If Your Mind is Messy, Clean Your Room First
I’m going to start this article with a bit of background on myself in order to establish why I personally hold this habit so highly.
Cleaning has always been a big part of my life.
For most of my childhood my dad worked part time as a janitor, and every weekday after school we would help him clean the veteran clinic he worked for.
On top of that, I grew up with a clean-freak step-mother who had us clean the entire house every night making sure almost no details were missed.
This followed with me into middle-high school by helping care for my mentally ill older sister who couldn’t get out of bed most days, nevermind clean.
Her house often looked like the houses in “hoarders”. Literally couldn’t see the floor. Every weekend for year’s I would go to her house and deep clean everything.
Now I live in a different city with my boyfriend but this habit still follows me.
My family and friends make comments on how I don’t need to ensure everything is nearly spotless before they visit, but it is something that is instilled into me now.
I even picked up cleaning peoples homes as a part-time gig!
I truly believe a clean home = a happy home. I would like to help others find this happiness.
However, we’ve all had different life experiences, so how can it be expected for you to have these same cleaning tendencies woven into you?
Just like I learned and practiced this healthy habit with time, so can you.
You may be asking, though, “why?”
Why It’s Important To Keep A Clean Environment
It’s true that your environments affects you. How can you expect to be able to focus on anything surrounded by mess?
Speaking from personal experience, I know how distracting it can be. I’ve had times myself where I let my apartment go a bit and it just weighs on me.
I’ll be sitting trying to do something creative like writing an article, or simply relaxing by watching TV, and in the back of my mind all I can think is man those dishes are piling up.
Not to mention the frustration when you just can’t find that outfit you wanted to wear in the piling laundry basket, or your keys are nowhere to be found.
This article delves a bit more into the research aspect of the importance of cleanliness. Check it out if you’d like to learn more on that.
So Now You Know Why, But How?
This may seem like a silly question to some readers. To others, though, it may just help in finding the motivation they’ve been looking for.
Here are some methods to help break down the process a bit:
- No need to tackle everything at once. Start out with whatever seems fastest and easiest at first, like just the corner of your room.
- Don’t shoot for perfection. If you’re cleaning your entire home, for example, start out with a quick sweep of the “nasty” stuff like trash, used dishes, dirty clothes, etc.
- Stick to a certain order of items. First pick up any clothes and do a load, gather all trash in the apartment and take it out, get any left out dishes and wash them all, etc.
- Go room-by-room. You can start off with your bedroom- make the bed, put away any dishes/clothes/trash in there only and repeat the process for the next room.
- Pick up as you go. When you go to clean the toilet, you take out the trash in there. You go get a trash bag and end up doing dishes. While looking for dishes you pick up the pile of clothes in your bedroom. And so on.
- Ask for help. Seriously. If you are struggling, just know that everybody needs support sometimes. Whether it’s asking someone to hold you accountable, or asking/paying for help with the actual labor part. Some people are willing to help. I know as I’ve been one of these people (on both sides).
I use certain methods more some days depending on my mindset as it varies from time to time.
One day I can easily stick to one room until it’s finished, the next I’m running around just picking up things as I go.
Both work fine, what matters is that you’re doing something.
Referring to these methods do generally help me as they provide a guide to stick to, like a checklist to monitor my overall progress.
I hope this provides a bit of value for those of you that need it. Remember that any bit of progress is still progress. You got this!
Conclusion
Cleaning has been an integral part of my life – and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The benefits it brings me in my daily life are worth the work every time.
This is why I want to help motivate others to build this healthy habit for themselves. I know it can be hard sometimes, trust me, I’ve been there and seen that myself before. But it’s possible!
Think of why you want to implement this more into your life and use that as your driving force, then utilize any cleaning methods that work best for you and revel in the results! I promise doing so will pay off in the end. So get to it!
“Cleanliness is a mindset – a positive habit that keeps the body, mind, and environment happy, healthy, simple, neat, and delightful.” – Amit Ray
