I believe that keeping a clean house is a learned skill. Some people are taught very young the ways to clean a house. They have good role models to learn from, and so find the transition from student to master of the skill with seeming ease. Children seem to learn with ease.
Some people have to learn the skill when they are older. Just as with any skill, it can be harder to learn as an adult. A man named Noel Burch developed a hierarchy of learning, a set of stages that everyone goes through in order to learn a new skill.
The four stages are outlined here. Basically, it comes down to first: being unaware that you don't have a skill. Second: being aware that you don't have the skill. Third: being aware that you have a skill. And finally: being unaware that you have a skill.
When it comes to keeping house, you may have all the cleaning skills down pat - you know how to clean a bathroom or to do the dishes. The skill you need to learn still is how to put it all together into a cohesive whole which leads to a clean home. I was at this stage for quite awhile. I didn't really know I didn't have the skill to make it all work together, but I did clean. My home still was never neat, never all clean at the same time. I got very frustrated.
When I started researching methods for cleaning house, I came across Flylady. That website had a model for keeping house. It utilized cleaning zones and daily chores, and through it all, the website suggested baby steps. Well, I realized there was a skill I didn't have. Common wisdom says this is the point where most people wind up. They realize they don't have a skill, that it's hard to learn that skill, and that repeated attempts keep failing.
For years, easily 12+ years, I attempted and failed to establish a cleaning routine utilizing zones and daily cleaning efforts to keep my house neat. Maybe I couldn't do it because I had too many distractions in the form of young children. Maybe I allowed myself to be distracted by my crazy internet friends. I had lots of "reasons" not to learn the skill. Who knows which ones apply. Maybe they were all excuses. Maybe they were legitimate.
Last year, in the summer, after a rough spot with my husband, I was spurred on to finally learning this skill. I researched online - you'd think I had the idea by now, right? Still, I needed a mentor or two. I can't remember all of the sites I visited then. It was a lot. Through the course of this research, I built up a set of skills.
I figure I'm now in the stage of knowing I know the skills. It's part of why I'm so willing to crow about them to anyone who will listen. I feel accomplished and proud of my newly neat and clean house. Maybe in another six months, I will be able to mindlessly utilize the set of skills I've learned. For now, I'm still excited and I want to share.
Learn a New Skill: Keeping House
I Hate Cleaning
I hate cleaning. I do. I've spent over a dozen years avoiding the cleaning that should be done.
What I do like is a clean house. I like being able to invite people over at short notice and know my home will be welcoming rather than wasted.
I'm the one who spends the most time in the house. Being mostly a stay at home mom (I work about 10 hours a week) with kids in school, I have hours in my day to spend staring at the walls around me. And the floors. And the windows.
The point is: Do I want to stare at dirty walls, floors and windows or do I want to stare at clean ones? Personally, I'd rather stare at clean ones. It'd be mighty nice if someone else did the cleaning, but that's just not going to happen around here.
So, in the last year, I slowly figured out what works for me. It's a process, to be sure. Helping that progress along is research on the internet, a couple of housecleaning jobs (which paid) and a lot of to-do lists. Oh, the to-do lists! I'm still learning.
So, yeah, I hate the process of cleaning. What I love is the results. What I brag about to my mom (and anyone who will listen) is the fact that I worked so hard to accomplish this clean house....and it's happening. I sound obsessed with cleaning my home, but it's because it's such a big deal to me to have a clean house.
I hate cleaning. Even if it doesn't sound like it.
Overwhelmed by the To-do List
When you have a long to-do list, it's easy to get overwhelmed by everything you "should" be doing. There are a few ways to tackle the overwhelming to-do list. I'll explain my way. Do you have a different way to share?
If you make a long to-do list on a sheet of paper, don't expect to get it all done in one day. Prioritize the top one or two things and make them your goals for the day. Think in terms of "What am I going to do now?" rather than "What's on my to-do list?"
I recently made a list of everything I'd like to see done in my house, from cleaning to repairs to remodeling. If I look at it as a whole, I think, "HOLY Batman, Robin! How will I find the time, money and skills to do all of this??" It's a lot.
So, when I started my deep cleaning challenge, I took all of the cleaning tasks and divided them room by room. That formed my deep cleaning to-dos. But, again, if I look at that to-do list (the one for an individual room) it's easy to get overwhelmed by my wish list. So, I starred the one I thought was the most important one to get done in that room. The one that if I did nothing else to clean that room, it would make the biggest difference. In the kitchen, for me it was the refrigerator. Monday was the first day of deep cleaning my kitchen and the very first thing I did in there was to clean out my fridge. Anything else I get done in that room this week is a bonus, because I got the thing that bothered me the most taken care of.
Separating out the cleaning tasks still left me with repairs and remodeling. Again, I took the repairs, divided them room by room and then prioritized. Now, if the one thing that will make the biggest difference, or which most needs to get done is something I can do, great. If I need to hire someone, I'll take care of that. I'll probably give myself a deadline for that, because it's really easy to put off calling someone.
So, taking to-do lists and breaking them down into smaller chunks is one way to make things less overwhelming. Prioritizing and giving yourself permission to do just that one in a day or a week - depending on the size of the project - will also help save your sanity.
Remember, it's not about racing to a finish line. Slow and steady progress is what you're looking for.
Progress, not Perfection
I have taken on the task of deep cleaning my home. It should take about 12 weeks to hit every area, as I'm focusing on one room a week. It might sound overwhelming, but it's not really. For one thing, I've pretty well hit maintenance mode in most of the rooms in my home. (Did I mention the sunroom? Yeah, it's an unusable wreck.) The fact that each room is already at a tolerable level of clean makes it easier to think about digging beneath the surface in each room.
The other reason that it's not overwhelming is that I know I'm not expecting each room to come out perfect. Sure, it'd be nice if I get through every task I've set myself for each room. Realistically speaking, I'll run out of time to do each thing.
This week, I'm working on my kitchen. My cupboards are cluttered, my counter is cluttered, my refrigerator is in desperate need of cleaning out, as is the freezer. So, I'll do the things that are sanitary matters first, like the fridge and freezer. Then I'll hit the other tasks.
I'll only do what I'm physically able to do each day, and I'll only do what I have time for each day. I will take regular breaks - I'll probably set my timer for 30 minutes and work til it goes off. Rest for a bit and then back to it.
The goal is not to have a spotless kitchen at the end of the week. (I won't lie: I hope it's quite clean.) I AM looking for a more organized kitchen than I started with.
Before I start my deep cleaning each day, I'll do my regular chores. Today, it's cleaning the bathrooms. It will take me about 30 minutes total to do two bathrooms. I'll hit the ground running as soon as I drop off my son at school.
It feels really good to be able to deep clean my house. I feel like I accomplish something each day. I brag about how clean my home is now when I talk to my mom....it's pretty sad, actually. It's all I have to talk about! When my father-in-law comes over and comments on what a big difference there is now versus before, though, it feels fantastic.
What jobs around your house would make a big difference in how your home looks? Deep cleaning may not be what you need to do right now. Walk through your house with eyes to individual tasks or areas that need the most cleaning. Make a list. Prioritize the list. Then decide when you'll do the first task and then get it done! Progress, not perfection. Do a little at a time.
Help! My family won't pitch in!
Ok. My family LOVES to make a mess. If there's a mess to be made, they'll do it. From cluttered desks to piles of laundry to piles of dishes, my family can make our home feel dirty. No matter how often I tried, they were always resistant to doing any cleaning. My husband was the best - he was relatively willing to do dishes when they needed it.
I'll tell you the well kept secret of those moms whose kids are always happy to pitch in and help and whose husbands so willingly pull their weight around the house. The house is already clean. You heard me right: Their house is already clean before they ask for help.
So, what's the use of asking for help? Maintenance.
So, say your house is a mess. (I know, it's hard to imagine, right???) You keep nagging at your family to help you clean. What they probably see is not the individual mess they make, but the overwhelming task of cleaning the whole cluttered, dirty place in one day. You also know how they feel. You don't want to clean it either!
Now, say your house is relatively clean. Instead of nagging your family, they actually take care of their clutter without being asked...at least a lot of the time. Why? It's easy for them to see the wreck they've made of the place, and therefore easier to wrap their brains around picking it up.
But how do you wrap your own brain around cleaning it all up on your own? Well, you do it little by little. It's not going to happen in one day. If you try to do it all in one day, you wind up exhausted and cranky.
Yesterday, I was so tired. I didn't have a logical reason for it really: I spent the morning doing things for my blog, went to work for three hours, and came home and napped. I got up from my nap when my husband got home. To my surprise, he started doing the dishes. I felt so bad that I hadn't gotten that done, or taken out the trash, or done anything around the house, I apologized to him. He smiled and said, "Hey, we all have off days. I don't mind getting things done on your off days." If every day is an off day, though, he gets resentful of pitching in.
I think this is especially true for the housewife. I know that 15 years ago, when we decided I would mainly be a stay at home mom, the deal was that I would take care of the house and he would bring home the money. I did a sad job with my end of the deal for a long time, even though I couldn't have asked for a better provider. He would work all day at the office, come home and find the house a wreck and me laying around napping or watching tv. So, he did the dishes and cooked dinner, muttering the whole time about doing it. It's a different world now. Even if he comes home and finds me napping, he knows I did something around the house each day, because the house is much neater than it was before. I usually have the dishes done and dinner in the works, so it's not so hard on him on the days I could use the help.
Basically, I can only speak from my experiences. I have found though that my family groans and moans less about pitching in now that the tasks are far easier to do in a short amount of time. I even find that the cleaning bug is contagious. My teenage daughter CLEANED her room, without being asked, and all on her own not too long ago. I was shocked.
Good things happen when you put the effort in. Your hard work is an inspiration to those around you. Want to get your family to help? You have to start the effort.
Room by Room or Task by Task?
Some cleaning dockets set up the week by task. On Monday you dust; on Tuesday, you do the floors. The advantage of doing the work this way is that you only have one set of tools out at a time. On Monday, all you need is your duster. On Tuesday, your broom and mop or your vacuum. I think this way of cleaning is better for after you hit a maintenance level of clean in your house.
Even once I hit that level, though, I will prefer my room by room method. Room by room cleaning means that every room has its day to be cleaned. I clean my rooms from top to bottom - declutter, dust and then the floors. I have a handful of tools I use - I keep it to a minimum so that I'm not overwhelmed with them. I use a wool duster, a broom and dustpan, a mop and a bucket. That's it. Nothing complicated. I have tile floors throughout my house, so the broom and mop work well for me.
When I clean my home, I know it will take a week to hit the main rooms. I don't clean my kids' rooms for them, unless they really need the help. I will also skip some rooms, such as the sun room or the utility room if I want to or I need a couple of free days. (Right now, I keep skipping the sun room and it is in bad shape!) Since I know it will take a week, I can plan accordingly for big events.
This week, we're having a birthday party at our house. I'm not panicked about the house being clean enough for guests for two reasons. One, I've been keeping up with my cleaning for the past several weeks and the house just needs some touch ups today to be ready. Two, the room I was most spazzing about - the living room, which is the first one people walk into - finally got cleaned up this week. Before it had been cluttered and full of piles of junk. Some of it needed to go to the thrift store. Some of it needed to be pitched. And some just needed to be put away. Regardless, I finally made it happen. I wish I had taken before and after pictures!
I'm sure task by task has similar benefits - in that every task has its day to be done. I just don't have the wherewithal to clean all of my floors in one day! At least with the room by room method, my body experiences different movements as I clean, rather than the same movement over and over. My back suffers less this way.
In the end, you have to pick which method suits you best. Try them both and see what works for you.
The Tool I Started With
So, saying I went from Chaos to Clean is great and all. It's ok to recount the way I felt in the past and the ideas I found from websites out there to help get organized and get clean. BUT, were there actual tools I used to make the change, to help me mentally get to where I am today?
I know I said FlyLady is too routinized for me. The daily planners that dictate what I do when are not for me. I can't schedule every little thing I do. What about "life" - you know, that messy thing that interrupts the best laid plans? "Life" seems to happen every day for me! So, I knew from looking and trying it out, that the daily "every minute accounted for" planner was not for me.
I did find a routine though. I found it because I found cleaning dockets. If you're like me, you thought "docket? What's a docket?" It's just a list of things to do. After researching lots of different dockets online, and trying a few of those examples, I finally decided to make one of my own.
First I decided whether I wanted to clean by room or by task. By task means washing all of the floors in one day, for example. By room means doing everything to get the room clean from dusting to decluttering to floors. I decided to go by room. It seemed less overwhelming to me than trying to get all of the floors in the house done in a day.
Then I went to each room and made a list of the things I'd like done in each room. I didn't stress over specifics, except in the bathroom. In the bathroom, I wanted to be sure I had each small task listed from cleaning the toilet to replacing the stash of toilet paper in the room. Why?
Well, by listing each task out, it gave me the option to skip tasks if I didn't have the time or energy in a day. It let me quickly see which tasks had the highest priority so that I could do those first. Some things, the sanitary things, are more important to get done in the bathroom, let's face it.
I usually find that if I do nothing else, I clean the floors. It makes me happy to have clean floors, even if they only last until a cat or dog drops a furball. What makes the house feel clean to you? That's the task you want to have the highest priority.
So, with the docket made, I began to work on my house. I knew that any given task on the list could be skipped, as long as I did something on the list that day. And in the beginning, each task was laborious because of the clutter around the house, so I didn't always make it beyond picking stuff up from the floor. But the next week, when I got to that room again, it was a little easier to pick up the clutter and I got a little further in the cleaning.
The biggest thing the docket did was help me set a weekly routine. Now I know that on Mondays, I clean bathrooms. On Wednesdays, I clean the kitchen. And so on. I tend to take the weekends off - from Friday to Sunday - because I work Fridays and Sundays, and I like to spend time with my family on Saturdays. But I still have tasks listed on Friday and Saturday in case I feel the urge to clean something.
So, the biggest tool that shifted the way I clean, was the cleaning docket. From reading online, I know that each one is as individual as the person that makes it. So, you can try using someone else's but I highly recommend making your own.
Does your sink ever look like this?
So, your sink is piled with dishes...what now? Do you choose to ignore them or do you clean them up? If you ignore them, the pile will be bigger later. If you do them now, there will only be more to do later. What to do.....
Fighting Inertia
"Objects in motion, tend to stay in motion. Objects at rest, tend to stay at rest." Inertia. How do I fight it? When I first started trying to get my house clean, it was a battle. I did little jobs throughout the day, rather than doing every chore early in the day. I would set my timer for 15 minutes (or 10 minutes, or 5 minutes, depending on my energy levels that day) and do a task for those 15 minutes. If it wasn't done, it didn't matter. I stopped. I went to rest again.
After doing this for several weeks, I decided there was a more efficient way to work. First of all, I have to get up to take my son to school each morning. So, since I was up and moving anyhow, I just started doing my daily chores as soon as I got home. I was doing the bare minimum to keep up the house: dishes, maybe some laundry, and wiping down the bathroom (but not really cleaning it). I was living with the principle that every small job I do is a blessing to my family. No doubt, some of the jobs were small.
Meanwhile, I was getting more and more interested in seeing my house get clean. I began researching on the internet to find ways to organize myself for cleaning. I found many ideas. I implemented a few. The ideas are out there, if you have the motivation to look for them (and then use them).
Ideas Gleaned
Flylady has some great ideas. Cleaning zones, better organization....the list of things that are good about the site is actually long. However, I fell apart at the routines. They are too strict for me! Plus, as my sister in law pointed out - I don't wanna wear lace up shoes when I'm at home! That's my barefoot time!
One of my favorite ideas from Flylady, though, is the idea that "Everything you do to clean your home is a blessing." No matter how small the effort is, how incomplete I think the job is, the fact that I put effort into it today is a blessing was a radical idea to me. I don't have to clean an entire house at once??? I don't even have to get one room completely clean at once? I can do the dishes but not wipe down the counters? I can scrub the toilet but not clean the whole bathroom?
Every small thing you do to organize or clean your house blesses your home.
When I first started getting myself together and cleaning regularly, I didn't always have the motivation to get started. When I reminded myself that I'd be blessing my home and family by doing just a little, it was easier to get up and get it done. I'd found some of my motivation. It was incomplete still, but I had something to get me started each day.
Accept It!
So, "they" say that the first step to making a change is acceptance. If you're anything like me, you know quite well that you are living in chaos. You're just not sure how to fix it, or even if you want to put the effort in TO fix it. So, first you have to accept the fact that you don't want to live in a home that's a wreck all the time.
How do you do that? I don't know!!! I know it was an evolution of thinking for me. It was the strain of worrying about who would stop by and when which wore me down. It was the constant state of my kitchen (dishes everywhere, all of the time) which made it hard for me to feed my family home-cooked meals. It was the financial strain of eating out all of the time. One way or another, something had to change.
Once I accepted that a change had to happen, I began to look for ways to make the change. There are a lot of resources out there on the internet. Probably one of the most popular is Flylady. She preaches baby steps. Her method was my first eye-opening look at how to hack away at Chaos. You can check her out at flylady.net. Although her method is not for me, maybe it will work well for you!
Acceptance is only a part of the equation. I still found motivation an issue. I would start a method like Flylady, but after the thrill of a shiny sink faded, I found myself letting it slip to the wayside and I was living in a wreck again. Motivation has to come from within, "they" say. So, while you're thinking about accepting your situation, that it must change, think about why you want it to change. What goals, short term and long term, do you have for your home? Would having a clean(er) home make you happy?
Living in Chaos
So....what does living in Chaos look like? Well, you probably already know...but just in case you don't:
Wake up in the morning and notice how dirty your sheets are. Try to ignore the fact that the comforter on your bed reeks. In the bathroom, the toilet makes you gag a little even as you sit on it, its bowl is stained and gross. Washing your hands involves a quick rinse because you don't have any soap, and you shake your hands to dry them because you don't have any clean towels.
You trip your way down the cluttered hallway. The kids have piled toys in one corner, you've piled books in another. And the animals have deposited furballs everywhere too. The piles of junk continue as you walk into the kitchen. Here they are on the counter. All over the counter. Dirty dishes, pizza boxes, pots and pans crusted with old food. Carry out containers - because your kitchen is too messy to cook in. The sink is full of more dirty dishes and the grout along the back splash of the sink is mildewy and black. You skip breakfast, simply because you've lost your appetite in that kitchen.
This is just a taste of it. There are piles of clutter on every available surface. The floors haven't been vacuumed or mopped, or even swept in over a month. You would rather buy more clothes than do laundry. You trip over the kids' toys everywhere you go. And boy! Do those legos hurt when you step on them!
Chaos looks exactly like it sounds. There is not an iota of organization anywhere. The same Chaos that breeds in the house, lives in your head too. You can't find the energy or motivation to clean. Why bother when it will just get dirty again in no time flat? Why bother picking up the kids' toys? They just pull them out again and leave them behind when they are ready for another game. Why bother nagging anyone to clean up behind themselves? All you hear is whining and grumpiness, even from your husband.
The Chaos keeps you from inviting people over. You begin to say things like "Love me, love my mess." You warn people who stop by to "Just ignore the mess," all the while praying that they don't try to stop by again.
Wait. You get word that your parents are coming to visit. You immediately feel the pressure to have a clean house. Oh, by the way, they are coming to your house in just two days! The pressure is mounting! How in the world are you going to get your house clean in that amount of time?!
Easy. You shove things into closets, just to get them off the floor. You maybe shove some dirty dishes in the oven or maybe you even get up the motivation (finally) to put some in the dishwasher to clean.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Maybe just some of it is typical for you. I've done all of it at least once in the last 15 years. Either way, I found it absolutely DRAINING to live in the chaos. I didn't realize how draining it was until I started on my journey from Chaos to Clean.
An Introduction
So, I have been a housewife/stay at home mom for 15 years or so. At first, it was both a privilege and a horrible responsibility. I had no idea how to keep a house clean! I thought I had an idea of how to be a mom, and I did ok with one kid. When the second came along...well, the house went forgotten and I had to focus on the kids. (The second child had special needs. Life was hard during his lifetime.) Then along came the third child, the house, which had never benefited from regular cleaning, was once more put on the back burner as I took care of a tiny human being.
Now I've got a ten year old and a fifteen year old, and life is different. Not only do I have more time on my hands with both of them at school during the day, but it's become clear that I have a job to do beyond being a mom. It's a job I've spent 14 years denying I needed to do. It's a job which was overwhelming for those 14 years. Slowly, I'm climbing out of the hole of overwhelming. I'm hacking away at the chaos that is my home, turning it from scary messy to liveable and neat.
