The great reality in this post is I am a homemaking DIY blogger that struggled for the bulk of my marriage to maintain a clean and tidy home. Notice I didn’t say ‘the great irony’? I find that irony lives mostly in the realm of dreams and expectations. While I find irony in any situation amusing if not delightful, I enjoy getting to the truth of things even more. Truth is reality, irony is when our expectations don’t match the truth.
Nice dime store philosophy, Michelle – how does this relate to getting housework done?
Recognizing that my expectations were not manifesting in reality was the key piece in understanding what I needed to do. I’ve spent 20+ years trying every system, reading manual after manual, book after book, blog after blog. I would start strong, doing everything in the new system, my house would look better, for a small span of time – a few weeks, or months. Then something would happen. I would fall behind in my chores, and eventually give up. I would quit, feeling like a failure. I failed the new system became no system will work, because I am a failure. I would start already knowing I would fail, because that’s what failures do. I would foolishly hope that a new system would finally save me from myself.
Any of this sound familiar?
While there is nothing wrong with those cleaning systems, they did not, nor do, work for me. If you’ve found a system that works for you, I am thrilled for you. If you’ve never struggled to keep your house clean and tidy, you have my admiration. If you’re relating to my struggle, I have an idea to share with you. Maybe it will be the missing piece in your struggle!
The Cornerstone
You don’t need me to tell you why you need to clean or keep tidy or organized. You recognize the benefits already or you wouldn’t be trying to find a way to make it work. I’m not going to give you a checklist, or a seasonal system, or some platitudes about how you should be June Cleaver. Instead, I want to help you think differently about what keeping house is.
The Cornerstone is you. All success and failures have their start and end with you. You are your greatest ally or worst enemy. You have to look at yourself without pretense, realistically, truthfully. Let’s start with some questions:
- What does a ‘clean’ home mean to you? – Remember no fantasies allowed! What is the base level acceptable condition of your home to make you feel like it’s clean and tidy? And it’s not piles of laundry and bags of groceries laying around, if you were happy about that, you wouldn’t be reading this. Really think, be honest. Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks, this is your home.
- What are the things that must happen everyday that are not home keeping tasks? Things like a job, getting the kids to school, yoga class, etc. Be detailed, measure or realistically estimate how much time those take. Assign them a mental category that marks their importance, like ‘necessary’ or ‘vital,’ something that signifies that they must happen every day.
On the surface these two questions seem unrelated, I assure you they are related. Stay with me just a bit longer.
I want you to pick something from your base level definition of clean and tidy. This could be doing the dishes, vacuuming, laundry, anything. Now mentally label it as one of your vital tasks. This chore must now be done everyday, just like the other things on the ‘vital’ list. Change nothing else about your normal day to day, only this one thing. Resist the temptation to add to it, deny yourself the excuses not to do it, within reason of course. Illness or unforeseeable life events aside. It may be a mountain of a task the first time, like 20 loads of laundry, or every dish in the house is dirty, but it won’t be after that initial push. You will be down to only what can get dirty in one day.
Keep doing this one task until it feels ‘normal’, like part of your everyday. Once you’re there, time how long it takes you to get it done, just like you did with your ‘vital’ list. Surprising how a once seemingly insurmountable task now only takes minutes, isn’t it?
The Building
The obvious next steps are to add, slowly, more chores from your ‘clean house’ list following the steps from above. You can, of course, do this in the order that makes the most sense for you. You are in charge, accountable to yourself. Keep in mind that the most loving thing to do for yourself isn’t always the most pleasant. The excuses you will tell yourself are the thief of your growth and success.
At their core, chores are simply habits that need to be developed. There is no morality around doing them or not. They are simply part of life, like brushing your teeth, or washing your hands after using the restroom. The value they bring is decided by you. If you are feeling ‘bad’ about the way things are in your home, love yourself enough to change, enough to work on building habits, slowly, painfully, patiently.
Adding a new chore to your ‘vital’ list can feel daunting, or exciting. Maybe you are enjoying your success with the first chore so much you’re excited to design an entire new housekeeping schedule. Or maybe you’re worried that adding anything will lead to failure. I am a mix of both. I was so excited that something was finally clicking for me that I wanted to plan out my entire housekeeping schedule, but I also had the realization that I would absolutely fail if I over loaded myself that way. Since my goal was developing the habits of housekeeping so I could love my home and myself, I decided to plan, but not entirely execute.
What the heck do I mean by ‘plan but not entirely execute’?
Once you have a successful daily habit built around the chore you chose, you have to think of the next one to incorporate, and the next one after that, so on and so forth. This can be tricky. Remember you are setting yourself up for success, so go slow, even when you see the clear path ahead. Add slowly, thoughtfully, taking time to reflect and see how it’s working, or not working for you, before moving on.
Here’s how I tackled adding new habits and planning, but not entirely executing:
- I wrote my base level clean description for each room in my house.
- I broke each room down into tasks, like empty wastebaskets, clean window, dust, etc.
- I assigned tasks that don’t involve keeping a room clean, like washing clothes or grocery shopping a day of the week that made the most sense for my schedule.
- I then assigned each room a day of the week.
- I assigned each task a priority: daily, weekly, monthly.
But I didn’t jump in and just start doing all of it. I kept myself to one thing at a time. I stated with washing dishes every night before I went to bed, and starting the dishwasher. I added putting the dry dishes away and emptying the dishwasher the next morning. Both of those tasks are on my vital list. My kitchen is the center of my home, so I kept adding more chores there first. I added wiping the counters and kitchen table daily, and then sweeping the floor daily, and emptying the trash every day.
Once I felt good about my vital, daily habits for my kitchen, I added in my weekly list, on the day I assigned for kitchen chores. I then started building my habits for the other rooms in my house, beginning with the vital daily tasks, one room at a time, one task at a time. Eventually, it all fell into place. Now when I miss a day because of something unforeseen, my house doesn’t fall apart, it barely notices that anything was amiss at all. I simply pick back up the next week and continue on.
You may find that it works better for you to divide up your chores in a different way, maybe you prefer to get all the sweeping and mopping done for your entire house on one day instead. Whatever you find works for you, do. I find only having my vitals list and one room a day to worry about helps me stay motivated. However you build your housekeeping schedule, add slowly, giving yourself time to build the habit.
The Roof
It’s all about mindset. (See what I did there?)
How you think about things, how you think about yourself, how you think, is key.
Housework? It is a habit to build. Not a commentary on how righteous a person you are. Not a commentary on how big a failure you are. It’s not a commentary at all. Take your emotional self out of the equation, there is no need to feel any emotion while working on taking out the garbage every night. Just go get it done, it’ll take you like 5 minutes tops!
Yourself? Sometimes the most loving things you can do for yourself don’t feel very loving. Exercise routines, anyone? The sore muscles mean you are building up your body, lovingly, yet painfully. Doing the chores necessary to keep your home in a condition you enjoy, isn’t fun. It is boring and monotonous. But it is also a way to care for yourself. You are giving yourself a gift of a clean home, for only minutes of work each day. Self worth is built through the work you do for yourself, by showing up for yourself.
In Conclusion
I found my housekeeping groove by turning all the chores into habits, and building those habits one at a time. I figured out what a clean and comfortable home meant to me. I stopped telling myself I was some sort of failure, stopped worrying about what others, that don’t live with me, think. I started valuing myself enough to do the work for myself. I started investing in me.
I hope you’ve found this post helpful. I’d love to hear how you found your housekeeping groove. Feel free to ask questions in the comments below!