Author: Grahame Mansell-Grace aka Panda Category: Around the Home, Lifestyle
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Musical House Chores!

When I left the City in 2004 I did a number of different things to develop a portfolio career,  including sports coaching in the USA with their Olympic Association, running recruitment centres for a large recruitment company and also doing some online tutoring on Emotional Intelligence also known as EQ.

Before I go on I think it is important to define Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict. Emotional intelligence impacts many different aspects of your daily life, such as the way you behave and the way you interact with others.
If you have high emotional intelligence you are able to recognize your own emotional state and the emotional states of others, and engage with people in a way that draws them to you.  You can use this understanding of emotions to relate better to other people, form healthier relationships, achieve greater success at work, and lead a more fulfilling life.  Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., and Melinda Smith, M.A

In a nutshell, we all have it and some of us recognise it and others don’t.  I think more people over the last 10 years have heard about it and many have kept away from it as it has two very emotive words in it Emotional and Intelligence.  Both are deemed measureable by sum, but as we know that measurement is subjective and opinion based.

My biggest success in the few months I tutored on the face of it looked easy but the Individual and their circumstances when I came in contact were complicated.  My ‘clients’ were passed to me.  I had no selection choice they were given to me by a college where the individuals had signed up for a course in EQ.  But it was an active course so many of their own scenarios and situations had to be used.

This lady was based in the South of England and had two daughters and was recently separated.  She had developed some ‘man hating’ traits which were no problem, and she knew I was one of the opposite gender and this kind of helped her in an obscure way to vent her feelings.

She loved music and had joined a local amateur dramatics group after a break of many years and used this quite often as an excuse when delivering work late!

The module we had to work on was dealing with something she hated doing but it need to be done! Well this was simple, she hated doing housework but recognised that it was a must do!  There was no verbal communications at all it was all virtual so we established that the issue was around the mundane non-productive aspect of the chore in her mind.

I decided that we needed a positive or as I call it a motivational spin here.  So a list of things she liked was made and I selected the following which I felt we could work with to get her to enjoy housework more.  They were family and especially her children and music which included listening and singing.

I took these away and developed a proposal/solution.  The suggestion which I made was tested and proved an instant success.  So here goes!

Step One

1. Count how many rooms or areas need to be cleaned
2. List four times as many songs as rooms and put them on a CD or iPod type device.  Each song had to be a minimum of 3 mins and max of 5 mins.
3. Have a portable music device with speakers available
4. Get a sports stop watch
5. Buy a captains armband from a sports retailer
6. Put all cleaning materials in a box or similar that can be carried at speed
7. Wear suitable comfortable clothes similar to work out gear

Step Two

This is the plan of action.

The mother and 2 children would work as a team.  Time was set aside on a regular basis to do “Musical House Chores”.  A planned route around the house was drawn up and the portable music devise with music was put into Room 1.  The cleaning equipment was also put into Room 1.  The Captains arm band was handed to the ‘Leader’ of that days’ chores whose responsibility was to motivate the team and keep them on track.

The plan is that each room has one song and the whole team cleans that room together.  They can sing dance etc but they have to move onto the next room as soon as the song finishes and then repeat the process. 

So it could mean you are in the room 4 times during the session and that reduces the monotony of cleaning.  The team gets variety of music and a change of scenery every 3 to 5 minutes.

How the team work after that within the basic guidelines is up to them but this proved very successful and enabled the family to, clean the house,  bond as a group, develop communication and leadership skills and the most important thing have fun!

I have used EQ in my sports and business coaching life but never tutored since 2004.  Writing this article has renewed my thoughts and given me some new ideas.  Please try it and you don’t have to be an expert in EQ.  I am not in any way shape or form.  I am just a human being that cares and loves achieving.

Play nicely!