Like most college students, I had limited storage space. My sweaters were stacked on top of the shelf above my hanging clothes in the closet. I can actually visualize the sweater I was attempting to get one day. It was a cabled cardigan in a muted pink color. I had a thought, “Go get the chair by the desk.” But I countered that fought with another, “That’s too much work. I will just jump and grab it.” Well I jumped and I missed it. So I jumped again and again and again. My roommate was sitting on her bed observing my not so athletic and ineffective efforts and asked a logical question, “Why don’t you just go get the chair?” Without even thinking about the effort I had been expending by jumping into the air repeatedly I replied, “It’s too much work!”
I often laugh at that irony. Unfortunately, I still find myself doing the same thing, using more energy to do a task in the assumed easier way the first time. This never works for me! I always end up needing to redo it the right way. It would be more eficient just to do it the right way to begin with.
A friend of mine in Colorado was a master at moving. When I asked her her secret she said, “Touch it once.” I find this good advice for more than moving. It’s pretty easy to see how ineffective this touching it twice, three times or more is in my children’s behaviors. I can’t even count how many times have I told them “When you walk into a room put the item where it goes because if you drop it on the floor you’re going to have to spend time walking around it and will still have to put it away.” That results in more touches, more time and more effort expended. Although, I am just as guilty of this same inefficiency in many areas of life.
I’m not saying we don’t get redos. I’m just encouraging effectiveness and efficiency by doing it the right way the first time. Try to touch it once!