Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
The doorbell is a great motivator to get the house clean, but when there aren’t any doorbells coming, motivation can be hard to find! I’m talking about the mental and strategical shifts that help me make real progress in my home even without the motivation of a doorbell.
Thanks, Dana!
This is EXACTLY what I needed to hear today. With the garden in full-swing, I hadn’t fully noticed the INCREDIBLE amount of preservation-related procrasticlutter swarming (not only in the kitchen but all over our main floor!).
You even convinced me to deal with tomatoes that is been avoiding.
Welcome back Dana! You got it right, it’s really is the weirdest summer break ever – and I bet it’s the same for everyone.
Such good (and important!) reminders! Thank you. *AND sooo good to hear from you, too!! 8 )
I just stumbled across your blog ( due to the fact I left laundry (( forgot, electively forgot, avoided the laundry room like it was the portal to being a “responsible adult 45yr old woman”)) to rot in the washer and I am on the verge of vomiting from the smell lol) after searching for help with “forgotten” laundry. I will defiantly check you out further….. You sound like my kinda slob!
Dana,
I think the idea of tackling procrasticlutter is the definition of achieving adulthood. Thanks for the encouragement!
This was just the best episode. I was cleaning while listening on headphones (I find your podcast very motivational while I’m cleaning – especially at night when I’m wanting to do anything BUT clean) and I literally reacted out loud to the podcast a couple of times. (stuff like, yes!) I really feel like this episode was for me and I will really try to use the visibility rule and tackle procrasti-clutter advice. I am one of those people that very much would like to not just be motivated by the doorbell, but I very much am. Thanks so much.
This episode speaks to my soul lol I always go panic mode when I have guests coming in the house!
From some reason, this podcast brought to mind the time I had my youngest confined to his room until he got it cleaned. Late in the day when I checked his progress (again) i was impressed that it was done except for one smallish area. I gave him due praise and encouragement, then told him I’d be back in awhile to see it when the final area was done. An hour later, I was shocked to find the room a total mess again! Of course I asked, and he said it didn’t feel good to him without his stuff out and around him. I remember a time in my own childhood, feeling the same way. A neat room felt cold and unwelcoming; I felt there was nothing to do and I couldn’t relax. I don’t know whether this is common or what. My friends all had neat rooms and we never lacked for things to do when I visited their homes. I wanted a neat room and was frustrated that I couldn’t accomplish it most of the time, but didn’t feel at home the few times I did. I feel badly that all of my children grew up to be at least as disorganized as I was during their childhood (and long after – okay, until recently) and I so wish that I’d had your kind of teaching back then. But if anyone reading this can relate to the strangeness my son and I both felt with a clean room, I’d like to suggest having the child practice just keeping one surface clear for a few months, until it felt “right” and then build on that. I wonder if that might help build appreciation for the neatness that would have prevented same child from wearing mismatched shoes to church one Sunday because there wasn’t time to find a mate.
Add on: I just remembered my shock shortly after marrying my husband. He was a much better housekeeper than I and had a Sunday morning routine that covered most of his cleaning chores. After breakfast, he’d put on the coffee and get most of his tasks done while it brewed. Then he would set his neatly stacked newspapers from the past week on the coffee table and roughly smear them from one end to the other, creating what to me was an ugly mess, pour his coffee and lie happily on the couch to read. Maybe he had that same need to have some amount of “inviting” mess? (Do we all?)