WWJD?

Efficiency, thy name is Jan. 

My friend Jan is my role model for Getting Things Done.  She gets more done in one day than I can accomplish in a week.  Jan can rise before her alarm clock in the morning, bake muffins from scratch, weed the garden, paint the stairs, repair the crumbling foundation, decorate the dining room and post her facebook status all before her kids and husband wake up.  Talk about six impossible things before breakfast!!!!

My morning routine is somewhat less efficient.  A typical day begins at six when I hit “snooze” for the first time. I’ve perfected the art of snoozing; I can wake up, hit snooze and return to R.E.M. sleep a good five times before I give in to the inevitable and grudgingly throw back the duvet.

This is followed by an astonishing number of trips up and down the stairs as I attempt to organize coffee, showering, dressing, breakfasting and trying to get out the door by 7:15.  Which I never do.  Ever. 

“How is that possible?” asked Jan, last night, when I was moaning about my mornings. This is a good question.  How IS it possible for one adult person to take so long to get going in the morning? 

Jan asked a few more probing questions about why I’m up and down the stairs so many times instead of just sensibly showering, dressing and making-up before going down for breakfast.  Instead of confessing the obvious truth (i.e. Clearly, I'm not “just sensible”), I blamed it on the Harry Potter Bathroom. 

You see, the house I live in has an upstairs bathroom and a downstairs bathroom which is located in a closet-ish affair under the stairs (like Harry Potter’s bedroom).  For the first month or so that I lived here, the upstairs toilet wasn’t working, so first thing in the morning, I had to traipse down to the Harry Potter loo.  And while I was down there, I would put the coffee on and noodle around the kitchen, flip through a magazine…. It became my morning habit. (Who am I kidding? I’ve always been a morning noodler.)

“My husband is the same way,” Jan sighed.  “After ten years, I still can’t convince him to get dressed before he comes downstairs.  He’s the last one ready every morning.  The kids and I will be ready to get in the car and he’ll just be getting in the shower.”

Hmmmmm….. getting dressed before going downstairs.  Novel idea.  I resolved to try it Jan’s way for one day and see how it went. 

So, this morning, when my alarm went, and I hit snooze as usual, a fleeting thought went through my head.  “I bet Jan never hits snooze.”  I got out of bed. Used the UPSTAIRS loo and got immediately into the shower. 

All morning, I kept thinking, “WWJD?” (What would Jan do?) and using that as my criteria for the next move.  In amazingly rapid succession, I bathed, dressed, blow-dried and put on my mascara.  I even found a few minutes to tidy my bedroom, make my bed and clean up my writing desk.  All without the benefit of coffee. 

When I got downstairs, the coffee was already made, thanks to the automatic function on the coffee maker.  AND I had 20 minutes to drink my coffee and eat my breakfast. Everything else was done.

I wafted around with my coffee and cereal, feeling like some kind of domestic goddess, all serene, efficient and capable.  What a great morning!  At 7:14, I brushed my teeth – right on time and with so much accomplished.  Everything was neat and tidy and all was right with the world. 

As I leaned over the sink to spit, the cowl neck of my sweater swung out in a graceful arc, forming a little pouch that perfectly caught my entire mouthful of foam.

Well, F#*&!

“WWJD? WWJD?” I thought frantically tearing off the sweater and flinging my drawers around looking for something else clean to throw on.  Changing my sweater had a domino effect on the rest of my outfit and everything spiralled downward from there until it was 7:28 and I was charging out the door, thirteen minutes late, sweating and dishevelled, missing the bus and suspecting that my new outfit made me look like a circus clown.  (Specifically the midget circus clown who runs in circles around the clown car, begging the other clowns to let him in.) 

Well, it was a fun experiment to try channelling Jan for the morning, but the truth is, I am a born noodler. The only cure may be to find a job that starts at noon!