Micro Cleaning

Housecleaning and I have a complicated relationship.  I love a clean home. There is something that happens in your space when you complete a deep clean - it’s like everything feels lighter.  Everything breathes.  

Deep cleans require a heavy time commitment.  They are therapeutic.  They are exhausting.  They feel good - great even.  Weekly cleans rarely include the baseboards, the stove or fridge, dusting the corners of ceilings or ceiling fans - which is why deep cleans feel necessary.  

I did a deep clean before I moved in.  I washed the walls, the baseboards, the doors, the floors … I washed everything.  Since then I’ve cleaned - but not on a fixed schedule, not in a way that just keeps everything feeling clean - all the time.  Which I like.  I prefer. 

Cleaning this place is slightly different from my last place.  I have more space.  I have different routines.  The materials are and aren’t different.  So I’ve done the basics - bathrooms, kitchen, floors and some spot dusting and mirror and window cleaning. 

When I can see dust or spots on mirrors etc. I can partially ignore it and go about my day/life. But it’s in the back of my brain, the “I should do something about that” part of my mind.  

Some people will say to leave it.  Go about your life.  They aren’t wrong. They also aren’t right - for me.  

I breathe better in a clean space.  I can physically feel the difference the energy in my home has.  I love my home.  Taking care of it - includes cleaning it.  

A deep clean may not be on the agenda at the moment - but maybe it doesn’t have to be.  Or at least not in the way it has been before.  Maybe I can re-imagine what cleaning looks like. 

Full transparency … I didn’t think this up.  I stumbled upon the idea of breaking cleaning into daily chunks on Instagram.  It took a hot minute to register, it took another hot minute to process how that could work before putting pen to paper and sponge to sink.  

And here’s our rabbit hole … I’m a morning person.  I like mornings. My brain is more creative.  I have more energy. I like the quiet. My mornings are relatively scheduled.  I don’t enjoy rigidity. I prefer fluid.  Especially on weekends.  But I appreciate and do better with structure … With frameworks.  That’s how my mornings are currently set up.  

This week was mostly information gathering. How long does it take, what else is on my agenda for that day, is “insert cleaning task x here” bundled with the right other cleaning chunk etc. 

What I’ve learned … Doing some cleaning in the morning isn’t a huge time investment.  Over time it will be faster because I’m autopiloting what needs to be done and the area is getting cleaned on a regular basis.  I’ve also regrouped certain chunks of activities because they align more closely than I originally thought. I’ll test these next week and continue to tweak as needed. 

As the seasons change I will need to revisit my schedule and adjust accordingly.  Minor tweaks are easy.  Getting the routine down - well that is always a little more effort.  I’m essentially establishing a new habit.  I’m hoping that this will be routine in about a month's time. 

I still need to figure out the deep clean stuff … Read cleaning the stove, the fridge, the pantry, the linen closet, etc. These things only need to be done every six months and I’m thinking of scheduling them quarterly into my routine so they are not all hitting at once.  

I don’t like cleaning in the evenings, or on my weekends.  I’m less motivated and other things will always win out.  I’m hopeful this approach makes cleaning - in chunks - easier, sustainable. I’m hoping it layers well with my other routines in a way that makes me feel productive.  I’m also hoping I’m able to complete everything I want about 45 minutes before I’m scheduled to start work.  So I have space to enjoy my tea.  To journal.  To just be - unrushed. 

The thing I like about cleaning - other than having a clean space - is that my brain wanders, it thinks about things in unrushed, unpressured ways.  It allows for creative problem solving, visualizing all the things, thinking about anything and everything.  I used to like this aspect of my commute into work.  I could think about my day, problems I was working through, I could think about my life in general and things I was working on or towards.  This may be the only part of commuting I’ve missed.  The part where my brain just … is. Not me trying to keep it focussed, not me constantly in fire fighting mode, not me constantly filtering.  

I’m hoping that by replacing my morning commute with something that allows my brain the same freedom I will start to feel inspired, creative, innovative … I’ll see the more finely tuned critical thinking and creative problem solving I feel like I’m missing.  Side note … I’ll also have a clean home.  

It took a while to realize what I was missing, what I was searching for.  It’s funny how small things - like a commute - can provide benefits that you don’t consciously register.  So when you lose the benefits, you aren’t immediately sure what you lost.  

The realization came to me so randomly.  I was having a conversation about jobs we had while in school … one of mine required almost no thought.  I spent about 90% of my work day on autopilot.  The upside - which was surprising - was where my brain took me, the things I thought about, what I created in my mind, what I created as a result when leaving work for the day.  

Lightbulb. 

I like creative thinking.  I like that when I am doing things unrelated to problems I’m trying to solve, solutions come to me.  I like that my brain - when just left to think and not narrate - believes the most incredible things.  

Creating more room for that in my mornings matters. This past week I felt more equipped to manage the fires, to think of solutions that I felt like were just out of reach before.  I felt like I was successfully set up for each day.  

Odd.  Maybe.  I like odd. 

The schedule is a work in progress … but I like progress.