Is there a particular task that you’ve been putting off over and over? I have a task like that. We went out to brunch with friends about a month ago. While we were out, my toddler covered my wool coat in sticky, greasy handprints. My coat was basically un-wearable as it was. Because my coat is made of wool, I couldn’t just toss it in the washing machine. My coat needed to be hand-washed.

As a side note: With a toddler in tow, it would definitely simplify my life to only wear machine-washable items, and that’s how I normally dress. However, I’ve had the coat since long before I had kids, and it is still very usable; so I’ll continue to wear it. But this post isn’t about simplifying your life by choosing machine washable fabrics, it’s about doing a task that’s been put off for too long.

So my dirty coat sat folded on my cedar chest. And it sat and it sat and it sat. I looked at it daily, and each day I came up with reasons why it wasn’t a good day to wash it. It’s been nagging at me for all this time. Finally, today I took the time to wash it. While I was at it, I also hand-washed my boys woolies; we’re supposed to get snow again later this week, so it’s just in time. All of these items are now washed, and are outside hanging on the clothes line to dry.

It feels great! And it didn’t really take me that long to wash the four items. I probably spent more time agonizing over whether or not to wash that coat over the last month than it took me to actually sit down and do it, along with the three other items. Do you have a task that’s been looming over you that you keep putting off? Just sit down and get it done. You’ll feel lighter for it, and then you can move on to thinking about something more interesting.