The Games We Play

Do you ever play mental games while doing your housework? I always see how many tasks I can complete during a certain time period (and yes, I do use a timer). Like, I'll write down a list of 5 cleaning tasks and see if I can do them all in an hour. For some reason it makes me work harder and keeps me focused. But for me it's not just housework I do this with. It's most of my daily tasks. I take an 8 minute shower. I do my hair in 4 minutes (if I'm trying to make it look extra nice I give myself 8 minutes). My make-up gets done in 5 minutes. This is how I do life.

And I never knew it was weird until I got married. Britt kept asking me why I was trying to hurry through everything and why it bothered me that he didn't clean the bathroom in exactly 11 minutes. I think I just love the race against the clock, and the self-competition. And I think my mom taught it to me. I remember one time we were cleaning the house before some relatives came over and we were a bit tight on time and she said "Ok - these things HAVE to be done before they get here. Now let's see how fast we can get them done." And then we'd accomplish those tasks, and she'd come up with another list of necessary jobs. And on and on until they actually got there. As a child I just remember it being a game and made cleaning more fun, which is probably why she did it. And 20 years later I'm still doing it.

Does anyone else play these mental games?