I know what you’re thinking. Something like, “Hey, these post are supposed to be about enjoying life, living to the fullest, not stuff we hate to do! What gives?”

You’re right, of course, but if you’re like me, and you sit too long in a messy house, pretty soon it’s nearly impossible to concentrate on whatever task happens to be at hand. Why? Guilt, for one thing. That, and the fact that for a lot of people (whether they want to admit it or not), it’s hard to focus when the environment is too cluttery.

Now I don’t really care for perfectly clean and sterile – personally, I need a “homey” atmosphere to work in. But I never seem to realize just how negatively my generally messy house affects my attitude until I’m forced to clean. Naturally, once the house is picked up and I feel how much lighter my overall outlook is, I want to keep it that way. I’m sure you know that’s easier said than done...

As part of my “succulent living” project, I want to keep the house cleaner, because it has such a direct effect on my overall attitude. When I have a better attitude, I get more done, and I enjoy life more. It’s not really rocket science, right?

I’ve tried a lot of different methods, with varying results. The most useful has been Flylady, though it does have to be tweaked quite a lot for my personal tastes/schedules. Still, getting a daily digest email that gives me a list of the scheduled tasks for the day is motivating, even if I personally only do one thing off said list. I unsubscribed when I started writing, and just resubscribed again to have the daily reminders. It’s her “shiny sink” habit that got me cleaning the kitchen every night (and no, I don’t shine my sink every night, but it is empty before I go to bed, and the dishwasher’s running).

I think the trick to cleaning without really feeling like it’s work is to do little things daily, every day, so they’re more routine than “task”. I know that since I’ve been cleaning my kitchen every night before bed, mornings are less stifling when I’m not facing messy counters and no room to work when I’m trying to make tea. When I was keeping the laundry up well, it was so much nicer facing a bedroom that was reasonably clean every morning/night (needless to say, that’s on my list of things that must be kept up again).

Another thing I learned through a lot of years on the GardenWeb Organizing the Home forum was to work with my own natural routines. Though we have an office, when we come in the door I head through the kitchen to the back door to let the dogs out. It makes more sense to sort the mail at the kitchen counter than it does to try to remember to take it back to the office, because the office isn’t even in my normal “path” until twenty minutes later. So the mail sorter & recycling bin is near the kitchen instead of in the office, because I’m more likely to keep up with it that way.

So this coming week, I’m working on my housekeeping routines again. Today hubby and I spent one hour (*only one hour*) vacuuming, cleaning the yard, starting laundry, and just doing a general pick-up. In one hour we got enough done that the main areas of the house are still very neat and tidy, and won’t make either of us feel guilty or overwhelmed for the next week. And because I started the laundry early, I won’t have to wait as long to start on my nails later tonight, which means more sleep for me. Actually, I’ll get another load of laundry done before evening, which will mean fresh towels tomorrow as well.

All this will make the next week better, even if I do no other housekeeping all week, it will still have a noticeable effect on my mood. And being happy, not worrying about whether the house is in bad shape or not is part of living a succulent life, in my opinion.