Partners in Grime

Partners in Grime
I was reading last night in a book on how to get organized that you should make a goal and then find a "Partner in Crime" to help keep you on target.


This partner is someone who decides they want to do some specific goal as well and so you encourage each other, pressure each other and hold each other accountable.
You also make yourself a Reward Goal and a Punishment Penalty. A nice reward if you win and a big, bad ugly Punishment if you don't! I actually added the Punishment idea from other material and input I have been working on. With my Robert Middleton class when someone is sort of hemming and hawing about getting something done that they want to get done but keep finding all sorts of wonderful reasons and excuses why they can't get to it.. he will put them on the wire with, "Okay, will you make this deal with me? If you don't do the thing... will you send in twenty-five dollars to the political candidate you don't like? The object is that its something you DON'T want to do.. not something that, "Oh well, its going to a good cause" kind of thing... because then you don't even mind failing! It's got to be something you really, really don't want to do!

My penalty is not sending money to anyone its just giving up something for a month - something which I have no intention of giving up by the way. So... I will get my job done ... which is to spend fifteen minutes every day for the next five days cleaning my office. Because you see.. I actually did get the office clean but then I just refused to maintain it! Woe upon woe... so now I am working on creating a new habit to help myself move forward.

Some sort of study says that it takes 21 days to get a new habit ingrained in the mental system ... so I figure I will have to concentrate with this reward/penalty for about a month to really pull it off! But I'm only going to do a week at a time.. because for me a month is just too long to keep honest. Hey, that's what happens when you get older and start figuring out just how you work! Or in my case don't work!

Oh, and I have to explain the Partners in Grime bit. When I was making out my little card this morning on which I was writing my goals and stuff.. I printed out "Partners in Crime" at the top of it.. only my C turned out to look a lot like a G which made the word into Grime. And actually that really applies a lot more to what I'm working on. Grime not Crime! So a couple of the Sisters joined in with me on this noble enterprise and we are all now bonafide Partners in Grime!