One of my biggest slob-problems is my love of Inspiration Based Cleaning.
I want to wait until I feel inspired, but since that rarely happens, the house gets more and more cluttered, and inspiration becomes more and more difficult to find.
Yesterday, I shared Monday’s shoe-pile project. It was Non-Inspiration Based Cleaning, just a total “duh” , that I made myself do after waiting . . . way too long.
But having done it, I was Inspired to do more. Funny how that works.
The dining room table was covered in clutter, but what could I do? It’s summer . . . I’m out of the routine of getting the mail myself . . . and no one else seems to want to sort-walk . . . so it’s beyond help and I’ll probably have to just wait until we’re in a routine again . . . . (big dramatic sigh).
But then I thought about the shoes. I thought about how I had actually put my shoes away last night because I was inspired by the cleared space.
So I spent the next 20 minutes clearing the table. 20 minutes . . . and I didn’t even hurry. Most of the items in the piles were trash, and the rest had “spots” where they could easily be taken. I wasn’t playing the part of the Decluttering Madwoman, but I did manage to resist reading during a potty break, and was overly proud of that.
The table was cleared, and I considered myself done. But then, I remembered this post, and again was inspired to really finish the job. I thought I could justify leaving the swimsuits hanging on the chairs to dry, but not when the items hanging on the drying rack in the laundry room had been there for . . . ahem . . . long enough to be really REALLY dry.
And then, once the table was truly and completely cleared . . . I took this inspiration thing a step further, and remembered a post I had seen by Robyn, where she decorated her table with crepe-myrtle cuttings in a vase.
Flowers in a vase? Me?
But I did it. Part of my reasoning was that I wanted to keep this self-inspiration thing going. If the clear floor by the back door was enough inspiration to put my shoes away, maybe a vase of flowers (free and abundant flowers) on the dining room table will be inspiration to not dump random stuff on it.
Aaaahhhhh.
'Deslobification'
A perfect word. I love it! I've given myself until Saturday morning to deslobify my laundry room. It's bad…
awesome that is great that you are seeing places that need cleaning. I am so much like you in the respect I know how to clean the spots but it is really keeping up with maintaining those spots. I am working on this and have managed to keep part of a counter , coffee table( big cluttering spot for months clean) , bathroom too. I have tried to keep the small couch clear but it hasnt at least gotten out of control like it used to just a few things to pick up every week.
Thanks so much for the inspiration each day !!!!!!
I just read your story about your struggles with nursing. I could have written it myself!!!! Thank you for getting the word out there that while it might not always be easy- it is definitely worth it!
Amy!
http://www.AmysAvenueBlog.blogspot.com
Beautiful 🙂 Those flowers are definitely 'inspiring'!
I love this! It's so true. Just doing one thing is great but what's greater is that it inspires you to do more. It's a bit contagious.
I love reading your posts and I always ponder why we all don't love to clean. Then I saw this in an email….and pardon the length…please. (delete it if you need to) but to read about someone finding joy in cleaning? what the…? (after reading it, I realized I grew up with the "cleaning is punishment" mentality. If you were sitting down, reading or relaxing, then you were THE ENEMY and must do something NOW to clean the house. I didn't feel right about relaxing until I was 30!)
(Nony here – I love your comment, so I wanted to post it, but did take out the Flylady email. I don't want to infringe on her at all. I do so highly recommend her as a fabulous resource!)
Looks great! What incentive!
I have some fake flowers someplace that I could put on the kitchen table, if I cleared it off. It will take longer than 20 minutes.
I know this is a really old post, but I had to comment. Our dining table is our biggest ‘landing area’ for everything that comes in the house, so most of the time it looks worse than your picture. It is something I am going to be working on little by little so that we can actually use it more for it’s intended purpose. It doesn’t help that right now the allergens in our area are off the charts and make me feel foggy-headed, so getting much done is even more of a struggle. I also have the selective slob-vision and am so happy that you decided to share your struggles with the world so others like us can realize that we are not alone. You have been an inspiration and a light of hope! I can’t wait to catch up to current posts, but I don’t want to miss anything by skipping ahead. Thank you!