Saying Yes When Others Say No

This Memorial Day, we honor those who have said "yes" when it comes to serving our country.
This Messy Monday, I thought we would focus on the power of "yes."

In my post, Seven Habits of Highly Successful Housekeepers, habit number 3 is:
"Say yes when others say no."

Instead of seeing something that needs to be done and thinking “I’ll get to that later,” successful housekeepers respond, “Yes, I’ll do that right now.” This means they’re tidying up more often than the average housekeeper. Besides, most jobs rarely take as long as one thinks.

In an Intentional Living broadcast, Dr. Randy Carlson talked about the power of decisions. If we're disorganized, it really boils down to the fact that we have made a decision to be that way. We either make a decision to do something, or we make a decision not to do it. Ignoring it is really nothing more than choosing to say "No, not now."

How this translates into housekeeping is:

If I have a sink full of dirty dishes, and it looks messy, beyond all the excuses I could give, like "I'm tired," or "I'm too busy right now," or "I don't feel like it," the most basic reason is--I haven't done the dishes because I said no to doing the dishes. I chose to spend those 15-30 minutes a different way.

Despite my feelings about any particular task (and there are many I am obviously not very enthusiastic about, because they constantly get pushed to the back-burner), I can choose to put my feelings aside and just do it, or not do it.

If I have baskets of unfolded laundry and folded laundry sitting around, at the core, it is only sitting around because I made a decision to say no to putting it away. I chose to use my time differently. I could just as easily make a decision to choose to put the laundry away instead of doing something else for a half hour.

If I haven't mopped my floor in two weeks, it is because I made a decision not to. Sure, I could give lots of excuses, but again, the most basic reason is I made a choice to use my time differently.

When we make it so black-and-white, we can remove the excuses and realize it really is just a choice. Even when we are tired, or discouraged, or busy, and "don't feel like it," we can just choose to do it anyway and get it over with. Then we can make a decision to go do something we really want to do.

And that's why the people we will call "successful housekeepers" with consistently tidy homes understand that neatness comes by saying "yes" when others say no.