Pam Young
All I ever wanted to be was a wife and mom, so I majored in Home Economics in college. One of the courses was in cooking which I’ve always loved to do. Part of the curriculum included a time and motion study to track our steps while baking a cake.
“By being organized,” Miss Cratzberry, the professor, told us; “you will save valuable time and energy to use on other activities in your homes. Being aware of the steps we take in the kitchen, preparing the family’s meals, is vital to becoming efficient in the daily tasks of homemaking.” I’m sure this study was thought up by some efficiency expert like Miss Cratzberry who never married and never had kids. In fact, one of the lessons in her course study was entitled Handling Servants. (Over the years, that information has come in so handy for me!)
Back to the cake walk; I remember winning the prize for the most steps taken! One quarter mile! (Actually I didn’t win a prize as it was supposed to be bad news for me, but I decided to turn it around in my 19-year-old mind into a good thing.) Webster defines a time and motion study as: a systematic observation, analysis, and measurement of the separate steps in the performance of a specific job for the purpose of establishing a standard time for each performance, improving procedures, and increasing productivity —called also motion and time study, motion study, time study. This is what I envision my resulting steps to look like.
Years later when I really was a mom and wife, I never forgot the results of my time and motion test. One day it hit me while I was packing up stuff to take to the gym for an hour workout, that with my gift of taking too many steps in life, it really was a benefit! Because of my attention deficit disorganization, I suddenly realized I was probably getting in a full workout every day. In fact, if I didn’t go to the gym, I’d save the time, energy and money that that activity took from my day. Put that in your time and motion study Miss Cratzberry!
Change your thinking, change your body
I’m going to tell you a story that ties in with my AHA moment, but you’ll have to read all the way to the end to see how it affects you if you’re blessed with being disorganized. In a wonderful book called You Are the Placebo by Dr. Joe Dispenza, he tells of a 2007 study at Harvard by some pretty impressive researchers: psychologist Alia Crum, Ph.D., and Ellen Langer, Ph. D. involving 84 hotel maids.
At the start of the study, the maids all got physicals and none of them knew that the routine work they performed in their jobs exceeded the Surgeon General’s recommendation for a healthy amount of daily exercise (30 minutes). In fact, 67 percent of the maids told the researchers that they didn’t exercise regularly, and 37 percent said they didn’t get any exercise.
After this initial assessment, Crum and Langer divided the maids into two groups. (Each group was from a different hotel so the maids wouldn’t benefit from any talk at the water cooler or the mini bar in room 941.)
They explained to the first group how their activity related to the number of calories they burned and told the women that just by doing their jobs, they got more than enough exercise. They didn’t give any such information to the second group.
One month later, the researchers found that the first group lost an average of two pounds, lowered their percentage of body fat, and lowered their systolic blood pressure (that’s the top number that’s the higher one) by an average of 10 points, even though they hadn’t performed any additional exercise outside of work or changed their eating habits in any way. The other group, doing the same job as the first, remained the same.
Just thinking a thought changed the condition of the maids in group one. Thought can change your body, so start thinking this thought: Disorganized moms burn more calories than organized moms do. Disorganized women exceed the Surgeon Generals recommendation for exercise every day.
Just with this new knowledge, I expect you to lose two pounds, lower your systolic blood pressure reading and lower the percentage of fat content in your body in the next month! Remind yourself every day of this new knowledge. In fact, because I know you are going to sit down in a secluded, quiet room several times a day to pee, take that time to tell yourself this information and watch what happens.
Thank you for reading my blog! I hope it helps you appreciate what a blessing you are. Don’t miss Part II next week! I’ll open your eyes more on wonderful you are
For more from Pam Young go to www.cluborganized.com. You’ll find many musings, videos of Pam in the kitchen preparing delicious meals, videos on how to get organized, ways to lose weight and get your finances in order, all from a reformed SLOB’s point of view.
