I've been a good girl/busy homemaker and have almost completely transformed the main floor -- save for one room. It grudgingly holds my random pain-in-the-ass-to-deal-with stuff that has to go somewhere. If this room had a face, it would be scowling.
I also need to tackle the garage (jumbled with boxes from my old job).
I won't consider the basement this month -- another project entirely, and practically another world.
I'm picking/straightening up several times a day, not giving piles the opportunity to form or dust the chance to accumulate. It's a neverending process, but overall it takes much less time than decluttering once a week when the piles are immense and the dust inches thick. The accumulation of mundane tasks is what deflates me.
Yes, it may be better to do things right away.
Dramatic improvements came from the ridding of strewn-about odds and ends: purses under a desk, magazines piled beside a reading chair. Sort-of organized shoes were lined up like soldiers, bathroom countertops stripped of superfluous hair care goos. Seventeen dollar peppermint-scented hand lotion was banished from the edge of the kitchen sink, and a bottle of dishwashing liquid stripped of her crocheted "dress." (Yes, I'm a kitsch-o-maniac.)
I've never known the comfort of "everything in its place" but I'm getting a glimmer. I'm also programming a teeny tiny airhorn in my brain to alert me the moment things start going downhill.
Thinking of myself as a "guest" in my home has also helped. For whatever sad reason, I am more motivated to clean for "guests" than I am for myself.
All in all, I am trying to learn not to settle for less, but to aspire for more.
We can easily say "Oh, I don't particularly care how my home looks." But when you go to a hotel, isn't there an "aaaah" feeling (relief, excitement, comfort) from everything being so...neat?
You deserve that feeling at home.
Housekeeping from a place of indifference is not the same as housekeeping from a place of awareness. When you consciously work to make your home a place of comfort, you are respecting yourself. Housekeeping is not an oppressive task; it is an act of love -- for you.
