Discovering Your Preferred Level of Clean
Have you ever stopped to think how clean – or dirty – you prefer to keep your home?
Think past what your home looks like right at this moment. Rather, what level of cleanliness brings you with peace or satisfaction?
Now is a perfect time to work around your home and try to bring things to order. You can start off by identifying your largest obstacles, then taking a home inventory.
Once those two steps are finished, it’s a good thing to contemplate your preferred level of clean.
A matter of preference
Think about how clean — or dirty — a space can be for you to be comfortable.
- Can you tolerate clutter?
- Can you tolerate messes?
- Or do you like things tidy and picked up?
- Do you start to feel your stress level rise when you see a mess?
- Is tidy a little too messy for you … do you prefer a spotlessly clean home?
Your answers aren’t right or wrong; they’re simply what you prefer.
And as you’re brutally honest with yourself and figure out exactly how clean your home needs to be for you to be comfortable, you’ll begin to discover how often you’ll need to clean your home.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a total mess and 10 being completely clean, what’s your preferred level of clean? What makes you feel most comfortable?
How much time can you spend cleaning?
The next area to think through is the time you can devote to cleaning.
How much time can you devote to cleaning each day? How about each week? Grab your planner and see when you actually have free time.
If your home happens to be in shambles but you have only a few minutes a day to care for your home, it will take much longer to work to get it under control than if you have lots of time and little mess. That little amount of time doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Rather, you’ll just have to be very focused and consistent.
Another factor to consider is if you have anyone else in your home to help. If someone else can help, how much time and help can they commit? It’s important to be realistic about this — don’t dream about what you hope they can commit. Know what their current level of help actually is.
If you struggle with not having enough time to care for your home, you might feel trapped – trapped in a busy schedule with no room to effectively care for your home. And your schedule may very well be overfilled with commitments and responsibilities.
But at some point, you’ll need to step back and realize that your home needs to become a priority, too. Your mental health and a clutter-free lifestyle is worth being a commitment.
Making a priority shift
When you do make this shift in priorities, you’ll start looking for ways to get rid of the clutter in your life. You can carve out five minutes here or ten minutes there to routinely work your way through the clutter in your room. (Yes, only devoting five or ten minutes a day will mean that your decluttering process will last a while. But doing something is better than doing nothing.)
While you may think you need to devote entire days to cleaning, that’s not very practical for most people. Instead, try devoting ten to thirty minutes a day – every day – on working around your home. It’s surprising to see what you can do in just fifteen minutes of uninterrupted cleaning.
To help get your home under control and cleaner than it is right now, grab my free 7-Day Strategy to Tidy Your Home.
How clean – or dirty – do you prefer to keep your home? Share in the comments below!
