Last year I made a goal to keep my house cleaner. I've never been a very clean person. When I was a preteen my room was a disaster made up of beads, crafting supplies, clothes, things like that. When I was a teen, I had all those things, plus electronics, a guinea pig, a guitar, etc.
Want to see an embarrassing picture??
Scroll down. :O
This picture was taken of my room when I was going through all my things and packing up to move to UT. Okay, so I had an excuse, because things still get messy when you're going through things. At least, for me they do.
But this is what my room looked like ALL the time a few years back. Actually, it looked worse. I had pictures but I can't find them anywhere. (I must have deleted them out of horror at some point.)
I cleaned my room really well after that, but try as I did, I couldn't keep it clean. For some reason it was basically impossible for me to truly get into the habit of picking up my clothes and putting things away when I was finished with them. Things didn't get a whole lot better after I moved away and got married - I wasn't terrible, but then I had to make meals, go to school full time, and I was pregnant, so keeping the house very clean wasn't reeeeally happening.
Last year, I finally told myself I needed to change my habits. Ironically, I hate messes. I love everything to be nice and clean, I was just...bad at it, I guess. But I really didn't want to be. I wanted to be able to have a clean home, and when it wasn't clean, I wanted to be able to get it clean in a decent amount of time. Like, an hour, instead of a couple of days. I used to have to clean my house for two days before visitors came. Two days.
I think my turning point came when I started feeling a bit embarrassed when people like my visiting teachers dropped by without any notice. I hated feeling like I couldn't take care of the clutter. Also, when we bought a house, that was a huge incentive for me to clean. Not only was our house super gross to begin with, but it was MY house. Not just another rental that I was going to leave in a year. Nope, this time, it was mine, and I wanted to take good care of it and be proud of it.
So I made a chart like this:
I pinpointed my difficult spots, such as areas that are clutter-magnets (table, counters, etc) and made sure to clear those regularly. Bedrooms and bathrooms needed more attention than just once a week. Deep cleaning happens once a week, and there are other jobs, like washing dishes, that get done multiple times a day that aren't listed on the chart. Something else that helped me immensely is that my house has 4 storage closets. Makes organization much easier when you actually have a place to organize things! I made sure to have a specific spot for everything.
Is my house always clean? Nope. Sometimes I just can't keep up with everything. I have a hard time when I've got a huge project I'm working on, and I slack on the rest of the house a bit. In fact, I'm working on our bedroom right now and slacking off on other duties a bit. I didn't do much the first two months after Ben was born, either. But I was planning on that. My goal is not perfection. If I do just the pink and green jobs every day (and dishes of course!) then my house looks clean all over. If I miss weekly jobs occasionally, it's no big deal. I'll admit that I'm pretty bad at the monthly jobs, but it's still a work in progress, after all. :)
So, that is my New Year's Resolution success! I hope next year I have another successful story to share.
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