i find cleaning to be VERY intimidating. everything about it seems demotivating. i just seems like a never ending to-do list. so many items on the to-do list, just to clean the bathroom!!!
but like, i like having a clean kitchen? and a small amount of cleaning / tidying up / decluttering makes me feel better? I just don’t know what amount that “small amount” is.
But i have figured something out: I can clean / declutter ONE thing. ONE thing is totally do-able! and takes like, 1 minute!
here are the things I hate about cleaning:
- takes forever (or at least feels like it does!)
- lots of little steps makes it feel intimidating
- situations that have even the vague possibly of feeling judgemental “you missed a spot”, “that’s not how I would have done it”, make me feel super de-motivated.
ok, so how do I adapt these things to make them enough less awful that I’m going to do some cleaning? Here’s what I tried:
- takes forever (or at least feels like it does!) – every morning before work, clean ONE thing. limit yourself to ONE. just the bathroom counter. just the bathroom mirror. just dust one bookshelf in the living room. just wipe down the counter in the kitchen next to the sink. ONLY ONE!!
- lots of little steps makes it feel intimidating – every morning before work, spend no more than 3 minutes cleaning something. if it takes less than 3 minutes, that’s great, but STOP at 3 minutes.
- situations that have even the possibly of feeling judgemental “you missed a spot”, “that’s not how I would have done it”, make me feel super de-motivated – i’m doing this when no one else is awake, and no one in the house even knows I’m doing it. it’s like my little secret. somehow doing something good, without anyone knowing, is a motivator?
seems to be working pretty well so far. One morning I dusted the bookshelf in the living room, and while walking to the closet to put the swiffer away, i was walking right past the other bookshelf, so I dusted that too! time spent: less than 3 minutes.
We keep our boxes of tea and hot chocolate on top of the microwave. that area always gets missed when we clean the kitchen. so one morning I audited the tea and cleaned the top of the microwave. Time spent – about 2 minutes.
one morning I cleaned the bathroom counter. Didn’t let myself feel guilty about not sweeping the floor. time spent, less than 1 minute.
bonus: i feel accomplished before I even leave for work!
does the house still need more heavy duty cleaning? Yep. still gotta vacuum, still gotta clean stuff. that’s never going to go away. but somehow I feel like i’ve already crossed off half the items on the list.
let’s see how long I can keep this up!
Girl Stuff 