The one little trick that gets me motivated to clean my house

Yay spring. It’s all about cleaning and decluttering again.  If I spent the time actually cleaning that I spend thinking about it, there probably wouldn’t be a “laundry” part of Gym Craft Laundry and I wouldn’t feel like such a horrible housewife.  But it is a part of who I am and what I work on improving every day. I have to rely on a trick that motivates me to clean the rest of my house. It’s sad but true.

I need to get motivated to clean my house.

I shifted my view on housekeeping and organizing.  When it comes to writing, I have no problem editing. Every time I re-read a post, I change something.  If I can train myself to look at my stuff like I would an essay, my life off line would be much less stressful.  Each written piece has structure. Each word has a function and place.

What my home needs is an editor. Click To Tweet

Life happens and the clutter piles up. Every surface is covered with distraction.

I go through the kid’s clothes and toys and bag them up for donation or consignment. They find the bag. They take out the “new again” toys and start the cycle with the toys again.

This is an area where I need to improve as a mother.  I need to be more consistent in having the kids put up their own toys.  The no toys in the living room rule helps, but the toys get thrown on the floor of the kids’ room rather than put away in their place. (Luckily, Hubs is very consistent with telling the kids to pick up their rooms before moving to a new activity. But…he is overcoming the lackluster effort I put into enforcing that rule why he was deployed.)

The laundry piles get ever higher, even though I put away clothes every day. Some days it is just difficult to keep up.

My motivation to clean gets thrown out of the window.

That is until I do my one thing.

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I loathe housework and organizing.  I would rather spend four hours in the gym, craft with glitter and play dough, and bring thirty kids to the zoo rather than clean any day. Those things are fun. But, even I, have one cleaning chore that makes me feel so much better after doing it that I enjoy it.  I actually find peace and joy in doing and finishing it.

I bet that’s how super tidy people feel about every cleaning chore. Weirdos

How I feel about clutter

I function in a high level of clutter and disorganization. My productivity when it comes to work or school work is better when I am in the midst of a chaotic workspace. A tidy desktop was like an internal welt making my brain itch.

But at work, I could not stand fingerprints on the glass partitions around my cubicle or the large windows at the ends of the aisles where my sales team sat.

That was my one thing at work.  Dirty glass.  I could have papers all over my desk but when one of my associates would press her nose to my glass and leave a nose print, I had to clean it right away!  And yes — my team delighted in driving me nuts with their forehead and nose prints.

The one task that motivates me to clean

At home, my one motivating peeve is a dirty floor.  We are in an old home with peeling linoleum floors in the kitchen.  It is so old that it never looks completely clean but I can feel when it is clean. Furthermore, when it isn’t, my stress levels shoot up.  A friend convinced me to get a swiffer wet which I like but doesn’t work as well as my self-wringing mop and lysol all purpose cleaner.  The swiffer helps with the spot cleaning but for me to be comfortable I need to actually mop it.

Homemade Floor Solutions

First off, I do not use homemade cleaning solutions on my kitchen floor.  I tried many different recipes and each one has left me unsatisfied. Filmy residue drives me crazy.  Many recipes I see may work better on tile floors and not 40-year-old vinyl.  I’ll let you know when we move and I have newer floors.

I am seriously considering a quality steam mop.

Top down cleaning?

My husband, cleaning mavens, and my mom all say that cleaning should be done from the top down. The floors should be last so that any drips from items above getting cleaned would be mopped up at the end.

They obviously know more about cleaning than I do.  However, I know more about me than they do.  I always lose steam and get too overwhelmed to finish.

When I do my “one thing” first, I am motivated to keep going!  Tweet

The job doesn’t seem so overwhelming psychologically.  I enjoy mopping. Stepping onto a clean floor is heaven to me.

Once I do that one thing, I can do another thing and then another.  Do the one thing that makes you feel the most productive and accomplished first so you can ride that wave of pride into the rest of your chores. Mopping first motivates me to clean the rest of my house.

Do you have a “one thing?” What is your cleaning catalyst?

Making my own cleaning products with essential oils makes me want to clean more! Register now for my FREE 14 Day email course: Essential Oils 101

Resources:

My favorite mop: Libman Tornado Mop

The only bath tub cleaner I will use: Blue Magic 

What I use to clean my counters and surfaces: DIY All Purpose Super Spray