I love going to my in-laws’ house.  I know, many of you have just confirmed your suspicion that I’m crazy because no one in their right mind likes their in-laws, let alone visiting. But please, hear me out.

I will be the first to admit that I do not have the typical in-law relationship with my mother- and father-in-law; we all love each other – it’s as if we’re family or something!  But actually, that has nothing to do with why I love going to their house.

Mom and Dad Moorhead have been very good to me over that past 8 years, they even read my blog every day; but that also has nothing to do with why I love going to their house.

I love going to my in-laws’ because it’s clean.  Very clean.  So clean, it sparkles.  Because it’s so clean and sparkly, I find their home to be peaceful, relaxing, and a calm, “safe haven,” if you will, from the too often hectic, frantic, rushed, and discombobulated world in which I live, despite my best efforts.

Those of you who read my blog daily will remember that I recently let my housekeeper go – about 4 weeks ago.  I’ve been cleaning weekly and have developed a good system that seems to be working.  The house seems to be staying cleaner from week to week now that it’s getting a thorough, deep cleaning in the appropriate areas when necessary.  I’ll be posting my system in a few weeks – I just want to work out some of the kinks first before I give it to you.

One of the biggest benefits to cleaning the house myself is that I have a new appreciation for the importance of a clean house.  I’ve written before about how Clutter Around You Creates Clutter In Your Brain; what about dust, dirt, and grime?  It used to be that about the time I started noticing dust accumulating on furniture, it would soon be Tuesday and my housekeeper would show up to rescue me – or so I thought.  I still had to dust my office almost every day, and I made the excuse that it was because that’s where I spent most of my time.  However, since I’ve been cleaning myself, I only have to do a light dusting mid-week and it stays wonderfully clean in between.

My husband and I both have allergies to dust and dust mites. (My husband has many other allergies as well.) This is one of the reasons I have always had a cleaning service of some sort – I used to have allergic reactions to cleaning.  No kidding.  I have since learned that if you do it right, it shouldn’t be a problem.  Besides, if you have someone coming in once a week and doing little more than stirring up the dust and dirt that’s there, you will have much worse allergy systems anyway.  So a day or so of suffering from cleaning the house yourself is better than constant suffering from someone else doing a poor job.

I also used to think I had better things to do with my time than clean the house.  I bought into the belief that Steve Pavlina spouts in his article, If Everyone Awakens Will We All Starve; which is that we should spend our time fulfilling our mission and living every minute with that one single purpose in focus.  But there are several problems with that. 

First of all, a clean house is a delight to come home to.  I first realized my strong desire for a clean home when visiting my in-laws one day.  My husband and I had been on a business trip and they had kept our 16-year-old Dachshund while we were away.  Our first stop from the airport was to pick up the dog before heading home.  On the way to their house, I said to my husband, “Can we stay a few minutes or do we have to leave right away?”  He said we could stay a few minutes and I was inexplicably relieved.  Not knowing why I felt this emotion, I pondered deep inside myself for an answer.  What I discovered was that my subconscious had picked up on the very subtle fact that when I’m in their house, I can breathe easily and relax.  There are not a bunch of papers piled up, no dirty dishes or pots and pans, no dust to be seen, no dirt, grime, or filth.  (I bet you’re starting to wonder what my house really looks like aren’t you? – Don’t worry, it’s not that bad.)  When I’m at the Moorhead’s, I can relax, touch anything, sit anywhere, and my brain isn’t constantly trying to reconcile “piles” of information that’s lying around everywhere.

Secondly, as much as I love writing, speaking, training, and consulting, I can’t spend every waking minute doing those things.  I find myself burned out and not able to do anyone much good.  A day of cleaning the house and getting things organized feels exactly the same as clearing my mind.  I’ve had many inspirational moments while cleaning and when the house is clean, I think on a much higher level.  Some people would tout that feeling this way makes me obsessive-compulsive, but I disagree.  However, I did catch myself one day vacuuming the dog!  (That’s another post.) 

I could easily use the excuse that my schedule doesn’t allow for keeping house myself.  I could, and have, schedule “mission critical” tasks in a way that filled up the entire week leaving no room in my schedule for cleaning.  When I’ve done that though, I ended up with a dirty house, feeling guilty about that dirty house, wishing I didn’t have a dirty house, and wondering why I didn’t save all that emotional energy and just clean the house!  I also didn’t feel like I’d made much of a contribution to the world.  Maybe I just didn’t appreciate what I had accomplished because I had all that dust, dirt, and grime surrounding me. When the house is dirty, I can’t think straight, and when my office is dirty, I become depressed.  How many times have you done your best work while depressed? 

Now, I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression here; my in-laws live in their house.  It’s not some sort of shrine.  They are retired and spend the majority of their time in the house, doing what most of us would consider “messing things up.”  But here’s the point, they mess it up, then they clean it up.  The cleaning is as much a part of the living in their house as the messing it up part.  Go back and read that last sentence again because that’s what most of us fail to realize – here – I’ll print it again for you. The cleaning is as much a part of the living in their house as the messing it up part.  Let me explain further.

What most people do is this:  Come home from work, cook supper.  Load the dishwasher (maybe) and leave the pots and pans to soak overnight.  Get up the next morning and, without having allowed enough time to clean those pots and pans before work, we leave them to soak all day.  We come home again and feel stressed because the kitchen is a mess.  We’re tired and had a long day, so instead of cleaning up and cooking, we order pizza, which we eat in the living room.  The pots and pans are still soaking, by the way.  Still no time to clean, though, we have a meeting.  Next night, we come home and do only what is necessary – unload dishwasher, wash whatever pan we need to cook tonight’s dinner.  Still tired, we leave the dishes and pots to be dealt with later.  Saturday – that’s it – I’ll have time on Saturday.  Friday night we go out to eat because we don’t want to deal with looking at the messy house.  Saturday comes and we feel so overwhelmed we don’t know where to start.  Then there’s laundry to do and maybe some ironing.  There are also our weekend commitments and meals to contend with.  Who has time to dust?

Been there?  Most people have – and many still are!  We mess and mess and mess, but we rarely clean.  Here are a few tips on how to overcome this vicious cycle, once and for all.

First, put things in reverse order.  If you come home too tired to cook and clean, go ahead and order the pizza.  Most people can muster up the energy to throw away the pizza box.  In other words, don’t make a mess you can’t clean up.  If the house is clean, keep it that way.

Second, if you do make a mess, clean it up right away.  It only gets worse by sitting.  If you must leave pots to soak, fine, but clean them up before you go to bed.  It only takes a few minutes and by developing the discipline to clean them before you go to bed, you might think twice before leaving them to begin with.  I use various chemicals to get my pots and pans clean right away and rarely need to soak anything.  My kitchen is cleaned up before I sit down for the night.  My philosophy; if the house is clean, keep it that way.

Third, if you have kids, make them help.  Assuming of course that they are old enough.  A certain young man I know who just started college doesn’t know how to do laundry; he would if he’d been taught at home and learned the discipline of doing so when he was younger.   Teach them this philosophy; if the house is clean, keep it that way.

Fourth, dedicate a certain time of the week to get the house cleaned up and looking good again.  Even if you only have 30 minutes, you’ll be amazed at how much better things can look after a short amount of attention.  More importantly, those 30 little minutes will get you inspired to spend more time each week.  The philosophy here; if the house isn’t clean, get it that way.

Fifth, pay attention to how good you feel when you awaken in the morning to, or come home to, a clean house.  It really does make a difference.  Get the house clean, and keep it that way.  You’ll have much less stress.

Thanks for reading today.  I’d love to hear any tips or tricks you have on keeping your house clean.

Posted under Education, Inspiration, Motivation