If you’ve been living on your own (or basically anywhere outside of your childhood home) for a while now, you might have figured out that cleaning without someone telling you to do it can be quite difficult sometimes. I did, at least. I feel like there are two sides to me–the side that wants everything clean all the time and the side that gets home from work and sits down with the idea of cleaning so far from my mind it might as well be nonexistent. There’s a disconnect in my desire to have a clean place and my exhaustion after working two jobs. Because of that, I’ve had to learn how to create a cleaning routine that actually WORKS, and doesn’t end me either in a pigsty of a home or a permanently exhausted pigeon (more than I already am, at least).
Burn-Out Isn’t Sustainable
If your habitual method of cleaning our home is obsessively spending the weekend cleaning and not doing anything fun, and then letting the clutter and crud build up over the whole next week, I’m sorry to tell you that that isn’t going to work in the long term. Yes, you might be starting your Monday off with a clean slate, but at what cost? Everyone needs a day off, and if weekends are your days off you need to take them. That’s not to say that you can’t clean at all on those days, but you’re most likely going to burn out from lack of rest. That isn’t a plan that will really work in the long term.
Little Daily Routines
Two disciplines that have helped immensely are such little things that it might be easy to forget about them. We’re still learning & definitely have not perfected remembering to do these all the time, but when we do, keeping the house clean feels like less of a burden (and they’re so simple!) It’s easy: make sure all the dishes are either put away or in the dishwasher before bed, and make sure all the clothes are folded & put away or in the hamper before bed. It’s SO easy to have a late-night snack and leave the bowl in the sink overnight, but when you get up in the morning and see a sink with dishes in it, it’s just psychologically more difficult. I have actually noticed a difference in my motivation levels on mornings where the sink is empty! I make better breakfasts and don’t have to waste time doing the dishes in the morning, so I’m more on time to work! The same is true of the clothes–if I don’t do it, it builds up, and suddenly my husband’s and my clothes are all over the floor of the bedroom. With a clean floor, you have the desire to keep it clean. With a messy floor, it doesn’t matter what ends up down there at the end of the day. These routines, as well as other little routines, keep life organized.
Frequency of Chores
One of the things that my husband and I have the most issue with agreeing upon is how often chores can be done–his idea of bathroom cleaning (once a month) vs mine (once a week) just don’t mesh. But compromise is key. If we break cleaning into manageable chunks and share the load, cleaning more often doesn’t seem like the giant chore he used to view it as. If we wipe down the kitchen counters before and after we use them, wipe down the bathroom counters at the end of the day, and clean the floors twice a week, suddenly the house doesn’t NEED the deep-clean both of us might have thought it needed before. It makes it so it’s easier for us to compromise on the schedule–we do a major cleaning of the kitchen and bathroom once every other weekend, alternating which weekend is which, and decide whose job it is based on who is less busy. Since he’s in a credential program right now he’s usually more busy with homework & grading, so I often do the deep cleaning (which is fine!) Finding your groove when it comes to a cleaning routine doesn’t always mean a strict alternation of duties. It just means to share the load–one person shouldn’t be doing EVERYTHING usually, but taking into account both of your situations (or, if in a multi-roommate situation, ALL of your situations) and making decisions in light of that.
Don’t Fall into the Trap
Remember when I mentioned that it’s hard for me to clean after getting home from work? I’ve found myself saying the same thing to myself every time, “I’m just going to sit down for a few minutes and then I’ll…..” (fill in the blank). This isn’t just with cleaning! All the time I think I’ll just sit down for a second, but suddenly it’s hours later or I’ve fallen asleep! Now, maybe this is just a me problem, but I would guess at least a few of you struggle with the same thing sometimes. Recently I’ve had to “bite the bullet” so to say and come to terms with the fact that this is just my laziness taking over–if I do what I need to do when I think of it, that is the best way for me to get what I need to have done, done.
Cleaning isn’t as hard as we think it can be sometimes as long as we come at it the right way. The phrase “work smarter, not harder” definitely applies to this situation–if we do little things the right way daily, the big things suddenly become littler as well.
Let me know in the comments how you have been taking steps to be more responsible for your living space!
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