Cilley - CHAOS Cure: Clean Your House and Calm Your Soul in 15 Minutes

I have a question for you: Did you grow up hating to clean?

I bet you said yes. Most of us did. Maybe our parents had a white glove standard. Maybe they said things like do it right the first time or dont do it at all. When we were told to clean our rooms and our efforts fell short of perfect, maybe we were punished, or maybe we were forced into all-day cleaning marathons until every item in our rooms was perfectly placed, with hospital corners on the sheets and socks folded just so.

Then there was cleaning day. Most of our parents, and their parents, chose one day a week to take on the major tasks of housekeeping. No, let me correct this. They chose one day a week to shout out orders while we did the cleaning. The kind words were few and far between as we hustled around trying to please our masters by shining the windows, mopping the floors, polishing the silver, dusting the bookshelves, and so on. A whole day was devoted to household labors.

Even now, I cringe as I think about it.

Let me ask you another question: What was the result of being forced with an iron hand to clean?

For most of us, the answer is easy: We dont ever want to clean again. Can you blame us for feeling bad about the entire undertaking?

But now, as adults, we still are challenged by keeping a nice home. We look around our homes and see clutter and CHAOS (Cant Have Anyone Over Syndrome) everywhere, and were no better off. Theres a heavy burden that comes with a messy homemaybe we spare ourselves the effort of wiping and scrubbing and decluttering, but instead were surrounded by distractions and dirt, not to mention the feelings that come with a messy home, like

Shame when friends drop by and we have to quickly stash the junk thats piled on the sofa to find a place for our friends to sit

Guilt when we see dirt and clutter and know we should take care of it but we dont

Resentment that housecleaning is time-consuming and we have other obligations that dominate our attention

Jealousy of others who have sparkling homes, full of Pinterest-perfect rooms and organized closets and cabinets

Discouragement that well never be able to conquer all that CHAOS

This is how we see our predicament. We cant not clean, and we dont want to feel angry or resentful when we do. So, it is time for us to make a change. We have to release the all-or-nothing thinking we learned from our parents and put aside our negative, paralyzing feelings that prevent us from making progress. In their place, we have to find a new way to function, a new way that shows respect for our hectic schedules and full lives.

My goal is to give you a new way to get your home looking niceso nice that you would not be embarrassed to have someone drop by unexpectedlyall in 15 minutes or less. But thats not all. I also want you to embrace the effort, enjoying the fun of getting things done in your home.

Now, you may not believe me that this is possible. But I know it is.

You deserve to live in a home that honors you, and I will teach you how to recognize the gifts of your home. I will help you discover the joy of maintaining your house in a way that makes you happy. I will guide you to establish simple habits that will set up your home to be ready for companywithout having to shout orders or play the martyr. When those habits are strung into simple routines, your home will practically clean itself. Im not kidding!

You can do this. We will make it happen together. I am so proud of you.

Love,

The FlyLady

Being organized is a dream for all of us. We love the mental image of an orderly home, but we dont know how to get our acts together and keep our homes shipshape. Sometimes we give up before we ever get started because we have no confidence in ourselves.

Dont do that. Dont give up! Ill tell you the secret to keeping your home in order (and its not much of a secret because we all know it!): Establish better habits.

A habit is something you do without thinking about it, and thats what you need to keep your house picked up and clean. The hard part is making the habits stick. If changing our habits were easy, wed all exercise daily, drink plenty of water, put down our cell phones for long stretches of time, and live our best lives without even trying. Can you imagine how nice that would be?

But no one promised you that life would be easy, and youre going to have to help yourself along the way. You can do that by making the choice to change and by finding ways to focus on your goals with real awareness.

You need a focused effort to practice a new habit if you want to make the change stick.

Let me tell you a story. Several decades ago, I needed to practice the new law of buckling my seat belt. I would catch myself backing out of the driveway without having fastened mine or my sons, and I was determined to make this habit stick. It was for our safety and well-being, and I was committed to the change. So heres what I did: I taped a brightly colored piece of paper to the dashboard in my car and wrote the words SEAT BELTS on the paper. Thats it!

This note gave me a directive, and I followed it. Every time I got in the car, the little piece of paper reminded me to fasten my seat belt and check my sons. Pretty soon, the habit was established, and I didnt need the paper anymore because the practice had stuck. I was buckling up without even noticing I was doing it.