This morning I recalled the wisdom of Elizabeth George and others who taught me some basic housekeeping principles early on in my adult life. Normally, I rush out the door to work, but this morning, I give myself five minutes (I actually set a timer to see if it's possible), to get the home ready for our return from work and school.
In five minutes, you can straighten the beds and wipe down bathroom sinks. In five minutes, you can clean kitchen counters, load up the breakfast dishes, and even throw frozen chicken breasts and sauce in the crockpot.
In five minutes, you can straighten up the pillows on the couches, fold the blankets, and organize all the piano music on the piano.
It makes a difference to return to the sanctuary of an organized and tidy home. Some women claim that just making the bed (since it takes up 75% of the room) creates a profound sense of order.
The point is that these things don't take long. They don't consume much time and energy in proportion to the payoff of entering the door to a soothing atmosphere.
So I pause and give the house five minutes before I rush out the door. Living with flair means keeping a tidy home for a family to enjoy. I can't give my life to cleaning--and I wouldn't even if I did have the time--but I can give a few minutes each day to creating some order.
1 comment:
Funny - I just started a similar thing at my house. It's called WWSS - What Would Sharon See.
Last weekend I said my family, what if while we were away from the house during the day, for some reason our lovely neighbor, Sharon - who has a key - had to come into the house (to unplug the iron I could swear I unplugged, etc) well, what would Sharon see? The messy remnants of our whirlwind morning for sure! So now with Sharon (who really wouldn't judge us, but it's a good mental trick) in mind, we take a few extra minutes at night and then before we leave in the AM to make things a bit more tidy.
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