Just one added thing each day

[cp_dropcaps]T[/cp_dropcaps]his morning as I sat at my dining room table, I thought, what if I did one new thing each day for the rest of this year, how many things would I be able to do?  How many additional things would be accomplished?  Two Hundred Sixty Six.  Imagine: 266 additional things.  Instantly, I’m reminded of the significance of the number 266 — an average pregnancy is 266 days.   Not anymore for this Sarah, but that’s a number I’ll never forget.

I considered:  Purposefully learning and purposefully accomplishing one additional thing every day.  Adding one more step, situp, pushup, crunch, squat—-one more whatever—-to my exercise routine.  That’s a whole bunch.  And that’s somewhere to begin!  That, and it would create a dramatic change in strength and stamina.

Just adding clarity or purpose to my daily routines helps me be clearer on the concept.  Otherwise, many of my efforts will not produce desired results.  If I just do things hastily or haphazardly or without being clear on the concept, I won’t have much to show for all these days I’ve been given and if I don’t strive to better use the time I’ve been given I’ll continue to look back and see a whole bunch of busyness and not a whole lot of accomplishment.  By way of illustration, the image I’ve chosen for today’s post is a picture of dirty cups loaded into the dishwasher. The child who did this chore, did what I asked.  And I was pleased with the effort—but it became a teachable moment as I described the purpose of the soap and sprayer beneath the rack and how it accomplished the cleaning of the inside as well as the outside of the cups.  [cp_quote style=”quote_left_dark”]It’s a clear picture of how ineffective some of our best efforts are when we’re not clear on the concept.[/cp_quote]

So I continued this morning, and throughout this afternoon, to consider the huge benefit I would realize in cleaning/doing/accomplishing one extra thing every day for 266 days (and beyond).  I’m already cleaning every day anyway — one more thing might take one more or five more or thirty-five more minutes.  What a blessing to my family–and to me: a clean and cozy home – on purpose just for them, just for me, not for or because of anyone else.   What if I made one new recipe each week like I used to do?  What if I did one extra load of laundry each day?  You get the idea.

Then my mind swirled with a great idea pertinent to where I am right now: What if I eliminated one thing every day?  Or a bag of things? Or a box of things?  Every day.  What if I organized a drawer one day, a cabinet another day, and a closet another day?  I already do this to some extent — so adding one thing to my daily regimen seems doable. 🙂 I just haven’t done this with purpose every day.  Then I imagined that I could pick an area to work on every day and if I sorted, in that one small area, items into boxes marked: keep/giveaway/throwaway.   Well, I’d surely be very, very organized by the end of the year or sooner!

What if I read an extra chapter, wrote an extra journal entry, wrote a letter, a blog post, a list of dreams, plans, ideas? I’m already reading and writing things every day… so the ideas is something added to my normal course of daily routines — just one added thing every day.

Join me in doing one added thing today.  Just one thing added.  Think about it, if we do one additional thing every day until the end of the year—we’ll have done 266 extra things.

Think of it… just ONE added thing.  Ready, steady, you Go, girl! ♥