Cleaning & Organizing
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Any reformed slobs on here?
I hate, hate, hate cleaning & housework. To the point that given the choice of removing my own wisdom teeth with a spoon or cleaning, I'd grab the spoon and go to work.
Aside from the rare cleaning kicks I get on, I begrudgingly do only what's necessary to maintain a healthy house. I'm still horrible about letting clutter build, the dust layers get thick, my recycle bin get too full, etc.
I really, really want to break this lazy habit and keep a nice, organized home. I keep repeating "small changes" and it really has helped me improve but I'm curious...has anyone else been successful in overcoming their aversion to cleaning? Any tips that might make it less torturous?
Aside from the rare cleaning kicks I get on, I begrudgingly do only what's necessary to maintain a healthy house. I'm still horrible about letting clutter build, the dust layers get thick, my recycle bin get too full, etc.
I really, really want to break this lazy habit and keep a nice, organized home. I keep repeating "small changes" and it really has helped me improve but I'm curious...has anyone else been successful in overcoming their aversion to cleaning? Any tips that might make it less torturous?
Re: Any reformed slobs on here?
I'm working on it! Friends and family think I keep a nice clean house because I always work my butt off to get it presentable before anyone comes over (except my mom...I've let her into my messy little world).
The worst part is that I used to be super neat...when I lived at home, my room was always clean, and then when I went to college, my dorm was super organized. Then DH and I moved in together, and I picked up his bad habits.
Actually, a big factor in my housekeeping failures has been some bouts of depression off and on over the years.
I'm not good with taking small steps and I burn myself out. I found this blog post last month and it describes me to a T: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html.
One thing that makes it less tortuous for me is to listen to audio books or podcasts while I clean. It makes the time pass quickly. You could also try Flylady.net...she's all about small steps, but all of the emails annoyed me.
I wish there were some kind of magic that could make this easy for us, but there isn't. We just have to get off our butts and do it!
Marry a neat freak--worked for me!
Once I realized how much my messy ways upset DH, I made a concerted effort to change and it finally clicked that having things clean is so much nicer than the filth I was used to living in. Also, if you keep up on the cleaning you never really have to clean more than 30 min at a time.
I'm not reformed, but I'm working on it!
Flylady's emails made me a bit crazy as well, but she does have some good fundamentals for cleaning and organizing. Some have been easier to adopt than others. For instance:
- Baby steps - one new task each day... like shine your sink the first day, add on doing the dishes, add on wiping down the counters, etc. If one new task each day is too much, add one new task each week instead.
- Routines - have a morning and an evening routine. Keep it short and easy to do. The morning routine are things that you need to do to get out the door quickly. The evening routine helps you with the morning stuff too.
- Habits - work on one new habit each month... like make your bed every day this month. Next month it's get dressed all the way down to your shoes every day in addition to making your bed.
- Timers - set your timer for a few minutes and work on one task. When the timer goes off you're done.
- One room per week - focus on deep cleaning/organizing one room each week. At the end of the week, switch to another room.
I also tend to reward myself for sustained accomplishments. If I keep my coffee table cleared off all month I get a scoop of ice cream.I'm not a total slob, but I don't love cleaning. I do have a cleaning list that I try and stick to so I just clean one to two rooms a day and don't spend more than 30-45 minutes cleaning.
Also, I make my bed every. single. day. My room looks neat and tidy when I leave it in the morning and it's clean and tidy when I go to bed at night.
Some ideas you can try:
Set a kitchen timer for a small amount of time, and clean until the timer goes off. You can choose where to clean and for how long. For example, on Monday, clean the dining room for 10 minutes.
Pick a room to work on. Simply have 3 baskets, keep in room, trash, keep in a different room. Go through everything in the room, sort, then empty the baskets appropriately.
Divvy up chores with your DH. Figure out which chores you're each willing to do, and see if he will take on some of the ones you hate the most, and vice versa.
I wouldn't say I'm a slob, since I like to keep things picked up, but I hate to clean. I got a cleaning service to come bi-weekly, which has helped tremendously.
I (and DH, sometimes) pick up daily so everything's put away. H keeps things in multiple piles everywhere, and he sheds clothes like snake skin. I put all his junk in one pile and make him put it away regularly. Everything else gets put away daily after dinner. It's truly not more than 15 minutes and I don't mind doing it. I can't relax if there is a lot of clutter, so doing it means I can veg out.
Cleaning cleaning - different story. I loathe doing it. I think I'd rather eat ramen for dinner if that was the only way I could afford having someone do it for me.
74 books read in 2011
I love the prospect of it only taking a few minutes each day once I get to that point. Hopefully that will serve as motivation.
Dh and I were both slobs. We also both had the same breaking point for mess/filth and would end up spending a whole weekend cleaning. Only to let it all build up again.
And if people came to visit we'd have to exhaust ourselves making the house presentable.
One day I'd had enough and dragged DH with me.
I think the biggest thing for us was getting rid of clutter. once there's no clutter it's relatively easy to keep on top of the cleaning chores.
I went through a room at a time over several weeks, cleaning our drawers, cupboards and boxes.
Then I created systems like: the mail gets opened immediately. Junk goes straight to recycling. Things to file go to a filing shelf (which I go through and file around once a month) and the things that need action like bills or forms to fill in go on another shelf (I go through those once a week)
I do a load of washing most days.
I always pick the house up before I go to bed.
I also make use of the ads when I'm watching TV. So the ads come on and I go and empty the dishwasher or put on a load of washing or bring a load of wahsing to the lounge to fold whilst I'm watching TV etc etc etc.
Just shorts bursts of energy really keep the house picked up and organised.