House cleaning is boring when you are a housekeeper doing routine cleaning. So, what do you do if you’re a maid? House cleaning is boring if you are not learning and challenging yourself.
Today we look at cross-training your cleaning skills to boost confidence. Your cleaning business fundamentals and systems for cleaning stay the same. But you can your job fascinating by learning new business and management tools.
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Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
House Cleaning is Boring After a While
“House cleaning is boring.” I hear this all the time, and today we’re going to talk about ways to overcome boredom as a professional house cleaner.
One question that a lot of house cleaners have, is what happens if you are bored as a house cleaner? Because if you’ve been doing this year after year after year, then boredom sets in.
Eventually, you’re like, “Ah, I’d like to do something else that has more interest and more excitement.”
House Cleaning Can be Like a Marathon
Now I’m going to stop for a second and we’re going to switch over to marathon running. Let’s say that you were going to train for a marathon.
So every day you get up at a certain time and you go running. After a while, it’s the same old run and you’re bored. You’re in a groove and of course, you feel good and you have endorphins, but you’re kind of bored, right?
So that your muscles don’t get bored and so that your brain doesn’t get bored, it’s great to do what we call cross-training. Cross-training is where you go inside the gym and you lift weights.
You Have to Have Variety in Running and Cleaning
When you cross-train what you’re doing is you’re breaking things up a little bit so that there is some variety. Just like you might swim instead of run.
In the house cleaning business, there are ways you can cross-train as well, but the systems will stay the same. So let’s say that you clean a toilet for example. You’re not going to change up the way you clean a toilet because the toilet is a system.
If you’re a professional house cleaner it is possible you end up cleaning 9 or 12 toilets in the course of a day. So the toilet becomes a routine. So you want to cross-train by learning new things about your business but not messing with routines.
Keep Yourself Interested and Motivated by Learning New Things
The best way to keep your mind motivated in house cleaning is by learning new things.
So as a business owner that cleans for a living, the fundamentals of the business stay the same. But your cross-training is going to be things like learning to finance.
Learn how you can grow your numbers, learn how you can expand your business. Decide to focus on learning how to hire people and to scale your business.
House Cleaning Isn’t Boring When You Focus on Training
You’re going to want to learn about what are the questions to ask when you hire people? And what are the ways to motivate them once you hire them?
How am I going to train them, and how am I going to incentivize them to keep them coming back every day?
Those are ways to challenge yourself and to cross-train in your business so the fundamentals don’t bore you.
You Will Get Bored of Doing the Same Routine Every Day
If you’re doing the same routine stuff over and over again, the good news is it’s super boring and the bad news is that it’s super boring.
The good news is it stays the same. Toilets don’t change much. They all pretty much look the same. They might have different levels of decay or dirtiness in them.
But you can walk in after a while and you can look at a toilet and you can say, “Oh my goodness, check it out. I know exactly what chemicals to use. I know exactly what brush to use. I know if I need paper towels. I know if there’s a garbage can nearby that I’m going to need to empty that.”
Boredom Sets in When You Aren’t Surprised by Anything
There will come a day when you will walk in and you will look at a toilet and nothing will surprise you. And you will say, “I got this.“
That’s where the boredom sets in. It’s confidence in doing the job over and over again.
Now here’s the good news about house cleaning. As a house cleaner, there are certain systems we create to run our business. So, when you show up and you know those fundamentals, it doesn’t matter what kind of day you’re having.
Your Systems Can Also Help You
If you wake up one day and you’re not feeling good, that’s okay because you still know the system. So, you can still show up and you still clean the bathroom.
You still clean the toilets the same way. You still do all the fundamentals the same.
How to Keep Your Mind Going While You Clean
The best way to stay out of boredom is to jump in and commit to learning something new about your business every single day.
This will keep your mind going when you’re cleaning and you’re doing the routine stuff. The great thing about your boring systems is you don’t have to think about them.
So, as you clean the toilets you can be thinking about other things, like growing your business.
Learn to Market Your Business as You Do Boring Cleaning
Let’s say that you’re learning about marketing your business.
You might go on a whole tangent on how to create Facebook ads. So, while you’re cleaning, you could think about what is my image going to look like? What words, what exact words am I going to use that will have the most impact?
You can be thinking about things like this while you’re doing the routine tasks. But you have to commit to boredom. Because you don’t want to show up at a house and keep reinventing that wheel.
The fundamentals always stay the same. It’s all the other business stuff that can grow and expand your mind.
Welcome the Boring Side of Cleaning
Welcome the boredom as you clean. It’s like a marathon. You’re going to put on a pair of shoes and go. It’s very simple.
After a while, you have it down to a science. You don’t have to think about it. Everything falls into place and you start recognizing the symptoms without thinking.
When you realize that you are in boredom mode because that means you’ve got the routine down. Then you can focus on the other elements of growing your business so you can, in fact, be productive.
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Learn the Concepts of Cross-Training: 1,000 WOD’s To Make You Fitter, Faster, Stronger – https://amzn.to/36A50BQ
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Simply Clean: The Proven Method for Keeping Your Home Organized, Clean, and Beautiful in Just 10 Minutes a Day – https://amzn.to/2GrauUK
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