About a month ago, I told my wife I’ve noticed that whenever I come home, once I’m sitting down – or worse, laying down – I don’t want to do anything. As long as I’m standing up, though, I’m fine to do whatever: household chores, going out, whatever.
She’s like, “You’re just now realizing that?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I mean, kind of.”
“Why do you think I always ask you to do things right when you walk in the door?”
So I guess this isn’t a new thing. And I guess I’m not the first to notice.
But now that I have, since then, I’ve been more conscious of it, and I’ve been experimenting with it, trying to stay standing during the day until I know I’m ready to close down.
Typically, this is until around 8:00pm during the week. If I stay standing until then, I’m able to get things done.
What’s cool, though, is that once I hit 8:00pm and do sit down, I feel more relaxed because a) I’ve had a full day doing whatever until 8:00pm, but more importantly b) I know I’m not supposed to be getting back up to do something. It’s guilt-free when I finally do sit down.
As I type this, I’m standing in the kitchen. I have my laptop on the counter. Once I’m finished writing, I’ll just move on to the next task at hand, like these dirty dishes in the sink next to me. Or even if I don’t, as long as I stay standing, the odds are good that I’ll continue to accomplish things I should.
At this point, I’m ready to make it an official experiment: stay standing until 8:00 during the week when I’m home. Weekends are different, and it also doesn’t count if I’m sitting before I get home. It’s not like I’m going to plop down at work or in the car or at someone’s house and not get back up for the rest of the day.
We’ll see how it goes.
