I don’t know about you but I despise cleaning. I don’t know too many people who actually enjoy cleaning their house, but I feel that pretty much everyone else has much better habits than I do when it comes to cleaning my house. Before we dive too far into this, no, my house is not dirty in the sense that I never vacuum and its a hazmat issue! So, lets just be clear about that up front. What I am talking about is the house being consistently organized, having consistently tidy countertops, and hardly any clutter around the house. I have seen many YouTube videos of women “showing you” how to clean your house, but they live in these immaculate, newer built homes with these fancy organization areas with these nifty organization bins that they just purchased, etc., and all they seem to do is put a few things away and bam! Their house is immaculate again! I am not knocking them. That is just not where I am at in my cleaning habits though. I have not seen these women tell me how the heck they became so consistent with their cleaning! My house is not set up with tons of closets or organizers, and I am not spending tons of money on organizational bins. We’re on a budget here! So this is how I plan to start the habit of consistently cleaning and organizing my house that gets constantly destroyed (I mean lovingly lived in…..lol!) by my 4 children!
Forming a New Habit
I hear the saying that it takes 3 weeks to make or break a habit and I am not honestly sure if that is true for breaking a habit, but it takes an average of 66 days to form a new habit according to my psychology textbook. I did find this article on behavioural psychology that confirms this fact and for some people it can take up to almost a whole year according to the article!
What I plan on doing is for the next 10 weeks, I am going to focus on one area of the house. I am going to start with the kitchen. My countertops seem to be the best place to put anything and everything for all members of the family. So, during the day and before I go to bed, I am going to make sure the kitchen is tidied up, the dishes are in the dishwasher, and the clutter is off of the counters. I will get the kids to help by taking anything that is theirs off of the counters and with picking up toys off of the floor. Then I will give the floor a quick vacuum and the countertops and stove will get a quick clean as well. Voila, clean kitchen! Once it becomes a habit to make sure the kitchen is clean and tidy every day, I will move on to another room and add that to the habit.
Start Small
I am going to start small and be consistent with it. I know that the reason I fail when it comes to cleaning is that every time I start cleaning, I clean the whole house to ensure everything is clean, tidy, organized, and decluttered. It is such a big job that I feel like I need to take a break from it. Then over the next few days, the house slowly gets cluttered again. This becomes so discouraging that I just don’t want to tidy and clean again. What’s the point?!
For this reason, I am starting with kitchen and will not add another room until the kitchen becomes a habit to consistently keep tidy. Then I will add the dining room, and then the living room, and then the laundry room, and so on until it becomes habit to walk through the rooms and ensure everything is tidy, clean, decluttered, and organized. By starting with one room at a time, I can “trick” my brain into recognizing the win of keeping a room clean instead of recognizing the failure of tackling the entire house and not being able to keep it clean consistently.
The other great thing about starting small and focusing on one room at a time is that when I am consistently keeping the kitchen clean, there will no longer be a ton of clutter on the countertops. So each day it should get easier and easier to keep the kitchen clean because there will be less things to clear off of the counter or floor. By keeping the kitchen consistently clean, is takes less and less time to clean, organize and tidy up the kitchen. Then when I am moving on to keeping 2 rooms cleaned, organized, and decluttered, it is not such a daunting task! It will also be easier to deep clean the rooms as well when they are staying consistently organized and decluttered. Essentially by consistently keeping each room tidied up every day, it should only take a few minutes per room to give it a quick clean and move on. This is in contrast to the hours it normally takes when I tackle the entire house!
Getting the kids in on it
I do not want my kids to have the same laziness and bad habits that I do when it comes to cleaning, especially when I was a kid. I am going to make sure they are consistently helping out with the cleaning, organizing, and decluttering of the house on a regular basis and they too will hopefully form the habits of cleaning up with me.
Before you go thinking that my kids get off scot-free around here, think again! Yes, my kids have “chores” and no we do not pay them for those chores either. We do “5 minute tidy ups” as a family because that is what being part of a family means in this household. We pitch in to help each other and clean the house. We just do not tend to be consistent about it on a daily basis with the organizing and decluttering aspects. All 4 of the kids help to empty the dishwasher. Yes, even Jordanna helps by putting the cooking tools away or handing me plates to put into the cupboards! The older two boys empty and fill the dishwasher and Joseph puts his dishes in the dishwasher or sink after meals. Heck even Jordanna whips her plastic plates into the sink after some meals! They help me clean the floors up of toys and papers and such that are lying around. The older two will vacuum and clean their rooms and the younger two will help me move the vacuum around when I am vacuuming. It’s the consistent cleaning that we are trying to form the habit of here. The consistent habit of cleaning up after themselves when they’re done with an activity and not just being asked to clean up when Mom or Dad finds the mess.
So this is my new plan of action for the house for 2023. Every 10 weeks I will add another room as long as I have done a good job with the room(s) I am currently focusing on. This also all came about because I am in the middle or completely rearranging the house so we can fit an exercise room into the back room! The reason we want to add in an exercise room is because we live in Canada! Just kidding! I mean we do live in Canada, but it is also to keep us all healthy. The boys really enjoy their sports and running, so what better way to train than to have the equipment at home. They do not have an actual facility to train at for track and field like an indoor track, so they can use equipment at home. Especially when they are just full of energy! In the summer they run laps of the house when they want to get their energy out. So in the winter they can run on a treadmill! This will also give me access to some gym equipment without having to leave the house or pay for a membership!
There is one issue though when it comes to rearranging the house. That issue leads to another issue, that leads to another issue, and so on. In order to move the couches out of the back room and into the living room, we need to move the piano into the dining room, which mean the bookcases need to move somewhere else, and so on! I am also not sure how long this rearrangement of the house will take and I cannot move the furniture by myself. What I can do though is focus on cleaning, tidying up, decluttering, and organizing the house! This way, even if it takes to the end of the summer, the house will be way more organized when it does come time to move the furniture around and moving the furniture will not require a lot of decluttering and such. I really do hope that during our summer off together as a family, that we can at least get this exercise room figured out, for everyone’s sake! I have set a lofty goal of having the playroom empty by March 31 though!
Gaining Momentum
Since adopting this new cleaning habit a few weeks ago and also being super pregnant, it has taken me some time to get the kitchen cleaned, but now I have been consistently keeping it clean, tidy, decluttered, and looking awesome for over a week now. I make sure I run the dishwasher each night so I can start the next day by emptying the dishwasher and having it available for the breakfast and lunch dishes. I’m honestly pretty proud of it too! I am trying to find a before picture, but I did not take any unfortunately. I have been spraying and cleaning the countertops each night before bed and giving the floors a quick vacuum. Any time the kids leave a mess or an item on the counter, I have been calling them over to either put the item away or clean up their mess. I have also been asking them if they have noticed a difference with the kitchen and then allowing them to come to the conclusion, sometimes with coaxing, as to how we are going to keep the kitchen looking this way over time.
The last thing I wanted to mention was regarding momentum. Now that I have been focusing on keeping the kitchen clean and tidy, it has been overflowing to other rooms. I am not completely focusing on keeping every room tidy to ensure I am not overwhelming myself. When I do get some momentum rolling when tidying up the kitchen, I will then focus on one area of another room and tidy that up. Then, I will assess how I am doing energy wise and how the younger two kids are doing with their activities. Then I will either continue on to another area, stop and focus on the kids, or take a breather. I do consider all of the focused tidying up a win because it is way better than my habit of not cleaning up consistently! Getting 1% better every day is the focus here!
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