Reflections on housekeeping

[ailbhe]

Forgive me for being list-happy; it's easier than real entries.

1. It is much easier to keep everything in its place when everything has a place.
2. No household task takes more than 20 minutes. If it does, it's more than one task and should be rewarded as such.
3. Yes, I should be rewarded for household tasks. If I got someone else to do it, I'd pay them, wouldn't I?
4. People will forgive a lot if they can see you're in the middle of a major DIY project.
5. Or if you feed them.
6. I will forgive myself a lot if I get the dining table clear and usable once every day.
7. When the weather is good, we can eat in the garden.
8. Clean underwear is laundry's most valuable reward.
9. I hate carpets and must get rich and buy wooden flooring.

Comments

[radegund.livejournal.com]

1. It is much easier to keep everything in its place when everything has a place.

More than that: it's impossible to achieve total tidiness without sufficient storage space (or less stuff, but let's push that bad and nasty idea away). Easier said than done. I don't think I've ever lived somewhere where there was, in fact, a place for everything. But it's a fine aspiration - and no, no, no, I refuse to believe that it cannot be done! I will not give up the struggle!

2. No household task takes more than 20 minutes. If it does, it's more than one task and should be rewarded as such.

Good one. I'm adopting this. I work well in 20-minute chunks. (And the reward thing. Definitely.)

4. People will forgive a lot if they can see you're in the middle of a major DIY project.

Cf. I Hate to Housekeep once again. (I seem to remember getting up at 7 a.m. on the morning of our Christmas party to finish glossing the skirting-boards in the hall...)

6. I will forgive myself a lot if I get the dining table clear and usable once every day.

It's all about pockets of feasibility - cutting paths through the jungle and keeping them usable. At Christmas we "tidied" downstairs, which involved shoving most of the crap under our bed upstairs. I now have a running ambition to extract and deal with one under-bed receptacle - just one - whenever the fit takes me, and sooner or later (who am I kidding? - later) it'll be clear. (So far, three down, many to go!)