Over promise = under deliver.

*Before I start this post I would like to take the time to acknowledge that I am aware that I made a few spelling errors in earlier posts including using 'through' instead of 'throw' in the 'how science changed my life' post. I am horrendously embarrased by my spelling mistake and have not been able to edit it. I just wanted to state that I do know that there is a difference between the words throw and through and it will not happen again. Closer editing is in order!!!!*

Over promising is my problem, or so Ben would have me believe. He says this because each night when he asks me about my plans for the next day, I give him a list of things you would need 3 people in order to achieve, or at least to achieve it properly. The list might go something like this: "well..... schoolwork in the morning, then I am going to my yoga class before taking the kids to Soccer lessons and funsports, in the afternoon I am going to put those 6 loads of washing away, then reorganise Diddy's clothes, vacuum and mop downstairs, sort out that stuff in the garage, cook dinner, bake some muffins with K & J, oh and 'so & so is popping over for a playdate in the afternoon. Oh wait - and I also have to order our groceries online and I might pop down the gold coast to see Kristy.' This list of things doesn't even include my standard 90 mins of tv watching after the kids go to bed, or the hours I spend sitting on my rear breastfeeding Diddy.

Ben claims that it is better to under promise and over deliver. He is always on at me to make a realistic plan for the day.

So today I gave him what he wants. When he asked me this morning what I was going to be doing today, I said to him "schoolwork, yoga and I'm going to try to squeeze in a long nap'.

Given the fact that I have spent most of this week entertaining our Japanese exchange students (who left this morning) and almost zero time on washing and housework I'm sure my list surprised him. He probably thought that I was reeeeeallly under promising so I could really over deliver.

Boy was he mistaken!!!

I did the kids schoolwork, went off to my yoga class, came home and had a nice loooong nap with Rohan and Isabelle. I woke up soooo excited that I had done everything on my list I went about my afternoon like I had a ton of free time. Never mind the 10 loads of washing waiting for me (I am seriously not exagerating about how many loads - I have had to strip 4 beds this morning and I haven't done any washing all week), or the 4 loads (again - no exageration) waiting to be put away, I felt like I had not a thing to do.

I'm sure he WAS extremely surprised when he came home and found out that I had achieved my goals for the day - finally - but had done nothing else. I didn't even cook dinner. There was certainly no overdelivering going on in our house tonight!!!!

Surprisingly Ben didn't seem to mind too much that I had spent the majority of my day doing nothing.

I think he is just going to have to accept that I will constantly be filling my days with things I have absolutely no intention of doing. If I don't have some unattainable goal to work towards then I do what I need to and nothing more!!
I think Ben's constant under promising and over delivering is far more irritating. He will always claim something will take much longer than we both know it will, because he allows for absolute worse case scenario. And when we bought our house he had to be sure that we could afford a 10% interest rate rise - just in case!!! It's not just our house payments.... it's everything!!! And I know he is under promising so when he says to me 'when we travel with our caravan through the centre, we will take 1.5 times longer than what we would if we weren't towing our caravan', I think 'oh so we might take a tad longer than google maps would have me believe'. But I have to adjust our planned schedule accordingly to include the excessive travel time. It is soooo annoying!!!!
I am a very flexible person (and I mean mentally NOT physically - anyone who has watched me attempt yoga can attest to that) and my list of chores each day contains a must column (schoolwork, kids activities, 90 mins of tv) and a wants column (gym, housework, washing, cooking). After I have finished with my must column, if I am presented with anything that is remotely more interesting than the things in my wants column, then I will usually take the more interesting option and abandon all current plans. I have absolutely no problems changing my plans at the last minute, much to Ben's frustrations. He believes that if you plan to do something then you do it. You don't deviate from the plan!!!

Anyway I am going to abandon this post now.... something better has come up!! I have a few more posts in mind, including one fascinating one about why I like to fall asleep with my light on, so I will try get to them later today!!!

xx