It will never be easier than right now to clean your house. If you often feel too tired to clean after work, you’re not alone.
Summoning motivation to get things done can be an uphill battle. How do you find the energy to clean when you’re already exhausted from cleaning all day?
Listen: It Will Never Be Easier Than Right Now
Watch: It Will Never Be Easier Than Right Now
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.
It Will Never Be Easier Than Right Now to Clean
It will never be easier than right now to clean your house. What? It’s a crazy concept and lots of house cleaners have written in.
And they are house cleaners, so they go clean other people’s homes. But when they get home, they’re so exhausted that they do not have the energy to clean their own home.
And they want to know: “How do I power through? Because my house deserves the same cleanliness that I give to other people,” which is true. But here’s what it comes down to. It comes down to this philosophy.
There Won’t Be a Better Time Than Now to Clean
There’s never a better time to clean it than right now. Now, I don’t like cleaning any more than the next person. And there are times where my sink is full of dishes, and the food is drying out by the minute.
I have to say to myself, “If I leave these dishes for three hours, all the water is going to evaporate from the food on those dishes. And all the food that is now kind of soft and would wash off is going to be stuck and it’s going to be crusted on these dishes.”
There is never going to be a better time than right now to go ahead and wash these dishes off and get them in the dishwasher. So you have to stop procrastinating.
You Never Want to Clean
Nobody ever wants to clean. When you get up in the morning and the bed is all lumpy, and there are pillows everywhere, and stuff strewn about, you don’t want to make your bed.
But there’s never going to be a better time than right now. Because right now, you don’t have the cares of the world that are hitting you from every angle.
There are different times of the day where making your bed would be impossible if you didn’t do it first thing in the morning. The first thing you want to do in the morning is to make your bed or wash your linens.
There’s Never Really a Good Time for Dusting
So, what about dusting? There’s never really a good time for dusting, but if the phone rings and it could be your mom, who wants to chat, and you don’t have to be taking notes, because it’s not a client. Then this is a great time for you to grab a duster.
And as you’re talking to mom, and you’re chit-chatting, having an idle conversation you can wander around and dust the house. There will never be an easier time than right now.
You get to talk on the phone. You get to have that great conversation with whomever while you’re dusting your house. Especially as you don’t have to stop and take notes.
Use the One Touch Method
Now, when you get out of the shower, there’s never going to be a better time than right now to hang up that damp towel.
Because if you drop it on the floor, it still has to be picked up. We call it the one-touch method. You touch it one time. If you use the towel to dry off with it, it’s still in your hands. So, it either goes in one of two places. Hang it back up to dry or put it in the hamper. There’s never going to be a better time to resolve that problem than right now.
But if you let it pile up on the floor, and then somebody steps on it, and then there’s another towel for tomorrow that gets thrown in a heap. Soon, you have towels and stuff strewn all over your house. Then it gets cluttered, and people are walking got on top of it. People spill stuff on it. It’s not clean. There’s never going to be a better time than right now.
Do Little Project by Little Project
Now, we all know working all day and being so exhausted makes you not have the energy to do anymore. But instead of taking the whole house on, if you do little project by little project and remind yourself of this philosophy, great things happen.
The family starts getting in the same habits and the same behaviors. They come in from school. There’s a book bag. There’s never a better time than right now to open it up to pull out the homework, to put the stuff away that needs to be put away, throw out the trash. If there’s any lunch leftover, put the lunch back in the fridge, or however, you process that.
If there are dishes that go in the sink, washing them, rinsing them, or putting them in the dishwasher, there will never be a better time.
Get in the Habit of Saying There Will Never Be a Better Time
If you get in the habit of saying “There will never be a better time than right now,” and you make yourself do it.
But then the reality is you don’t ever have to come back and try to find the time at a later date when you hope you have more energy because it usually does not work that way. Usually, it happens that day after day stuff builds up if you don’t do it. You’re tired every day when you get home from work. You have the same excuses every day when you get home from work.
And all that happens is those excuses build on top of each other. Then it becomes so overwhelming that you feel like you’re sinking, and it leads to depression, anxiety, frustration, and guilt.
I Love the Philosophy
I don’t want to do it any more than you do, but I love the philosophy. Because if you start walking yourself through it in your mind, you’re like, “Eh.” I mean, that is the truth.
There’s never a better time than right now. Especially like sticky toothpaste that’s on the vanity? It’s sticky and it’s fresh right now. If you wait till that dries, you’re going to be scraping that off the plastic scraper. There’s never going to be a better time than right now to wipe it up.
So, think about this. And as you get to that next moment of, “Ugh,” I want you to stop and say to yourself, “There’s never going to be a better time than right now.”
Resources
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Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth – https://amzn.to/3fWVD3Y
Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges – https://amzn.to/3b8dvXH
21 Letters on Life and Its Challenges – https://amzn.to/2BEDh9q
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – https://amzn.to/3dfClpn
Decluttering and Minimalism: 99 Minimalism Ways and Strategies to Declutter your Home, Life and Mind – https://amzn.to/3fbhlSm
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