The Productivity Bender: Who Was She, and Can She Come Back Every Tuesday?

Last night, I wrote a to-do list. Not just a casual jot-down of vibes and vague intentions. This was a full-blown strategic plan of attack. Forty items. Four. Zero. Because my parents are coming to visit at the weekend, and my brain decided that the only acceptable way to welcome them is to pretend I live in a show home curated by a woman with no emotional baggage and an unlimited budget for storage baskets.

And here’s the shocking plot twist:
I actually did it.
Or at least, a terrifyingly impressive chunk of it. Enough to qualify as one of the most productive days I’ve had this side of the pandemic.

The Morning That Shouldn’t Have Worked

I woke up around 7:30 in the morning, not because I was feeling fresh and ready to conquer the world, but because Dave was getting ready for work. I considered going back to sleep. But instead I did something crazy. I got out of bed.

Normally I would slide right back into bed and pretend the day hadn’t started. But instead, I made a tactical decision:
I stripped the bed.
Because if the sheets are off, the bed isn’t sleepable. And if the bed isn’t sleepable, I can’t crawl back into it and vanish for three hours under the duvet like the cozy little goblin I truly am at heart.

And that move? It worked. The momentum started rolling, and suddenly I was off.

Though the sheets did also need cleaning!

Upstairs Complete by 1 PM

First battlefield: laundry.

There were four baskets waiting for me like neglected quests in a video game I’d been avoiding. I put my headphones in, cranked the music, and went into folding beast mode. Clothes were sorted, folded, and put away with an energy I usually reserve for anxiety-cleaning before guests arrive with five minutes’ warning.

Then I moved on to the bedroom. Dusted. Vacuumed. De-chaosed. (Is that a word? I have no idea)
Bathroom? Fully cleaned. It even tried to murder me when I slipped and fell backwards in the bath, but I survived.
Landing? Cleared and hoovered.

By 1 PM, the entire upstairs was done. Five hours felt more like three by then. My Samsung watch was still politely insisting I’d only taken 5,000 steps. Which is either proof that it lies or that folding laundry simply doesn’t count as a “real” activity unless I do it on a treadmill. Rude.

Downstairs and Out

After the upstairs win, I tackled the downstairs: the stairs, the shower room, the hallway, the front room, and the dining room. Each got the royal treatment of wiping, sweeping, and vacuuming.

I am not exagerating when I say that prior to this my dining room resembled a workshop, complete with a chop saw neatly sat on the half finished table (as in I started making a table and just never finished it).

I made the bed. I ran the dishwasher. Then I left the house to walk the 30 minutes to the shop and meet Dave from work like a functioning human being.

Thanks to that little outing, my Samsung watch finally acknowledged my efforts and let me cross the 10,000-step finish line. Validation at last.

Once I got home, I made (and scoffed) bagels. I started tea, chicken salad if you wondered. And finally, finally, I sat down to eat like a person who has conquered some sort of domestic Everest.

And thats not all

I then even managed to finish marking papers for school and planned a lesson. So its now 7 pm, and I am finishing a blog post I started a few hours ago whilst making tea!

The Honest Bit

Now look. I don’t want to give the impression that my house is Pinterest-worthy. It’s not. Not even close. There are still three rooms I’ve completely ignored, and the kitchen looks like a rejected set from a Gordon Ramsay episode. And that is before we discuss the unfinished DIY scattered around the place! But it’s definitely less chaotic, and I can walk through my hallway without having to hurdle a laundry basket or side-step a pile of mystery clutter.

This wasn’t about making everything perfect. It was about creating enough space that I don’t feel like I’m drowning in my own environment. And that’s a win.

Well it was actually about making my house accessible for a wheelchair user, but the above is also a bonus!

The Aftermath (Or Just the Beginning)

This wasn’t just a good day. This was a rare and slightly suspicious productivity bender. The kind of day that shows up once every 40 cycles, unannounced, and then vanishes just as mysteriously.

Tomorrow, I might do nothing. I might stare at the list and wonder if I hallucinated the entire thing. I might sit on the kitchen floor eating crisps and refusing to acknowledge the oven exists. And that’s okay.

Because today, I did the thing. All of the things. I was so effective that even my procrastination is afraid of me right now.

Spoiler Alert: The Day Is Far From Over

Tonight, the real work begins. I have to finish this blog, publish it, write an instagram post, followed by lesson planning that demands brainpower I’m not sure I have left, as well as marking a couple of rogue tests! Productivity highs are fleeting. But I’ll face it all armed with the knowledge that I managed to pull a small miracle in the chaos of life.

To Future Me (and maybe you too):

When you feel like a failure for not being able to keep up, remember this day happened.
Not because you finally fixed yourself or figured it all out.
Not because of discipline or magic habits.
But because sometimes, for no clear reason, things just work.
You caught the wave. You rode it. That’s enough.

Let it be weird. Let it be good. And when it’s not, nap anyway.