It's Friday! Time to prepare for your weekend!
First, lets do the check list for Friday:
1. Write menu for the next week to prepare for shopping.
2. Write grocery list and any other items you must buy at a store.
3. Print out bank statements and update budget.
4. It's the last business day of the month. Do you have month end bills to pay? Time to do that too.
5. Plan when you will do tasks for the weekend including wash/clean out car, groceries, laundry, housework. (yeah, for those of us who work full time and run a business on the side, most of these activities have to be done on a weekend. Some of you are able to do this during the week and keep your weekends free. In our house, it just isn't working that way right now.)
And besides that I just thought I'd share some musings on cleaning and tidying.
Are you a Clean Freak?
I mean really? Think about it? It's a very interesting subject and I am guilty of doing a lot of google searches on being a neat freak or a clean freak.
I am not. (a clean freak)
I wish I was to the healthy extent, but not in the OCD way that you find in so many articles. I don't think anyone really wants to be so obsessive that they loose much needed sleep on a week night when they have to work in the morning, because they got upset about the pantry or a drawer and stayed up to the wee hours making it perfect. That is a an effort to control things on the outside to make yourself feel calm on the inside.
I think the balance is in the truth that, making your life organized and orderly DOES in fact bring inner peace and it really does free you up to do the things you value, but it can become unbalanced if you let it become obsessive and then it's controlling you.
I think those of us who struggle to be orderly and tidy can learn great lessons by studying the ways of the super neat. Such as:
1. They are highly visual people. So much of what they do is a result of what they see in their world around them. It comes from them saying "When I see the paper on the floor, I go pick it up." "When I see the garbage can is full, I empty it and put a new bag in place" or "When I see the tuft of cat hair on the carpet, I don't wait until the next time to vacuum, I just bend over and pick it up".
You see, the very orderly people in our lives have developed a habit of responding to the things they see around them. The naturally messy types would see the cat hair and inwardly say "It's time to vacuum. Now I have to vacuum this room. It will have to wait until it's time to vacuum, I can't do it right now." We can sabatoge our own efforts to get things in order by viewing things we see as large tasks to do, when a small task such as bending over to pick up the hair might suffice for now.
2. They allow time to organize and clean. Have you ever invited someone out on a Friday night, or offered to hang out for a while after work and they just said something like "Thanks, but I'll pass, I have some things I want to get done at home and if I stay and visit, I won't accomplish what I need to." I have had exactly that experience. The clean types of people don't even realize sometimes that they mentally plan times when they will get certain things done.
3. Self Respect. I know a few naturally clean people and it's part of their inner values. They value being a good steward of the resources given to them by God. Did God bless them with a house? a job? Clothes, books, media items, etc? The clean types want to take care of what they own and make it nice for themselves and their family. It is a healthy measure of self respect.
I fall in the middle. I am hopelessly average. I am not a slob, but I am not really a clean freak either. I have some quirks. I get very fussy over my linen closet being straightened "just so", and I am the type that can't leave a picture crooked. I go to my friends house and start polishing their kitchen tap because I hate the soap splashes. (Okay, maybe that soap splash thing is a bit OCD. LOL!)
But I am guilty of continually fighting the stacks on my desk. I am still getting my "in flow, out flow" of our home desk where it needs to be. I get busy and distracted and I can fall away from our daily routines and next thing you know, the desk is a mess and someone forgot to sweep the floor, or the laundry is forgotten, and sometimes (GASP!) I even go to bed with the kitchen left in a mess!
( I know, the kitchen one is beyond terrible and just shouldn't happen, but when you work a day job, and a business part-time, and try to keep up with family and friends, sometimes the routines slip and fatigue takes over. The punishment for that choice is there in full when your messy kitchen greets you first thing in the morning and you have to clean it before you can even start your day.)
It is a passion and life-long goal of mine to re-write these parts of my character into a person who values being organized enough to get things done. A person who won't let fatigue cause her to leave a mess where cleanliness and peacefulness should be. I don't want to become an uptight, inflexible person, and I NEVER want to bully my family around about the housework. I NEVER want to be remembered as the nagging Mom and Wife. That's not worth it.
I find that when I think of myself as the person I idealize myself to be, I get more done. If you tell yourself "I'm a tidy person. I don't leave my workspace a mess, and I leave the staff lunchroom spotless after I use it.", you will find yourself doing those very behaviours.
If you tell yourself "I am a clean, tidy, organized person. I wouldn't go to bed with my clothes dumped on the floor, or I wouldn't go to bed without straightening up the house first." you just might find yourself doing more of those things.
This is true because when there is things we would not want to be known for, we somehow shift our priorities and make it happen. Such as looking good before you leave the house. If you are a female reader, I am sure you can relate to a healthy sense of female pride that you don't want to go to the store in messy, stained clothes, no make-up and wild hair! LOL! Somehow, you just find clean clothes, a hair brush, toothpaste and all those things before going out. It is the same with becoming a clean, tidy, organized person. If you get on the positive side of things and tell yourself you value those things, I think you will find you get more accomplished than if you had not.
So, as you go into your weekend, plan a few things that you want to see happen, and then affirm yourself on a job well done when you realize some of those goals.
If you are really overwhelmed and just starting out, try a website such as:
These sorts of websites have great step by step processes to help you get some wins.
We have a dinner to host on Saturday, so tonight is shopping and cleaning!
Have a fantastic weekend, and thanks for reading.
Cassie
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