Vote for Your Minutes!

Poll

After nearly two months of posting, you, as a reader, have had a chance to become familiar with the Minutes Worth Hours concept: I post advice every day about a 5 minute activity that could improve your life in some way. Now, I need your help with improving the blog, and making your minutes really worth your hours.
I've started a poll a couple of days ago, asking you to vote on how frequently you'd like to receive MWH updates. I realize that receiving a post in your inbox or on your RSS feed every day, may be a little bothersome to some of you. That's why I'm asking you to help me decide on a frequency that you would find more comfortable.

The poll is located on the right side of the blog. Just click the option you're most comfortable with. If you have other suggestions on how to improve this blog, I would love to hear from you. I write this blog for my readers, so I care about what you think. I have another blog where I just do my own thing. This one's here for you guys!

The poll will be up until June 15 (so for about two weeks) after which I will put the changes through, whatever you decide! 

Deciding how often you want to read blog posts is another way for you to exercise control over your life. Make sure you grab it!


Thanks for being here guys! I can't begin to say how much writing this blog and knowing someone's reading has changed my life!

Track Your Progress

Instant Boss is counting down

Is there a better feeling than looking back on a finished project, seeing what you've accomplished? It's one of those feelings that lifts us up and gives us the energy to do more. Being able to say 'I did it!' is one of the best rewards of a job well done. But before a project is finished, sometimes we feel like our energy is running out. It seems so difficult to estimate how much we've done and how much is left. A great way to stay motivated can be to track how long your work on something.

There's a free App for windows, called Instant Boss, that I love to use to stay focused on one task, and to track how long I've been working on one task.

Go to this website and download the little program. Once it's set up, it's very fast and easy to use. You click on the icon, and can set how much time you want to work, how long you'd like to take a break after each working session, and how often you want to repeat this cycle of work + break. 
The standard setting is 10+2*5. But you can change it to anything you want, and the program will remember your preference.

I use it for writing blog posts faster, working on my lesson plans and writing my book. I love that you can click to 'work longer' and feel like you're earning yourself an extra long break. It's also great to be able to recognize those 10 minutes of work you put in here and there, because they DO add up and can contribute a great deal!

You can find a review of Instant Boss on Simple Productivity Blog, which is where I first heard about it.

I hope you enjoy the program and find it useful in your life. Do you usually track how long you work? Have you tried this program or used it before? Let me know what you think!

Weekly Quotes for Inspiration

Picture by Luann Johnson

I love quotes! They're brief, inspiring and often brilliant. Just little bits of wisdom that can create 'aha' moments in an instant. They also offer a great way to get acquainted with a famous person's mind, although they can be taken out of context too, or be attributed to the wrong author.
Either way, I have benefited an awful lot from having quotes around me. I sometimes spend an hour just reading them online, reveling in one after another. And what do I do with the best ones? Those rare jewels that means something special to me? I write them down somewhere so I can reread them whenever I like.
Having a weekly quote, can be a reminder of something you want to focus on that week.

I suggest that before your week begins, you think about what you'd like to focus on in the coming week. Do you need a reminder to be more productive or stop procrastinating? Would you like to remember to eat more healthily or exercise more? Could you use a quick note to make sure you treat the people around you the way you want to? There are quotes on all these situations, and thousands more. 

When you've found a quote that you love and that really captures the point, write it down. Don't write it down just anywhere, write it everywhere! Leave it on your fridge. Put it on your computer's wallpaper. Write it on your bathroom mirror. Write it in your diary. Leaving it in many places means you'll be reminded of it often, and at different times. You're not as receptive at different times during the day. And a quotation can mean something different to you, when you're in a different mood.

Need some inspiration? There's a weekly installment of quotes on Repsych, or you can check out The Quote Garden. Typing in 'quotes' in Google will yield plenty of results too.

My weekly quote I got from Repsych as well:

Nature does not hurry and yet everything s accomplished- Lao Tzu

Rinse Off the Dishes

Picture by Michal Zacharzewski

You just cooked a nice batch of marinara sauce, and boiled some spaghetti noodles for dinner. You put everything nicely on a plate and walk out to present the meal to your family/partner/friends. In the kitchen, your pots are left on their own, which will result, inevitably, in the food drying and setting in there.
The same thing happens to those plate of spaghetti marinara that are left on the table or in the sink for longer than they should be. Or with the tall glass of juice that's left next to the computer. You know what I mean, right? Dirty dishes that stand out too long become more difficult to wash. They take longer in the end!

We've finally established the habit of rinsing off things like pots for making sauce, pasta or rice. Or we at least fill them up with water, so the left overs can soak. 
After we eat, we try to make it a habit to wash our dishes right away. Sometimes this is easier than others, but it happens more often than not.

To get yourself going on washing the dishes, ask yourself the following questions:

1. If I don't do them now, will I have to do them later? (If the answer is 'no', then of course, don't bother) 
2. Do I have urgent business that cannot wait 10 minutes? (if the answer is 'yes', you have a valid excuse)
3. Is doing the dishes now, really such a big deal? (only one correct answer to this one!)

If that doesn't get you going... try leaving the dishes out for a couple of days. Let them stack up, in the messiest way possible. After the stench has become unbearable, take a picture. Print it out. Put it on your wall.

Clean Out Your Closet

 This post was inspired by the suggestion of a friend. Any suggestions you have? Let me know!

Hubby's closet - labeled for ease of reference

I'll admit it, I'm not really fashion-oriented, or fashion-conscious even. I'm not a huge fan of shopping, though I do like to get nice clothes from time to time. All in all, the days I go shopping in a year add up to maybe 7 altogether. That is, whole afternoons dedicated to shopping, for example.
Yet, even if I don't buy a lot of clothes and try to avoid buying them, they still seem to accumulate out of nowhere. After a mere two years in China, the pile of clothes that fills up my closet has quadrupled, I kid you not! There's at least 4 times as many clothes in there as when I unpacked that first Wednesday in August 2009.
Luckily, I've taken some time here and there, a couple of minutes, to organize the stuff and throw away unwanted items.

Clear out a section in your closet. Just empty it completely! If you have ten minutes or so, do the whole closet at once. Then, decide on a system. I hang up my jackets, skirts, dresses and shirts that I like to keep neat. I have a pile for tank and spaghetti tops, short sleeves, long sleeves, sweaters, pajamas, shorts, and pants (so 6 piles). Everything that doesn't fit there, goes in a 'rest' pile. 
Every time I clear things away that I don't need. I recently wore out three pairs of jeans, and I'm just going to throw them out. I won't pack them to go to the States, not worth it. So they don't belong in my closet anymore.
Anything that is somehow ripped or has a button missing, also does NOT belong in your closet! It belongs on your 'to fix' pile. You won't wear it 'till it's fixed, so it's just gathering up space for now. 

When you put your stuff back in piles, look at what you wear most often, and what you wear least often. The stuff you wear least often could be considered for possible disposal. The same goes for anything that's stained/irreparably damaged/too small/too big. Get rid of it!

As a last step, try to make your wardrobe seasonal. I removed my winter clothes for the next following months, since I won't need them anymore and my closet looks much neater with less stuff in it. I've also taken out the summer clothes I'd put away. It's like rediscovering your clothes when you take them out for the right season.

My closet - in need of some 5 minute organizing

I find that a neat closet saves me quite a bit of time every morning, when I pick out my clothes. It makes it easy to find everything and to put your clothes back when you finish the laundry.

How do you organize your wardrobe? Do you go by color? Season? Style? Occasion?
Do you prefer just keeping things at random?