15 seconds

Last night I caught myself getting lazy.

I emptied an ice tray (that’s what poor people without automatic ice makers use) and was about to put it back into the freezer when I thought to myself how ridiculous I was. I get lazy a lot! I have a bad habit of dropping my clothes off at the end of the bed or in front of my closet. I was not raised this way, in fact I had a chore book as thick as a phone book that my dad was very thorough with checking.

So I decided to do the right thing and fill up the tray that I had just emptied. A funny thing happened, I needed ice this morning, and I had a full tray waiting on me.
Last night, I wondered how much time I was worried about wasting when I was about to put the tray back in empty, so I figured I would count, just to see how long it would take me to do the ‘right’ thing, I also recorded a couple of other things and their times:

• Fill up ice tray, put in freezer – 15 seconds
• Clean up Tristan’s mess with cloth, put in hamper – 12 seconds
• Re-hang shirt I decided not to wear – 7 seconds
• Plug up my cell phone instead of letting the battery die – 5 seconds

35 seconds actually saved me time and problems. I had ice when I needed it and did not have to wait a couple of hours, there was no mess on the floor to step in, my shirt was not making the room messy on the floor or on the bed, and I didn’t have to wait half the day to use my cell phone because it was charged. It pays to take the 15 seconds to do the right thing. Now I need to take the 20 minutes and clean up those areas I put off.

20 minutes or 15 seconds? What are you putting off that will cost you more time and problems in the end?