HADA 2012: Week 1 recap

I am participating in Hour-A-Day-April (HADA). For the month of April I commit to spending an hour every week day doing something that I otherwise have a hard time finding time for. The idea being that an hour a day of targeted effort can make a big difference towards accomplishing an intimidating To Do List. Here's a summary of my first week:



Day 1:  A day off, since it was Sunday and I've decided that Sunday is my day off every week, plus one other floating day per week.

Day 2: miscellaneous sorting, cleaning and picking up odds and ends. Most significantly, emptied the whole top drawer of my bathroom vanity, threw out a bunch of stuff, and put the useful items back in.
Time: 1 hour


Day 3:  Cleaned out my half of the bathroom vanity and de-junked two bedside table drawers. One medium-ish bag of garbage is ready to leave the house on garbage day. Then I headed to the basement to tidy my workbench (didn't even start on Jeff's!) and survey stuff in the basement to plan what else needs doing down there.
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes


Day 4: Sped through my closet pulling out clothes to get rid of, then dropped them off in the goodwill bin on our way home from shopping this morning. After lunch I headed to the basement and half-filled a box with books to take to the used book store before I got interrupted by Maya. Then I washed out the cabinet under the kitchen sink where we keep the garbage can and green bin -- also investigated the faucet leak I discovered while I was under there.
Time: 1hour 15 minutes.

Day 5:   Time out for myself at a coupon group meet-up. Met some great women, got some good coupons for myself, and a bunch to pass forward to a friend in need. We met at the new Ottawa IKEA, to which I had never been, and I got there early enough for a swift browse through (awesome!).  I also enjoyed an oh-so-yummy dessert and amazing decaf coffee (free refills!) all for the low price of just over $3. It was so nice to get out (after a SUPER gruelling day with the kids!) and then to come home to a quiet house, with children already in bed asleep.

Total: 1 hour  (I'm only counting the first hour, because once I'm out enjoying myself it's  not really HADA.  It's making the time to get out in the first place that's the issue!)

Day 6: Two and a half hours spent folding and putting away laundry, purging more items from the closet, untangling a basket of necklaces and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, and dusting the bedroom dressers. Who knew that our bedroom furniture does not, in fact, have a grey felt cover, but is actually wood underneath all that dust?

Total: 2.5 hours

Days 7 and 8:  Days off!

Total hours of HADA tasks at the end of week 1:  7 hours!