Cleaning the house is often considered as an avoidable and tedious task. Here are a few ideas to help you love this work just as going out for shopping.
Cleaning, as I said is considered to be a herculean task, avoided because it can eat up a lot of your precious sleeping time and dreaded because one cleaning task usually leads to a new unpredicted one. By the time you are ready to call it a day, you realize you have lost all the enthusiasm you had for some fun activities like a shopping, watching movie or a weekend picnic. By the way, cleaning activity can be turned into a fun activity by using some psychological tricks. Read more..
Motivation for Homemakers
“If the shelves are dusty and the pots don’t shine,
it’s because I have better things to do with my time.” ~An anonymous homemaker~
Homemakers or work from home mothers are around the house all the time and it generally a tedious task to concentrate on kids, work and domestic cleaning and maintenance. Here are a few motivating ideas to help you through the cleaning day.
Clean Every Day
One common mistake made by housewives is that they let the cleaning work pile up for the whole week or a whole month and then when things get out of proportion, they have no alternative but to finish the huge cleaning work in a single day. This can be a challenge, as they have other responsibilities like cooking and caring for family too. The best way to get over this problem is to segregate each activity as per a daily timetable. For example, Mondays may be dedicated for cleaning the bathrooms, Tuesdays for rearranging the wardrobes and so on. This reduces accumulation of work.
Rearranging Furniture
Rearranging furniture can be a pleasant activity since each one of us is always looking out for a change. What you can do is clear up some initial mess from a particular room and start rearranging the furniture gradually. If possible, change the curtains and positions of indoor plants too. This gives the room a fresh look and makes it a more inviting place.
Invite Help
Cleaning activity need not always be a lonely task. You can always invite your friends over to help with you with some cleaning job. In return, you can always promise to help them when it is their house cleaning day. Buy a favorite take away meal to be relished at the end of the whole cleaning activity. These can be some of the best bonding times with your friends. However, you must take care to finish your cleaning task first, lest you waste your time gossiping about some irrelevant topics.
Cleaning is Exercising
I was not joking when I said this. Cleaning is a stressful activity which makes you stand for long hours, climb up and down the stairs, bend down while using the vacuum cleaner, move your shoulders while dusting and so on. This is one easy way to lose weight as well as get a sparkling home at the same time.
Motivation for Bachelors
“The trouble with living alone is that it’s always your turn to do the dishes!” ~An anonymous bachelor~
Bachelors are often known for messy homes as they feel that they are answerable to no one if dirt and grime just piles up at home. I am not saying that they don’t like living in a clean place, but it is often their loneliness that leads to their negligence. Here are some brilliant ideas to help you have a happy cleaning day.
Plan a Date
One of the best motivator for a bachelor to clean up his home is to arrange a date after the cleaning work is done. This makes you run against time to perfectly clean your apartment before your date arrives. Also, there is every chance that your date will be impressed with your tidiness and housekeeping skills. Paves way to win some brownie points, huh??
Play Music
It is quite likely that you are fond of trance music or books. Wouldn’t it sound good if you had the opportunity to combine cleaning with one of your favorite activity? You can definitely make cleaning activities lively by playing your favorite music or audio book in the background. That’s just like striking two birds in one shot!
Therapeutic De-cluttering
It is often said that cleaning and de-cluttering your home can have some positive effects on one’s mind. This not only removes some unwanted and long forgotten things from your home, but it also makes space for keeping new things. The things thus found, can either be discarded or donated in charity.
Cleaning Appliances and Fragrances
If you are a techno freak, then make it a point to visit the supermarket from time to time and invest money in buying some new cleaning appliance. If that is not possible, then buy some new fragrant cleaning agents, some new room fresheners or aroma candles. New fragrances can often be relaxing. So tell yourself, that you will get a good ‘aroma therapy’ once the cleaning work is done.
Motivation for Kids
“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing!” ~An anonymous parent~
Well this part of my article may or may not be a self motivator to the kids directly. Parents often underestimate their kids when allocating any cleaning tasks to them. Instead, parents may use some of my ideas to motivate their kids to clean their rooms or a certain part of the house.
Favorite Snack
One common way to motivate kids to clean their rooms is by offering to prepare their favorite snack at the end of the task. This can be possible usually on weekends or on a holiday. Parents need to be careful that they do not promise any unhealthy junk food as a potential motivator.
Appreciation
Kids crave for appreciation and encouragement from their parents. Your child may not perfectly clean his room for the first time. Stop grumbling about their poor skills as they still have plenty of scope to learn. Teach them to clean and appreciate them when they do good work. Make it a point to appreciate their work in front of friends and family. Suppose, you want your son A to clean a part of the garden along with you, then say that you need help cleaning A’s garden. Kids tend to work better if they have a sense of personal belonging.
Quality Time
Kids always look forward to having some fun with their parents. Allocate small and safe cleaning errand to your kids. In return, they might be promised some fun weekend activity with you. e.g. a fishing trip or a movie.
Pocket Money or Allowance
An all time favorite parental strategy to motivate their kids with cleaning is to offer some allowance or pocket-money for the job done. The idea is to encourage them to earn money by helping domestic work and save it so that they can buy some new toys or books that they are eager to buy. This method teaches them the importance of hard work as well as monetary saving at a young age. Parents are advised to be consistent with the amount of allowances. In my house, I have posted a note on my fridge stating the cleaning task and the amount of allowance my kids can earn on successfully completing the task.
I am sure most of you are already smiling to yourself as cleaning work has suddenly started seeming like a cool task. There is no better person to vouch for this statement than me. Because I do not dread cleaning my home anymore.