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Timed Myself Cleaning Again . . . Not the Results I Expected

February 19, 2010 By Dana White | 7 Comments

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Timed Myself Cleaning Again . . . (Not the Results I Expected) daily habits at ASlobComesClean.com

Last month, I timed myself cleaning each of the main rooms of the house. It had been a pretty rough week and I felt like I was starting “behind” in each room. I said then that I should do the same thing during a week when I felt like I had been doing pretty well.

So today, I again timed myself cleaning each room. I thought that the house was in pretty good shape. I mean, I had some friends over yesterday, and might have even let people through the door if they had shown up unexpectedly this morning.

The results weren’t exactly what I expected.

I started in the dining room. The same room where I served lunch yesterday. I promise it didn’t look this bad yesterday. But evidently I was living in yesterday’s past and thought it wasn’t as bad as the last time I timed myself. It took me 6 minutes . . . an entire 3 minutes less than it took last time.

At 8:48, the dining room looked like this:

Here it is at 8:54. How I do love that I can close the door that goes into the kitchen.

At 8:55 the kitchen looked like this:


At 9:20 it looked like this. Only 9 minutes less than last time. (Notice that the dishwasher was emptied before I started. That is truly the best habit I’ve developed. Emptying it before breakfast makes it so much easier to “clean the kitchen” later.) Oh, and the 25 minutes today included assisting my 3yo with four separate costume emergencies.


This is the living room at 9:23 (in pre-blog days I would have considered this GREAT!)

Here is the living room at 9:29, only 6 minutes instead of the 14 from last time. My biggest improved time today.
And here is the office/gameroom at 9:39

And at 10:01 it looked like this:EXACTLY the same amount of time it took last time.

So what does all of this mean?
Does it mean that the house was not as clean as I thought it was? Partially yes. I think I was a bit delusional about the dining room and the office. I think that my mind’s picture of the state of the dining room yesterday was canceling out its true picture for today. Does that make sense? It has something to do with the “All housekeeping points expire at midnight” concept.
Along those same lines, I still struggle with thinking that the office looks great if I can see three square feet of floor in the middle of the room. It was soooo bad for sooooo long that it’s difficult for me to focus on details in here.
I’ll admit that I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t see huge differences in times. But it showed me that clutter is still my issue. Clearing that dining room table immediately yesterday instead of leaving it for today would have made a huge difference. And in the office, the fact that the white bench and the totally useless dresser surface were cleared of clutter made the after pictures look much better this time.
Again, though, I’m reminded of what a huge difference 20-25 minutes can make in a room. And I just flat-out like my home so much more when it looks nicer.
And although I try very hard to never give advice on this blog, I do have to recommend taking before and after pictures of rooms when you clean them up. Even if you aren’t showing them to anyone, it’s amazing how good it feels to click back and see how much the room improved in 20 minutes.
And by the way, if you never read the post when I timed myself last month, you should. The opening story still cracks me up.
Oh, and I also vacuumed, which is my newly added weekly task for Fridays.
Timed Myself Cleaning Again . . . (Not the Results I Expected) daily checklist habits at ASlobComesClean.com

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Filed Under: doing things well, progress, weekly tasks | 7 Comments

Comments

  1. MJ says

    February 21, 2010 at 5:23 am

    First, I love your before and afters. I totally agree, it definitely is a great motivator! And don't be discouraged by your time. I think the new times are impressive. And moreover, I think the better we become at cleaning, the more we realize there is to clean. Does that make sense? It's like the stuff that you never notice until all of a sudden, you notice it?!

    Reply
  2. Betty says

    May 19, 2010 at 1:24 am

    You shaved a quarter off your time; I think that's great!

    Reply
  3. Nancy Dawn says

    November 9, 2012 at 8:20 am

    Sometimes, the only way I can get motivated is to take pictures of the chaos! The pictures help me focus in on exactly what is where and to know where it needs to be put.
    You are so real and such an encouragement!

    Reply
    • Nony says

      November 9, 2012 at 8:39 pm

      You’re so right about the pictures! Why are things more obvious in a pic than in real life?

      Reply
  4. Twyla Hajdukiewicz says

    May 27, 2014 at 4:35 pm

    Hard to believe. I read all the comments twice to be sure, but I think I am the first to point out that even in the BEFORE picture, the kitchen cabinets were all CLOSED. Only the dishwasher was open, which I choose to assume is how you remember that it has been emptied of clean dishes. Congratulations on closed kitchen doors and drawers! Yay Nony!!!

    Reply
    • Dana White says

      May 27, 2014 at 5:20 pm

      Haha! Love that you noticed that!

      Reply
  5. Stella says

    August 19, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    I wonder if I will ever have my living room looking as good as your ‘before’ shot? Something to aspire to.

    Reply

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A Slob Comes Clean is the completely honest (and never-ending) story of my deslobification process. As I find ways to keep my home under control, I share the truth about cleaning and organization methods that actually work for a real-life slob. And I'm funny.

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