Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Do you hate the idea of a cleaning routine? | Clutterbug Podcast # 80

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

Do you hate the idea of a cleaning routine? In this podcast I talk about overcoming your preconceived notions about routines and how to make them easy and tolerable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you hate routines? I mean, structured routines. Does it just give you like, all the negative feelings? If so, you're not alone. And I want to talk about some strategies to really overcome that. So thank you guys so much for tuning in to the Clutterbug podcast. I'm Cass from Clutterbug. And today we're talking about routines and specifically how you don't need to necessarily have a really structured on-paper routine in order to have success. And I know I say that all the time. I actually have a book that is just printables of different routines. And I say all the time how routines change my life. And they did.

Having a daily cleaning and tidying routine was insanely life-changing for me. It basically taught me how to be an adult. And before that, I would sort of just be my messy, sloppy self until Saturday and then freak out, scream, and spend my day cleaning or not. and then the next Saturday die as I'm drowning in absolute chaos and clutter in dishes and laundry and just cursing my life. So, I mean, that was my two options before I started implementing the daily routine. And at first, it was really structured, but now I've kind of relaxed and it isn't to say that I still don't have a daily routine, but I don't stick to it like glue. It's the intention more than it is the actual task. So that's what I want to talk to you about today, is your intention when it comes to

house cleaning and housework and having routine and not necessarily the tasks. We talked before in a podcast about micro versus macro thinking. If you haven't heard that podcast, I actually really recommend you check it out, just talking about the two different types of thinkers, I guess, people who are really, really detailed and people who are big picture thinkers. And when it comes to a daily routine, both types of thinkers can have challenges. A really detailed person, they want to check everything off the list. They want to get really detailed in their list and can cause them a lot of anxiety if they can't accomplish all of the things. And they overthink, which one do I do first and which one's the most important. And that overwhelm can

cause procrastination or they never get started. And a big picture thinker, a macro thinker, can be like, I want the whole house spotless and have no idea what those tasks would look like or what steps to put down. So again, they don't get started. And so the idea of having a structured routine, a piece of paper that's already created by somebody else that you can put up, it sort of alleviates that having to overthink things. It alleviates the procrastination, the the worry about where do I start because they're already designed for you. But the truth is, what works for other people doesn't necessarily work for you. And you could be looking at one of these pre-made daily cleaning sheets and think, there's no way I could get all that done. Because

you have an illness, you have a buttload of children, you work crazy hours. There's a lot of reasons why perhaps that's unattainable for you and unachievable for you. Or you could be looking at it and think, oh my gosh, I have a giant house. It's like it says clean the bathrooms. I have three bathrooms. That would take so long. This is not realistic and I want to achieve more. And so that's why I'm a really big advocate of just being flexible.

It isn't what you have on your list. It doesn't even mean you have to do the exact same thing every day, it's having that intention that every day you're going to do something to take care of your home. And I have to say, dishes, laundry, that's like, that's on the list, you guys. It's just, it's got to be on there because it never goes away. And if you skip a day doing those things, it just makes it worse the next day. It's not like you can leave your dishes for a couple of days and then it's just as easy to wash them on day four. It's not the case.

Everything's hardened on. It's like terrible. You have to like fill the sink multiple times. It takes forever. Then where do you put them to dry? It's just like it's crazy. Or you run the dishwasher multiple times because you have so much it doesn't all fit in. And so it never really gets done because by the time the next load is going in,

you already have a sink filled of dishes throughout the day. It's chaos and it's crazy and it's horrible and you're always behind the eight ball. So dishes and laundry are the two things that are just like a staple. This do them every day. And quite frankly, if that's all you do most days, you're still winning. You're winning at this whole adult thing because those are the two things that are really going to have the biggest impact on your home. For me, I also like to wipe the surfaces and wipe the counters. Not all the surfaces, but like the kitchen because my kids and crumbs and just mess.

and spills and the bathroom because again kids and toothpaste why why why do they spread the toothpaste freaking everywhere and i just i find it gross and both of those things wiping down the kitchen and wiping down the bathroom take a mere seconds because i've already done the dishes for the day and i've already set up organization systems in my bathroom so it's really quickly to tidy so to count those as a daily chore seems pretty silly because the truth is it takes just a few seconds. When it comes to dusting and vacuuming, those things are done way less often than I probably should do them to be completely honest. But another thing that I never take for granted is the daily tidy time. That has to be done. And this is about going around and putting those lost

items, the pajamas your kids have left on the floor, or I don't know, your paper that you've left out on the kitchen counter that you haven't done anything with, put those in their home, even if the home is just like the basket where paper goes for you to deal with later, right? That's fine. But just going around and doing a quick tidy because clutter attracts clutter. Totally does. But I want you to stop thinking that in order to maintain a tidy home or to have a daily routine, that it has to be like hours of work, that it even has to be. an hour of work. It doesn't at all. It can be something really flexible. It can be something really small, like just dishes and laundry, and it can be something that's adaptable and that you can change on a whim.

It's just about having it in the first place. It's creating that little bit of structure in your day when it comes to your home that eventually will become second nature. Like you brush your teeth before you go to bed, you wash your face, you take your vitamins in the morning. I don't know what your routine looks like but I can promise you you don't consider the things those things that you do work because they're a habit they're second nature and that's exactly what I want your home to be for you maintaining your home I want it to be just this second nature thing that you do without thinking about it but you can't just jump in the pool man you can't just like one day go from being a person who never does a housework or has like a really cluttered home and a really messy home to someone who's

painting an immaculate home overnight. That's totally unrealistic. Instead, we start with a daily routine that's really small, like making sure we do the dishes every day. And when that becomes normal, and I don't know how long that's going to take for you, but I promise it's not going to be as long as you think. When that becomes normal, then you add the laundry on top of that. And when those two things become normal, then maybe you can add wiping the counters. And then maybe dusting every Tuesday. maybe vacuuming once a week. It's a slow ad. It's all about habit stacking and it does not happen overnight. And so I don't want you to give up. I don't want you to spend your Saturday mad cleaning your house. And then, you know, Tuesday, it's a disaster again and you think, why am I even bothering?

Why do I even bother cleaning? My kids are just going to trash my house again tomorrow. Because when you get in the habit of doing that daily tidy and doing those daily tasks, but it no longer feels like work, you don't even realize that you're doing it because you've gradually built this little habit over time. You don't have to spend your Saturdays cleaning anymore. You don't have to feel resentful of your family because everything's really out of control. So I want you to relax your routine a little bit if you're somebody who's definitely overthinking and over planning and trying to do too much. I want you to take a step back. And if you're a person who just hates the idea of routine, I really want you to consider just adding one thing, one thing every day

that you're going to commit to doing. Because here's the thing. Our home is the foundation for our entire life. It's the foundation that everything in our life is built on. It holds up our relationships, our family, our relationships with our children, our finances, our happy, our relationships. even. If our home is crumbling and in disarray and a wobbly unstable place, we can't help but feel crumbling and wobbly and just disorganized in every other aspect. And so while hugging your home and caring for it isn't going to solve all of your problems, it definitely is a great first step. It will make you feel more relaxed. It will make you feel more in control and it will will make you happier. And I'm not suggesting that you're a clean freak and I'm not suggesting

you spend hours cleaning your house every day. What I'm suggesting is that we find ways to make it easier. That's not going anywhere. The dishes, the laundry, vacuuming, cat hair, dog hair, kids crumbs. That crap, we're stuck with for life. So we can look at it two ways. We can look at it as this horrible thing that we hate doing and pour us and it's not fair and nobody helps us and blah, blah, blah. Or we can just try to create it as a habit that we don't give a second thought to, just like brushing our teeth. So grab a piece of paper, write down, if you haven't done anything at all, dishes and laundry. And if you already have the dishes and laundry maintained, but there's other areas like your kitchen counter is driving you crazy every day, add that to the list, a quick five-minute

tidy. Don't overthink it, you guys. Don't stress about a daily routine. Again, it isn't the It's just the intention that's important. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you guys next time.