided I'd start in our bathroom and work my way out to the back door and just switching that schedule around that little bit made it fun to get to work once again.

Sometimes, switching the days you do tasks can make all the difference in the world.  I  got into the habit of stripping the sheets and towels from our bed and bath on Sundays when John was working two Sundays a month.   When his schedule changed, suddenly adding remaking the bed and doing that load of laundry to the day's activities was too much.  It took all the pleasure from having nice clean crisp sheets on the bed.  It really did!   So I changed it to Monday and now I look forward every Monday to putting those clean sheets on my bed and laying out fresh towels in our bath.

#7.  Change your decor.  Maybe it's not the routine but the environment in which you're working.  If you no longer see your pretty things because they now blend into the background then change them up.  New curtains don't have to be pricey.  I keep a stash of thrift store decor items on hand and print out new pictures for frames and when I'm bored with my environment I change them out.   Some people like to move furniture and I've done that a few times, too. Our bed has been on every wall of reasonable size in our bedroom.  I've moved chairs in and I've moved chairs out of our living room.  Sometimes it's just the minor changes you make that freshen up the room and give you a sense of satisfaction in cleaning once more.

#8.  Use that camera or a list to determine what needs to be done.   I've said before that I'd read this tip on Mrs. Catherine Statt's blog and it's an eye opener.  You'd be surprised how 'blind' we can become to the way things look until you see them as background or foreground in a picture.  Suddenly that bookcase or desk top or that pile of pillows on the couch are seen as they truly are: cluttered, messy, tattered.

I then make a list of every job I see that needs to be done in each room.  I'll work a household routine that week but I'll spend extra minutes in that one room all week long to take care of each of those messy areas.  It works like a dream!

Now these last two I want you to pay especial attention to!  I'm serious.  No matter which of the means you use above to re-inspire you to work in your home, these last two items are MUSTS and should be done right along with it!

#9 Give yourself Grace.  Suppose you try step one and it doesn't do anything for you?  Then say to yourself "That's not what I need..."  and go on to try step two.

If you're working to find a routine that works with a household or schedule change then take time to figure our what's most important.  When Sam and Bess moved in what was most important to me looked a whole lot different than what is most important to me when it's just John and I in the house.   There was far more of a work load with four extra people in my home.  There were days when toddlers just needed Gramma and Mama's time and nothing but meals got done and we considered ourselves lucky to get to that.

If you're dealing with a household mess because you've been ill or changes occurred that prevented your routines, then give yourself time to get back into the flow of the routines you'd previously established.  For goodness sake, designate jobs where you can until the house is at a level where you can easily tend to it once more.

I've said it before and I'll likely repeat it a hundred or three more times:  Housework NEVER gets up and leaves in a snit because you haven't gotten around to doing it.  It will wait.  It might be a mess but it will wait.

#10.  Reward your efforts and let the size of your accomplishment merit the size of the reward.  I have given myself a 30 minute timer, done all I could until it rang and then set the timer and settled with a good book for 15 minutes.  The minute that timer dinged, I'd reset it for 30 and work for 30 more minutes.  It's amazing how much you can accomplish doing just that.

If I set myself the task of doing a deep cleaning in a room (though I do try to do a little along these days and not leave it for all at once) then my reward might be a full day out of the house once that room is finished.  I did this when Sam and Bess moved out.  I'd work like a demon was chasing me on a room and when that room was all finished, I would plan the next day so that I was free to go thrift or visit the library and have lunch out with my book as company, etc.

Suitable rewards for time spent working (in my opinion):
Planning a spa day at home
Watching a movie without doing anything else
Having a cup of coffee or tea on the porch
Making myself a pretty lunch tray to enjoy
Purchasing a new lipstick or nail polish
Treating myself to a magazine
Sleeping in one morning
Going to visit someone
Getting myself a big bouquet of flowers, not just the budget buys
A new houseplant

I hope that any of these suggestions will help you if you've found yourself with a desire to do nothing for far too long.  I can assure you that every single one of them has worked for me at one time or another.  Right now the greatest help for my retirement equals vaca mode is getting up early, getting dressed and tackling a few tasks before coffee.   Let me know what works for you.