To be quick about stuff?

[HardLightHologram]

DH's alarm didn't go off so he woke me up at 6.15 (I don't get up until 7) to make his sarnies.

It took me 7 minutes and I'm now back in bed with a coffee and my phone.

He is agog. Apparently it takes him a good twenty minutes and he is astounded that any human being can move so fast. He's calling me The Flash.

All it involves is buttering six slices of bread and slicing cheese and cucumber. I can't see how he drags it out for twenty minutes.

He made ds's lunchbox yesterday as he was off and the took him twenty minutes as well, 2 pate sarnies and a babybel, yoghurt, banana and biscuit.

When I decorate, it takes me a day to do a room, roughly. One coat in the morning and another late afternoon or evening. He's used to it now but it used to make him twitch.

Don't get me wrong, I am very lazy and will happily spend a day watching Netflix, but when I do get moving I like it to be speedy.

He also has half hour toilet trips but I'm not going there.

I think he's a faffer, he thinks I rush things. I say the results speak for themselves and my way is the best. If he would embrace my ways he'd have an extra 13 minutes in the morning to spend in the loo.

AIBU?

(This post actually took me ages because ds woke up and I had to make his breakfast and get him dressed, but that was a quick job as well).

Yup,with you there. Why take an hour to do something when you can do it efficiently in ten and sit down for the other fifty?

Dh also has sandwich spread in his cheese and ham sandwiches

Same at my house. DS takes a good five minutes to put on clean socks, pants, tshirt & jeans. Sometimes I'm talking to him from the other side of the door so I know he's not faffing about. It's bizarre: how do people move that slowly?

I've had a thought too: if ds doesn't love a food item but has to eat it for fuel (I've forgotten to buy him breakfast he loves so is forced to suffer through homemade oatmeal w chocolate chips & maple syrup for example), he will eat it at the speed of a Japanese tea ceremony, all the while apologizing that he doesn't like it. It makes me crazy! I say "just wolf it down, get it over with, stop pro-longing it!!" but he can't do it. A small bowl of something g he doesn't hate but doesn't love can take over half an hour.

So is part of being speedy having the foresight/stomach to power through stuff we don't like to get to the reward?

My dh is the same. When I get up I can put the kettle on and make a coffee, make toast on for the toddler, put the washing machine on and empty the dishwasher all whilst watching the toddler so he doesn't eat out of the kitchen bin in - all in about 10 minutes. It's not hard to multitask. He doesn't get that while waiting for kettle to boil or toast to cook you can do something else. Drives me potty.

When my kids were small and the eldest started school, the first day I got up at 7.30 to get ready. As I was pegging out the washing at 8.30, I thought this is silly, could have stayed in bed longer. Eventually I got it down to a fine art, up at 8 ish, 3 kids washed, fed, dressed and hair done, (they all had long hair down to their waist),out the door by 8.45 at the latest.
In the heady days before children, when I lived at home, I could be up, washed, dressed and out in 7 minutes, tho on one memorable occasion I did it in 4!

God ! I actually thought there was something wrong with my dh.
It drives me potty and he's very defensive about it so it's the only thing we ever tie about.
We are late or nearly late for everything.
He just cannot deal with getting dinner ready when I'm at work. He thinks if we need to eat at 5.30 then he needs to think about it at 5.25!
He will then get hungry so eat massive snacks then go even slower on dinner cos he's not hungry!
It all reaches boiling point when we are going away.
I get into a tailspin trying to remember everything while he tells me to calm down and he will do it.
He will then go off and paint the garage or cut the hedge

Yep. My DH to a tee. Drives me spare.

My dh has to start work at 7.30 but he likes to be there early to check the paperwork and van etc, fair enough. Work is a 5 minute drive away, 20 minutes if he walks.
He sets his alarm for 5.30, showers, shaves etc then sits downstairs for Christ knows how long before leaving. He used to empty the dishwasher in the morning, doesn't do it now as he says he prefers to do it later when he has time! Every evening he falls asleep on the settee, so I suggested he gets up later so he's not so tired. Can't do that, he likes to have time to wake up and think about the day/watch the news/start the day!
My motto in life, and feel free to use it "Time spent sleeping is never time wasted "

You're welcome x

This has ended up being such an interesting thread!

You're all right, I'd never really analysed it before, but it's definitely a multi-tasking thing. Dh seems to lack the ability to do things in parallel rather than sequentially.

Watching him prep a v basic meal (I.e veggie pasta) is painful. I would heat the pan, chop an onion, then whilst the onion is cooking prepare the next veg etc - surely the normal way

Dh stands and chops every last piece of veg - almost as if he's on some cookery show. So he's there with a plate of mushrooms, a plate of peppers etc and he hasn't even got the pan out the cupboard!

engineersthumb- what are you on about? What 'woodwork' needs to dry when you're painting a room? I don't have wood on my walls.

surely decorating to most people means repainting the walls of a room from one colour to another, possibly taking down/putting up wall paper. Which is easily done in a day - if not a faffer!

Redoing woodwork, which I can only imagine refers to a bannister or skirting boards or something, would be a separate job. Although you could still easily do that in a day.

How much prep do you need to do, particularly in newish houses where walls are smooth? Same with 'filing.' It's not doing a half-arsed job if you skip the jobs that are not relevant.

I'm so glad it's not just me and dh. The most infuriating thing for me is when I'm not well (chronic medical condition) and he is off work he tells me to rest and put my feet up and he'll take care of everything. What he actually means is he'll faff so much and run out of time to do everything so by next morning the washing machine is still full of wet clothes and the dishes are piled up waiting to be washed. He has the good intentions of doing it but it's just so much easier to do it myself.

This is so me
My ex was a lovely bloke but jesus christ he was King Faffer! Agree with others it's about multitasking. He did everything in a series of small steps. Then moved onto the next thing. While i seethed in the background!

I however am queen of multitasking. Blitz through things at lightning speed, then enjoy relaxing.
My mum was the same. We both work on the theory that its better to get up early, crack on, and be 'done' by late morning then you can enjoy the day.

Eg. Its now 11.30 on saturday. I got up at 7 and i have polished my whole flat, folded dry clothes, done another load of washing and hung it up, cleaned kitchen and bathroom, changed my bed, done a big shop, phoned and made 2 appointments, collected a prescription and washed my make up brushes.

I can now spend the rest of the day wrapped in a blanket watching tv, eating mince pies

My dp is a faffer as well. It drives me bloody crazy.

He was off work on Thursday and Friday this week so we thought we'd use the time to do some clearing out of stuff.

We have about 7 plastic boxes full of Xmas decorations. All mixed up and a mess. So the plan was to empty them all, sort out into keep/bin and then put back into boxes with all types going in the same box.

In the time it took him to do ONE box and then fanny about looking for blu tack and drawing pins, I'd done five boxes, re-packed them all accordingly and was sat down with a coffee.

He then decided to hang up some more lights, didn't bother clearing a space, knocked a load of Lego buildings over which I had to fix before DD2 got home from school and generally just got on my tits.

He goes back to work on Monday. I shall crack on with the present wrapping on my own.

mycat Not really about faffing but bloody Christmas lights -and the importance some (men?) people place on them.
(I don't really like Christmas lights - think you should just have a few - they make me uncomfortable from an environmental pov - but I know I'm a grouch cos of it...)
One year my DP came home with lots of (tacky) Christmas lights -and for once didn't faff -he whipped round the house fixing them to all the windows, up the stairs etc - when I was out.
Except all the windows needed cleaning (mainly cat spit smears - if you've got a pet you'll know what I mean! It was on my list for the next day before I put our one string of tasteful lights in the front window ...). He ran out of pins and tried to use tape and ripped the wall paper on the stairs. And he put some on a tree outside and walked mud all over the downstairs...
To say I was not full of Christmas spirit over that is an understatement...the next day (he was at work) I had to go round taking down bloody lights so I could clean the windows... and pritt sticking wall paper...grrrrr.
One time I wish he HAD faffed and not got round to putting them up straight away ....or at least not as many as he did.

My fil is an absolutely incredible faffer. Seriously bad. He seems to increase Dh's faffing enormously when he's around him. I sometimes really fear for the future 😂
Leaving the house to go out is hilarious. Fil has to change his trousers, shoes, look for his keys and wallet. Up and down stairs in and out of rooms, patting himself down. I feel murderous. One day me and dd left and walked up to the wimpy as we were starving and fed up of waiting for them to stop faffing there is a thread in classics lol

Socksrock. Holy fuck. I worship you. I thought I was fast but wow!

Ha! I just really really really like my bed... it's easier now the kids are older and can eat without me standing over them...

I am a speedy person and do stuff fast and multitask. My DS however has SN which mean he wants stuff now but I have to carefully manage transitions and expectations (getting him to understand NOW isn't happening). Any attempt to speed through the morning routine means everything goes to shit. I genuinely find it very, very hard to tolerate this but that is my flaw and I accept that he isn't doing it on purpose. When I hear about kids of the same age who just do their stuff in the morning without this need for supervision and managing, I feel envious.

Hope that doesn't make me sound too shit. It has changed me definitely. Now I feel most of the time I can't be bothered to do stuff as it is so much effort and time

I feel that this is a good place to make a confession...

DH is a faffer, takes ages to do basic tasks. I am a speedster, can whizz through jobs and multi-task away.

DH does not know this - he thinks I spend the same amount of time doing housework as he does. I don't, I just do things quicker and then spend the rest of my time MNing doing other things.

The Scotty approach - I like it!

"It'll take me 8 hours to fix this engine"

"We need it done in 2!"

Can't help wondering if all of these faffers display similar incompetence at work. It can be very convenient to ensure that you don't do things properly especially housework, or take so long to do it that someone else ends up doing it instead.

Have a look at the relationships board to see how this can ultimately wear down the partner who ends up doing it all.

I think it's less noticeable at work, but faffer's won't be likely to work in jobs that require multitasking or reacting to emergencies.
No doubt someone will come along saying their extreme faffer OH is a paramedic or something. :)

There's 2 of us in this house. We always have washing up lurking because OH wants to do it - we split the household tasks - but he leaves stuff "in soak" for hours (nothing that needs shaking, like a plate that had toast on it) and just won't ever clear the decks! If I do it, it takes me the time that he spends saying how much washing up there is, to wash up everything and wipe down all the surfaces. Stop the yapping and just do!

And with 2 of us it's a cereal bowl, toast plate, 2 sandwich plates from lunch, 2 dinner plates and cutlery plus chopping board, knives, steamer and baking tray. That's one wash to me... if you let it pile up. I prefer to wash as I go so there's no big task.

Can't help wondering if all of these faffers display similar incompetence at work. It can be very convenient to ensure that you don't do things properly especially housework, or take so long to do it that someone else ends up doing it instead

exactly!
why would you bother being good at menial boring unpaid tasks when there's someone else who takes pride in being a whiz at all these things

Why do the donkey work when there's a donkey willing to do it?