Our mortgage lender and our real estate agent got together to throw us a housewarming party this past Saturday afternoon. They did some online promotion, sent paper invites to our neighbors, and probably some email, too. We had invited a few of our friends as well.
Nothing like the prospect of people coming into your home to force you to get some stuff done.
Nothing like the prospect of people coming into your home to force you to get some stuff done. Click To TweetSaturday morning there were still boxes in the living room, my home office wasn’t set up at all, there were dishes in the sink, and laundry hanging in the office. (We had only had a dryer since Wednesday, we were still trying to get caught up.) My daughter’s room was pretty much a disaster, since she’d been at band camp 13 hours a day for the past week, and hadn’t finished unpacking either. About the only thing that had happened from a preparation perspective was that I’d gone and bought some shelving so I could set up the office.
Thus, I got up early, went to the gym, and was home by 9AM. By that time, Suzanne had whipped a lot of stuff into shape. I put the bookshelves together and got the office set up. I hung a bunch of pictures on the walls. Annie cleaned up her room. By 12:30, when I had decided I needed to get cleaned up, everything was ship-shape. No boxes were to be seen, and remarkably, only a few of them had ended up in closets. My office was almost completely set up, and what wasn’t done was hidden. There were pictures on the walls. The house was spotless.
By the time folks started setting up for the party, you’d never have known the chaos that had been there a mere four hours prior. The house was ready, the people were all clean, sparkling, and smelling good, and we were ready.
Deadlines are a powerful thing.