Around We Go

Over a year ago, I became a stay at home parent. For the first time since I was in high school, I had no job outside of the home. Of course, I hate housework, I live with a packrat, and I have trouble throwing anything away. (This last one has gotten waaaaayyy better.)

I couldn't figure out how someone could have a home that always looked nice and tidy. Heck, I know a woman whose boxes of things to do are stacked neatly and labeled in her basement, that is how organize she is. Me? Not so much. I knew what it would take to have the kind of hosue you could show off to the realtor on a moment's notice (or I thought I did), but who wants to be working that hard all the time, only to have to do it again, especially when there is nothing intellectually rewarding about it? Of course, mothers for generations have faced these obstacles, but I seem to be part of the first generation who believes that we actually have a choice to not do it.

Finally, I decided that if I was smart enough to hold down a full time job drafting legal documents, I was smart enough to figure out how to keep a neat, tidy, and relatively clean home without (1) boring myself to tears and (2) becoming the first human being to go on strike from her own expectations because of the boredom.

Several months ago, I began using a cleaning routine I developed. I call it the "Two Square Feet" method. The idea behind this routine was so simple, but I was very surprised at how much of a difference it made in my house and in my attitude.

BASIC IDEA

When we, as humans, can see progress in a tangible way, we are energized to do more. When things get bogged down, or our progress is invisible, we find it hard to keep perservering with things we don't like to do. So, the "Two Square Feet" method helps group your cleaning tasks for you in a way that maximizes the visul impact of what you are doing. At the end of the day, no matter how much or how little you have time to do, you can actually see a tangible accomplishment.

DAY ONE

First, select your "Home Base." This is your starting point for your daily cleaning from here on out, so pick carefully. The space should be roughly in the range of two square feet, but it doesn't have to be. Just keep in mind that depending on what is in your space, the first day can be very easy or very, very hard, so try not to pick too big of a space.

Ideally, your space should be in a room where you spend a lot of time, centrally located to high traffic areas in the house. I wouldn't recommend picking the back corner of your closet, and I strongly discourage picking any place that contains your dishwasher, clothes washing machine, or hamper.

My "Home Base" is in my kitchen, in the nook that leads to the dining room. I picked a portion of my countertop that is the same width as one of the square tiles on the pattern on my kitchen floor. On that countertop section is my coffee pot and the toaster. Underneath that countertop is a cabinet of "seldom use" kitchen items, and below it is a section of floor that contains the catfood dishes. (Above the countertop is a cabinet of dishes, but I consider that "adjacent space" as I will describe under "Cleaning Days".)

Here is a picture.

On the first day, your job is make your two square feet "perfect". Clean it, shine it, fix it, do whatever it takes to make it the way you would want a never-weary robot to make your house if you could hire one. If you have an appliance, clean it out and wipe it off. If something is broken, fix it (yes, even if you need to go to the store). If there are stains, remove them. If you have a wood floor, use whatever floor cleaner you usually use, plus and floor restorer you always wanted to use. If you have a wood floor under an area rug, clean the rug and the floor. If you have stains on the wall, get them off. (You do not have to paint the wall. I draw the line at painting.)

As you can see, the first day can take a few moments, or it literally can take all day.

What about junk in your space? Move it. If you can, move it to wherever you want it to live forever, but if you can't, just move it somewhere else. Perhaps you can move it not too far away.

Of all the places in your house, this Home Base is the one you never give over to mess. First thing in the morning, or last at night (whichever works for you), make sure that the spot is wiped down and visibly clean and tidy. If your cat spills food, pick it up. If your sweet spouse makes toast and leaves crumbs, wipe them off. Don't let this spot go for more than one day.

That is the end of Day One. If your spot was easy and you want to move on to Cleaning Days, feel free. As far as this routine is concerned, you have the rest of the day to continue your regularly scheduled programming ... if you have any day left, that is.

MAINTENANCE DAYS

A "Maintenance Day" is every day after Day One. During a Maintenance Day, your obligation is to try to keep clutter and big messes out of your Control Area. "Control Area" is your Home Base and any area you have claimed on a Cleaning Day. Basically, don't allow a lot of junk and piles or spills to accumulate in your Control Area. Take a few minutes to make sure you aren't losing ground. If your spouse has left a pile of mail in your Control Area, move it somewhere else.

On a Maintenance Day, you don't try to get ahead, you just try to keep up with the big stuff and don't fall behind. A Maintenance Day shouldn't take too long. For me, as a stay at home parent, I use weekends for Maintenance Days, or any days we are out of the house for more than half the day. You may need to create a different schedule.

Family members may make your job more challenging, but if you persist in keeping the area clear of clutter, eventually the idea will catch on.

CLEANING DAYS

Cleaning Days have more rules than Day One or Maintenance Days. (We have to keep it interesting and make it work, right?) So to begin, here is the basic idea. Each Cleaning Day you will wipe down your Control Area and then try to add two more square feet to your Control Area.

STEP 1/RULE: Wiping down your Control Area. This task may not take you long at all, but it is important. Before claiming any more space, start at your Home Base and wipe it off. Wipe up the floor, the counter, and do a quick once-over on the appliances. Then move on to the rest of your Control Area and do the same thing. Remove any junk or stains that got past your Maintenance Days. (You shouldn't have any junk in your Home Base, but if you do, get rid of it.) You don't have to make everything perfect, but you do have to do a little more than on a Maintenance Day. This step is your opportunity to sanitize and de-germ your surfaces. (If you have two Cleaning Days in a row, of course, you can adjust how much time you take at this task.)

When wiping down your Control Area, take it in small chunks. Follow your original two square feet segments if this makes sense, and take breaks. You are in this for the long haul, so don't try to do so much at once that you get mad or frustrated and quit.

RULE: You do not need to wipe down everything that is inside a closed cupboard. You can just wipe down the door. If the cupboard is used a lot, and gets messy a lot, you should straighted it up on the Cleaning Day, though.

STEP 2/RULE: After you wipe down your Control Area, you are ready to claim a new section of two square feet. On your first Cleaning Day, your two square feet must be adjacent to your Home Base. On each other Cleaning Day, your two square feet must be adjacent to either your Home Base or some other part of your Ccontrol Area. By "adjacent" I mean that you can continuously clean without having to skip over stuff. Examples of "adjacent spaces" are the next section of the counter, the cupboards above or below your space, or the floor immediately below your space. Yes, the refrigerator counts (although most refrigerators are more than two square feet, in my opinion.)

The idea is that all your clean areas will be together, so when you look around, you see a nice, restful clean space that is getting bigger all the time. This idea is the reason why you should just move things around if there is no other way to get rid of the junk. You'll get to it eventually, and once you have a big enough Control Area, you will actually be more likely to take on harder tasks because you will be able to see progress.

Now, to make things more motivating for me, I have broken up "adjacent space" into two categories. I call them "Visible Improvement" and "Invisible Improvement". Sometimes my adjacent two square feet is hard to clean, will take awhile, and no one will notice when I'm done. For example, inside a cupboard or a closet. (Or the refrigerator. Or that spot next to the washing machine.) Eventually, you need to do it, but it sure stinks when you can't see progress. These spaces are "Invisible Improvement". For my kitchen, the cupboard above my coffee pot was an Invisible Improvement. The countertop next to the coffee pot, on the other hand, was a "Visible Improvement" because it was out in the open and had junk on it.

RULE: You can decide what is a Visible Improvement and what is an Invisible Improvement. The important point to remember is BOTH VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE IMPROVEMENTS COUNT TOWARD YOUR ADJACENT TWO SQUARE FEET.

When you first start out, you may want to focus only on adding Visible Improvements to your Control Area because that will show you the most progress, but keep in mind it all needs to be done. If you decide to add more than one section to your Control Area on a Cleaning Day, and one of them is an Invisible Improvement, I would suggest the second one be a Visible Improvement to keep you from being discouraged.

You claim your adjacent two square feet the same was you claim your Home Base -- by cleaning the heck out of it and making it perfect. You don't have to do this every day, but you do have to do it once. Then you need to keep it up on Maintenance Days and wipe it down on Cleaning Days.

RULE: Don't take on too big an area when you add space, but try to radiate outward from your Home Base so that you end up with an island of space. You can be linear and keep going in one straight line across your whole house, but I doubt you will get the same satisfaction. I like to put it this way. I want to look into my kitchen and see an uncluttered area. If I can see that, I don't care quite so much about the pile of crap behind me. :-)

RULE: Don't forget to look up and down. Floors and taller cabinets count. The room isn't done until you do them, too. (Some boxes for donation and garage sale strategically stationed around your house might help with the... "treasures" lurking there.)

RULE: Don't get discouraged. Remember, your Control Area will keep getting bigger. You won't be able to keep it all spotless all the time. If you have to give ground, focus your energies on keeping your Home Base and the areas near it in good shape. You will reclaim it all on the next Cleaning Day. Sometimes you will lose spots. I once had half my family room under my Control Area, but I can't say that anymore. I couldn't get to it on Maintenance Day and I had to retreat. Next time I have a Cleaning Day, I will try going in a different direction.

RULE: Have fun. Keep the cleaning segments short enough that you don't get annoyed. Shorten your spaces if you have to. If you need to play a video game in between each two square feet on Cleaning Day, then do it. You will progress more slowly, but you will still progress. Plus, the more Cleaning Days you have, the more routine the cleaning will become, and the more organized you will be, so it will take less time to do each part as time goes by. When I first started claiming my kitchen, it would take me most of the day to clean half the room on Cleaning Day. Now I can do the same tasks before my morning cup of coffee. My family has learned that Home Base is mommy's area and they need to keep their junk elsewhere. They also learned to like how the house looks when the Control Area is big, so I find them pitching in and helping without me even asking.

OPTIONAL ADD-ON: If you have older children, try having them play this game in their own rooms.

RULE: Once you get a big enough Control Area, improvise. My Control Area is big enough that I can't necessarily wipe down every surface each Cleaning Day. Now I use the vacuum some days to get the fuzzies off the kitchen floors, and I make sure that I do a good cleaning wipe down with soap at least once a week.

SUGGESTION: Once you have a routine down, try to expand your Control Area to include your front door. The whole program feels much better when your mother walks in and says, "Wow! You cleaned!"

SUGGESTION: Once you have fallen in love with your Control Area, try this suggestion. If you have something you need to get done (like mail a bill) put that thing inside your Control Area and refuse to move it until you deal with it. Having something like that inside your Control Area messing it up will make you more likely to do the task so you can get your area back.

DISCLAIMER:

I hope you found this article at least entertaining and you aren't laughing too hard at the nutty woman and her Two Square Feet Rule. All I can say is it worked for me when nothing else will. I can set all the timers in the world, but if it takes me 30minutes to decide what to do with piece of paper, I haven't accomplished much. This two square feet system actually improved my house and keeps improving it. (I live with a packrat, and even he is getting in on the act.) Our garage sale items have increased, and our general clutter has decreased. Who knows? Maybe it will work for you too.

Around We Go

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>> Sunday, April 25, 2010

You Just Might Be a Packrat

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Two Square Feet

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