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 at 10:01 it looked like this:
EXACTLY the same amount of time it took last time.
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?!
You shaved a quarter off your time; I think that's great!
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!
You’re so right about the pictures! Why are things more obvious in a pic than in real life?
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!!!
Haha! Love that you noticed that!
I wonder if I will ever have my living room looking as good as your ‘before’ shot? Something to aspire to.