Do you have a hard time motivating yourself to do the dishes, laundry, sweeping, and mopping? So do I. Right now, my dog is in his biannual shedding cycle, when he transforms from a mild-mannered greyhound into a lean, mean furball machine. Dog fur tumbleweeds are blowing across my floors. With so much cleaning to do, it's been tough to muster the motivation. The other day, sitting on my fur-covered couch in my fur-covered jeans, I made a list of ways to get myself out of this rut and into the cleaning process...
- Schedule a party. Nothing's a better motivator than letting others see your home.
- Time yourself. If you limit cleaning to an hour, the task is less intimidating.
- Start small to make the job less daunting. Try tackling just one room.
- Start even smaller. Focus on just one task, like doing the dishes.
- Enlist help if you can. You'll get twice as much done.
- Crank up the music. It makes cleaning a lot more fun.
- Begin by tossing anything you can into the garbage/recycling.
- Thank yourself when you're finished with a small reward.
- Get off the Internet. To get the job done, you're eventually going to have to stop reading posts online and start cleaning.
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I SO needed this. I find it's hard to get started, but once in motion I can stay in motion for awhile. The timer is a great suggestion, as I can't help but try to beat the clock. Plus it's interesting to see what you can actually accomplish in 15 minutes when you're timing it! Thanks!
I'd like to know what tile that is on the backsplash...
list making as procrastination. LOL
"I'd like to know what tile that is on the backsplash..."
Iridescent Glass Mosaic Tile
i'm similarly unmotivated as dust bunnies mate & multiply across my floors... thing is, i'm excessively neat but hate to clean... at some point i'm just gonna break down and hire someone on a regular basis... for a 450 ft studio!!! i have scheduled a dinner party in two weeks... i will definitely clean for that :)
I have a cleaning lady that comes once a month. For $75 it is completely worth it! I had to cut out some other things but I will never give this up.
pinkllama- totally with you on that one! I got a 1/month cleaning lady after I bought my condo and spent two hours cleaning just the bathroom. It makes it much easier doing small things during the month knowing someone is coming in to do the hardcore scrubbing.
Great post! Actually knowing that other people agonize over the same thing makes me feel better. We'll see if this works when I look at the pile of dishes tonight.
Oh, and I totally agree that inviting people over is the best motivator! Doesn't have to be a party, can be just having 1-2 friends over.
My biggest solution? Use cleaning to procrastinate from somehing else. I've been studying for a professional exam and my sister came over. She says "Wow, your apartment is really clean! You're procrastinating aren't you?" Busted.
I'm now trying to KEEP it clean. Here's hoping that motivation lasts long after the test.
I've come to terms with the fact that my house is never going to be perfectly clean. It's less intimidating now. The small goals help. Doing something is better than doing nothing, and usually once I get started, I clean more than planned. And if it's a really bad day, well, heck, one less dog tumbleweed is still one less dog tumbleweed.
Inviting friends over always works for me. The only thing is after I finish cleaning, I get upset because I think how much easier it would be to keep that way all the time...but w/ two growing boys its almost impossible to keep it spotless.
Having a cleaning lady helps then much easier to keep up during the rest of the time and not so overwelming to tackle the smaller projects that need attention.
Also, I check Chez Larsson's blog, she is the cleaning master motivator for me-
http://chezlarsson.typepad.com/myblog/page/2/
my mother is coming to town on the 26th to take me to the hospital the next day then stay with me for another day.
i have 12 days to try to finally get some more boxes unpacked (i've only lived there 6 months!) and a little more organization in place.
I find that its best to try and keep up with the small cleaning things...pick up the clothes that missed the hamper, wipe down the stove every time I use it, swiffer the floor every other day, so that when it comes the actual heavy duty cleaning, it isn't such an overwhelming task.
And I thought I was the only one with doggie hair tumbleweeds!
I'll do the little things like dishes, cleaning counters and picking up all through the week, then dedicate one morning/afternoon on the weekend to do a set number of chores. One weekend it will be all the laundry from the last week or two and bathrooms, the next weekend it will be vacuuming and cleaning the floors. It's less daunting if I don't try to do everything every week and it frees up the rest of my weekend for enjoyable activities.
Can't relate at all. What's so hard about cleaning?
lindsayedens is exactly right...
caffeine and loud music helps.
My saving grace is my irobot dirt dog. I have a 130 lb. great dane that sheds continuously. I run my dirt dog, and voila...you'd never know we have such a beast. It is wonderful for heavy pet hair. I love it so much I'm considering buying a scooba (the robot that mops the floor). Now if I could only get a robot to do the dishes!
# Crank up the music. It makes cleaning a lot more fun.
# Begin by tossing anything you can into the garbage/recycling.
those are both great tips. in fact, incidentally doing either one of those without any intention of cleaning can set me on a random cleaning SPREE. :)
The best reason for commercials. I only do as much as can be done in a commercial break and do it for as long as my shows/movie is on. It can be loading dishes in the washer, or folding socks, or moving things back where they belong, etc...Also gets you moving.
Tiamat - that is AWESOME. I will start thinking of something worse to procrastinate immediately.
oh my gosh that's so funny because our house was a mess and our golden puppy started getting big dog hair and shedding everywhere to. well i had a party yesterday (monday) and spent all day Sunday cleaning- it was a great motivator. i did everything imaginable, even all my laundry!
I totally agree! I don't think I would ever mop the floors if I didn't have Kylie Minogue blasting through my speakers!!
I try to keep up, I love the suggestion of cleaning during commercials, I'm going to try that one for sure.
I also do tend to invite people over often enough to keep my apartment from looking like a disaster zone. It may be a lot of extra work all at once, but the reward is a great night with friends... and only a small amount of "after party" cleaning the next day.
Make it easy to do things quickly. We live in an exceedingly dusty town. Dust is not something I ever use to worry about, but here it must be addressed. Recently, I placed dusting rages all over the apartment. At all times I am within five feet of a dusting rag, and now everytime I notice dust, I quickly grab a rag and dust for about twelve seconds. It has made a huge difference.
put on a standup comedy cd/dvd while you're cleaning. it's hard to be grumpy when you're laffin'
clean up as you're cooking. means you've only got a few dishes at the end.
keep things tidy all the time - it's so much easier to clean when you don't spend the first half hour putting junk away.
buy a slicker brush for your pet. it removes lotsa hair.
disclaimer: i am a virgo. these tips might not work for normal humans who can stand mess.
Loved the last tip--it made me laugh. All I ever do is procrastinate doing chores by reading posts online.
I agree about the music - but specifically on the iPod (or MP3 player). That way you don't mind leaving the "music room" to clean another room like the bathroom, or to put out the bins or whatever, because the music comes with you.
I saw the title of this item on the daily email and set to work on my overdue vacuuming. I agree that having visitors is the best motivation. Whenever my sister comes to town I start in on my clutter. (Although I have far, far less clutter than when I started reading Apartment Therapy a few years ago. I have probably thrown out 75% of my books, "collectables" and "memorabilia" - even excess furniture - since then inspired by all I've seen here.)
I recently discovered the show "Hoarders" on A&E/online and nothing has motivated me to clean more than that. I'll pause it about half way and freak out and organize the pantry or something like that.
Blarg, your comment made me laugh out loud! Nothing motivates me more than seeing someone else's messy or dirty house...yuck!
I used to be fairly good with keeping up on a decent basis. Then I married a man who once took off his socks that had been worn all day and put them down ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER! Imagine that times 100 - he leaves stuff everywhere then even asks me where he left it or if I moved it. I gave up trying to keep up when our son was born. Now that he wants to keep up appearances I have to change gears again.
I do really like the procrastinating tip. Now I'll have to come up with something worse than cleaning to procrastinate over. Doing taxes? At-home dental work? Hmmmm....
Make yourself a cup of tea, sit on the couch and put on one of those episodes of "Hoarders" and watch. After watching, I am super motivated to clean. I have ADHD so get easily distracted and overwhelmed. So I just focus on one task. I pretend someone is telling me to do that task and not to do anything else until finished. So I will tell myself to empty the dishwasher. When finished I will tell myself to do something else in the same room, focusing on one room at a time. This might not work for everyone, but it really works for me. Good Luck,