This morning my brother showed me how to make poached eggs.  There really is a science and an art to it!

Over eggs and coffee, we sat at the table and caught up on Peter Breigal’s Mississipi River Adventure.

Before heading back to the office to catch up on work, I glanced over at the sink and noticed all the dishes we had let pile up.

Enter the “one-day soak”

In the past, I would have told myself that the dishes need to ‘soak for a while’ before they are able to be cleaned.  I would then proceed about my daily routine.  As I passed the kitchen throughout the day, the dishes would steal my glance.  I would remind myself that the soaking is a very necessary thing, and then told myself that I would do them later.

I’m sure you’ve experienced the one-day soak.

We all know that the one-day soak is complete bullshit.  If we look closely at, we are really just pushing off reality.  We feel lazy and think that if we tell ourselves “it’s okay to do it later”, that somehow, throughout the day, the dishes will clean themselves (or that someone else will do it… which is just straight up being inconsiderate.)

Avoiding actually drains our energy

What really happens is we forget that the dishes are there.  Then later on we see the dishes, and they drain our energy.  We keep avoiding them, but internally, we begin to stress out.  We think that we have no time to do them, since we have so many other things to work on.

What really is a pot, a coffee mug, 2 bowls, and 4 plates, feels like this:

(Or maybe your sink currently does look like this?)

The way you do anything is the way you do everything

I have now formed the habit to never let my dishes soak for longer than 5 minutes.  By doing this on a daily basis, I start my day off by getting energized and I am in this “get shit done” mode all day.

In my current routine, I typically make oats along with some kids of eggs (scrambled, hard-boilded, poached, etc) and man, can that oat pot quickly become dried out and hard to clean!  As soon as the oats are done, I put the pot in the sink and fill it with warm water.  I continue preparing my breakfast, but before I eat, I clean the oat pot, the egg pan, and anything else I used to prepare my meal.

I bang it out.  I do it right away.

I then eat and quickly wash the plate and bowl I was using.

Sure, you may want to eat right away and then clean up everything at the end.  That is okay too.

More imporantly is to not soak your dishes and then leave the kitchen.  NEVER LEAVE THE KITCHEN WITHOUT CLEANING YOUR DISHES!

Don’t tell yourself you’ll do them later.  You know that is bullshit!  Just bang them out!

With this small action of cleaning my dishes, pots, and pans right away, I gain momentum.  What originally looked like SO MUCH work, really only takes me 5 minutes.

Get things out of the way, don’t put them in the way

Anytime you are avoiding something, you are putting it in the way later.  You are just taking it from the top of the to-do list and moving it to the bottom.

Now sure, I know what you’re thinking…

Yes, but sometimes certain things need to be moved off to a later date.

Yes, you are right…. BUT NOT DISHES!

Not things that can be done in 30 minutes or less.  Heck, even things that take 4 hours need to be done right away sometimes.

Good habits & good mindsets

By constantly reminding yourself to “get things out of the way, don’t put them in the way” & “the way you do anything is the way you do everything”, you are forging in your mind and into your body patterns of habit.  You are re-conditioning your mind to operate at a high level.

When you realize this, you then look at your life and you see things that once seemed like such a big deal, and you just bang them out.  Sometimes they take 10 minutes, sometimes they take 2 hours.  That’s not the important part.

The important part is that you are no longer emotionally and energetically weighed down by all the “stuff I have to do”.

You quickly realize that you’ve been trapped in the the “one-day soak”.

You keep letting your “dishes” soak and you spend time doing pointless tasks that make you feel like you are actually working (when you are really just looking busy, avoiding the real work.)

Action Step: Bang it out!

Yup.  Just bang it out.

Just start banging shit out in your life that you’ve left soaking for way too long.

You’ll feel yourself become “lighter” and less stressed out.

If you have a big to-do list, the best way to gain momentum, is to start banging out the small stuff.

And yes, it’s a good idea to start with the dishes :-)

What have you been letting soak?

So what did you think of this message?  Have there been things in your life that have been “soaking” for way too long?