Tidying Hack: Invite Guests Over
By Matt - Sunday, May 9th, 2010
Have you ever started cleaning your house only to find yourself exhausted hours later with little to show for your efforts? The biggest problem I had with cleaning is that to do a good cleaning job takes a really long time and it isn’t appreciated. When you have guests over do you think they’ll notice if you dusted underneath the plant on the shelf? Or if they’ll check to see if you vacuumed underneath the couch? Unless they’re slightly crazy they won’t care and my guess is that 99% of the time you won’t either. So the question that comes to mind is why bother?
Spending a full day a week cleaning is pointless when a couple hours tidying will do
Instead of cleaning like a maniac every so often, why not tidy a bit more frequently? The idea is good in theory but unless you like to clean its not fun! We spend way too much time in our attempt to clean when tidying would be much faster. Just so that we’re clear what I mean by spending too much time is devoting 4 hours to get your place say 90% clean when a single hour got you to 80%. That extra 10% of cleanliness for 3 times the effort is what drains us from wanting to clean (or tidy in the first place). A tidy house isn’t necessarily spotless and clean everywhere, it is clean and neat without clutter and crap all over the place. The reality is that most of us would be quite happy with a tidy house.
The ultimate Tidying Hack!
What is the one thing that you inevitably do when you have company over? You tidy the house a bit so they don’t have to kick your dirty socks off the couch to sit on it. You don’t spend countless hours cleaning but you make an effort so that the place isn’t a disaster area. It provides the necessary motivation for you to get the proverbial pig sty in order. The best part is you’ve got a time limit! Once you add in the inevitable procrastination you’re probably left with only a couple hours to get the place in order (if you’re lucky). If you hate cleaning but want to get your place somewhat tidy, have some guests over. It’ll get you into gear and force you to get a simple surface cleaning in and getting stuff out of the way.
While not a solution to getting organized it does make your place look better and at least tidy, the net result is that you feel better about it (at least for a bit). I actually found that by having guests over once in a while we managed to get the place tidy fast without going overboard trying to make everything perfect. Inviting guests over is a great way to get your place tidy fast without going overboard.
This entry is filed under Decluttering, Organizing.
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