“I think I saw black mold on the noodles.” My heart sank as my fiancé said that over the phone. It shouldn’t be a huge deal – we’ve had a week of eating leftovers from last weekend’s celebrations, and I didn’t clean the fridge before we left. But I’ve always felt intense shame around wasting food, and I know I haven’t been cooking as much as I could. Something about the noodles strikes me as a metaphor: I want to have a handle on my home and run it like a business, but my inconsistent bouts of productivity lead to wasted potential, moldy noodles, and empty planner pages.
I’ve seen a trend online in the last few years: “the one-year experiment”. Content creators like Grace Lemire, Macie Abernathy, and Upgrading Katie have all done variations of this, and it’s a great content format. I might attempt something like this, but I know myself well enough by now to know it wouldn’t work for me. I’m a disciplined person in my daily life, but I have historically struggled with consistency and follow-through on long-term tasks. I would be excellent at a “one-year life upgrade”… for three weeks. And then I would miss a day, or leave food in the fridge too long, get highly discouraged, and likely abandon the whole idea.
My goals for my life include consistently writing, making money from said writing, running a well-managed home, and eventually raising a herd of children to be faithful to God, kind, and intelligent. I would say I’m making steady progress toward those goals. However, there are two sizable blocks that hinder me in the process of achieving them.
One of my persistent challenges is cooking, which I wrote about back in May For someone who claims to want to be a homemaker, you’d think I’d have a deeper appreciation for the art of cooking, but it’s been a slow process of growth. I have an embarrassing number of videos saved to a YouTube playlist called “Food comedy” (it started as a sketch playlist), but I haven’t implemented a single one yet. I know I’m not the only one with a repository of good intentions, but every time I add a new recipe, I can feel the silent self-judgment. The gap between the kind of cook I want to be and the kind that I am is the kind that would require sticking to a one-year experiment to solve. NEED A BETTER END
Another block to me feeling entirely like the CEO of my apartment is my tendency to rush headlong into a project and flame out. I wrote about this most recently back in October of last year, and it’s still an ongoing issue for me. I deeply wish I had spaced out the essays in my last writing sprint. I could have given myself two months’ worth of content and seen more steady growth on my platforms. But it is what it is, and I’m taking the lesson from that season and applying it now. I’m doing my best not to waste my content
Similar to the habit of writing mania, I have a habit of starting new planning and productivity systems and then abandoning them after a month. After years of trial and error, I’ve landed on a handful of flexible systems that I can put down and pick up as needed. Right now, the Structured app is my go-to for combining events on my Outlook calendar with daily tasks. I like that I can move tasks between days, because I have a tendency to overload my calendar with good intentions. Systems that flex with me (apps, undated planners, and blank notebooks) are the ones that I tend to use more consistently. If I can avoid wasting a paper calendar or digital subscription money, that’s a win. (Does this paragraph go here or higher?)
At what I would consider a step above the “up level in a year” crowd, I also follow a handful of YouTube creators who do, in fact, run their home like a business, and quite well. Audrey’s channel Organized Chaos comes to mind, as does Emily Wilson, who posts as Queen of the Household. I admire that all of these women have developed consistent systems and rhythms to maintain their homes, but I also know that 1) they usually only post the highlight reels, and 2) they’ve had years of practice. They don’t show us the times the noodles went moldy in the fridge, or when the dishes piled up for three days. I don’t blame them for only showing the highlights, but I’ve only been at this “job” since April, so I’m still getting the hang of it. (Opening sentence still clunky…)
As much as I would love to be the Chief Home Officer of my apartment and manage everything flawlessly, I still have seasons where I have to throw away the moldy noodles or the unused planners. I never like wasting potential, but I try to take the lessons from each season and apply them to the next endeavor. My fiancé and I cleaned out the fridge together after making tacos, and that night ended up being a highlight of my week. I may not have all my ducks in a row all the time, but sticking with simple systems over time will help. Easier said than done, but one day at a time. That’s all I know right now. Thanks for reading.
NOTES
Question: How do I keep the house from eating the week — and keep myself from only working in spikes?
Systems I want, intensity I do.
A revamped take on that “planning essay” but more of the intensity/consistency issue, and the “household as business” goal.
