A friend of mine put me onto a website almost a year ago I think: www.flylady.net
She knew I was on a self-improvement push (still am!) and had found the site incredibly helpful for herself.
I was inspired. Wow such simple principles. Such manageable baby-steps. Such regular and supportive emails. But I was cheating. I did a few things once or twice. Got a few of their fab products (the duster really is great and the purple rags are brilliant!). Thought a lot about how great it would be if my husband did it all and then sat on my butt feeling overwhelmed by the clutter!
Let me take you back a few steps. Working full time, running a home business and raising 2 young children filled my time and wore me out. Because my husband was doing full time uni (he now also does some part time cleaning too), in my head it was his job to look after the “house stuff”, cooking cleaning, washing and entertaining the kids on non-childcare days. The problem with this approach was that being the perfectionist that I am trying not to be, I’d come home from a crappy day at work and be super annoyed because the washing wasn’t done or the house was a mess. Not to mention all the other little one off jobs that never seemed to be crossed of the ever growing list!
We’ve done a few back and forths now and I’ve decided I need to get on board too. First we needed to be clear about what my vision of clean and organised was. What was reasonable to have done while the kids are home. Probably also what isn’t fair and reasonable to expect my husband to take responsibility for, especially if it’s my stuff!
So now I’m back to the basic principles that inspired me in the first place. Only this time I’ve accepted that this is for me and not necessarily something I wish my husband would do. Although I really wish he would.
Today it begins (again)! Using my 15minute timer I managed to get the kitchen, which looked like someone had chucked a grenade in, into a semblance of order. Not clean but the dishwasher pretty much stacked, the sink cleaned out and wiped down and the majority of the bench wiped down.
Now drinking a cup of tea and contemplating the next step, another 15 minutes will have the rest done and the lounge room picked up. And I’m sure after another cup of tea and another 15 minutes on the timer, I’ll be able to get downs stairs tidied enough for my client’s pamper appointment this afternoon. If I’m really inspired I might even get my office sorted. I might even be organised enough to not have to have a mad panic clean in time for my friend and her beautiful family’s visit this Saturday!
As the emails constantly tell me, I’m not behind, I just need to start where I am. If you find cleaning and clutter overwhelming or maybe just need a few little routines to tweak your own system then I would highly recommend signing up to this site: www.flylady.net