The Threat of Bedtime

figured out today that if I could have a perpetual threat of it being bedtime I could get my 3 year old to eat a lot more food. She is one of those people who loves life and the excitement of it, and frankly, eating is a bit of a bore; especially if there is anything interesting happening. This leads to bowls of unfinished food everywhere.

However, simply stating “Its Bedtime” creates in this little princess a voracious appetite for just about anything she can get her hands on. It is worth doing ANYTHING to delay bedtime, eat food, drink milk, multiple glasses of water (3 at least) (note the rest of the day water is detested and avoided in favor of any other liquid refreshment), help dad do the dishes, comfort the baby…. You get the picture.

It made me realize how silly most of us are. What makes a job or task hard? The fact that you don’t want to do it! Hard and easy are all relative (on the assumption that you actually have the capacity to do the task in question). So how do you make doing the things you need to get done easier? Keep a list of tasks around that you don’t want to do more that what you should do. Then whenever you are tempted to say “I really should do ______________, but I don’t want to..” whip out one of your “harder than tasks” to replace it with.

For example: “I really should exercise tomorrow.” And when that little temptation comes that says “I don’t want to” just whip out one of your harder than tasks. Tell yourself: “Wonderful! Since you have freed up that half hour by not exercising, you will have time to take a toothbrush to that black grime growing in that dark space behind the toilet.” I bet you can persuade yourself that you are too busy exercising to do the cleaning. :-)