What do you want to do?

I’m going to guess you don’t feel like cleaning or decluttering.

You’d rather be lying on the couch in the middle of the day reading a novel while your kids magically entertain themselves in a silent, educational way.

In my case this means the parrots have not eaten the woodwork while I’m texturing silver for a cuff.

Here’s what I want: to limit my drudgery so I can listen to opera, read books to my birds (yes, like little kids, they love this), use up my watercolors in a burst of creative genius, finish my moribund novel, punch needle my way to nirvana, and make decidedly cool polymer beads.

But I would also like, when I’m in zen scrubbing mode, to be able to mindfully clean a floor without moving stuff that shouldn’t be stacked where it’s stacked. (Picture me on my hands and knees, happily washing with, perhaps, Joni Mitchell on headphones encouraging me to skate away, and then realizing I am in a clutter maze that prevents such skating.)

Feel me? I hope you don’t. My situation may be more dire than yours.

What you want to do and what you have to do might be two different things. But there are ways to make everything easier….to train our brains and to streamline our routines.

As I prepare to reignite Habithacker for you and also for me, please keep in mind: What is it you really want?

What you really want is the only thing that matters on this journey.

Photo: I bought this dish towel at a truck stop while driving cross country with my sis and two cockatoos.Hh