Just do one thing before you sit down

When I come home from work I find all I want to do is sit down and veg. Some days I have no energy. My inclination when I walk through the door is to sit down on the couch as quickly as possible. The problem is that I usually have plenty of things to do, including getting a meal ready. 

One day, after thinking about my time-wasting habits,  I realised that flopping down on the couch was the crucial point at which I was choosing to "slack off".  I realised that I needed to change what I did right at that point. Ever the queen of making life easy, I challenged myself to do just one thing before I sat down. I figured that would lighten the workload at least a little. I don't believe in work, work, work but I know that relax, relax, relax is counter-productive as well!

So, one thing is what I try to do before I sit down and succumb to the need to veg out after I come home from work. Keeping it simple, is the key!! I usually assign myself something easy to do, such as put ten things away (yep, there can be a lot of mess sometimes), before I have a cuppa, or clean the basin, then have a snack.

You might have already guessed what I'm going to say next. After I do one job I feel a sense of achievement and I find myself doing a little bit more. The ten things I pick up, quickly and easily, become twenty things. While  I give the living room a quick tidy-up, I start working out what I need to do for dinner. The other day I decided to water the pot plants and I took a quick walk around the garden.  Most of the plants are dying off after the summer season but I found a zucchini ready to pick. 

This is also where a meal plan works well for me. It helps if I start on the meal preparation before I sit down. I sometimes feel daunted by the task of cooking a meal after a day's work, so it is much easier when I don't have to think  too much about what I'm going to cook. I apply the same principle to meal prep: just do one thing for the meal before I take a rest. More often than not, I end up cooking the whole meal.

I recommend doing just one thing when you need to do work but can't be bothered or you're just too tired. It makes life a little  bit easier and lightens the load with minimal effort. And, if you're lucky, you'll probably end up doing more than you set out to do!

Some of this probably sounds outlandish to busy parents who don't always have the luxury of free time before mealtimes.  To tell you the truth, I'm not sure how they do it. 
I do know that  in the years gone by I would be totally drained at times by being with other people.  There would have been times when I felt worthless (and worse) and it was very hard to turn around and do a simple task such as nourish myself with good food. Social anxiety can be extremely taxing on the mind and body.