6 Cleaning Habits I learned in Isolation

The world’s a little upside down right now. We all find ourselves searching for some sort of comfort while we navigate the landscape of our new normal. Perhaps, like me, your sleep is all messed up, or maybe you’re having trouble working or studying, or maybe, your plugging along just doing your best to find your mojo again.

Well, through all of this, there’s been one thing which has helped me find consistency in each day—and that thing is cleaning. So, I wanted to share 6 things I’ve learned about cleaning during isolation.

Clean For Yourself

Admittedly, I spent a long time cleaning for the adulation of others, and the funny thing about cleaning is you can spend a whole day doing it, and when you’re done, no one will say a word. But, if you don’t do it, everybody talks about how dirty the house is. So, now, quite like when I excercise, I clean for myself. I clean to my standards and I feel good about what I’ve accomplished when I’m done.

Do Your Laundry

This one was really tough for me because I hate doing my laundry. I hate folding clothes. I hate hanging things up. I hate that I forget about my laundry so easily that it sits in the washing machine until it inevitably ends up smelling worse than when it started. The thing is though, laundry needs constant attention. A pile of laundry on a chair or on the floor in the corner can make an entire room look unclean.

To avoid this, I now do my laundry each and every day. That doesn’t necessarily mean I run a load through the washing machine every day, but it does mean that I take time to go through all of my clothing and either hang it up (if it can be worn again), or put it in the hamper until I am ready to run a load through. This makes getting dressed each day so much easier—instead of rummaging through laundry piles trying to find something to wear, I can now just go to my closet and see everything in one place. Hooray for doing your laundry.

Make Cleaning Important

Now, more than ever before, cleaning is important. Cleaning is cool. That’s why I’ve taken steps to make cleaning the kitchen each day as natural as brushing my teeth or taking a shower. I find when cleaning is prioritized it ends up being less of a hassle, and more of an important job that I do each day. I don’t whine because I have to take a shower or brush my teeth each day—because those things are important and I do them regardless of whether I’ve written them down in my calendar or not. Well, after 8 weeks of cleaning the kitchen every day during lockdown I think I’ve finally managed to make cleaning an important and fulfilling part of my day.

Remember the Little Things

Have you ever noticed that even if you clean 99% of a room when most people will walk in it’s the 1% that has not been cleaned that they’ll notice. It often comes down to doing the little things, and sometimes, the little things are what makes the larger job seem all that more impressive. The job itself can be very small and insignificant, but let me tell you, 1 minute of vacuuming the chairs, for instance, makes a huge difference.

Make Your Bed

I remember many years ago we were putting together a video about making your bed and we came across a book from a retired Navy Admiral named William McRaven, fittingly called Make Your Bed. In the book, he talks about the importance of making your bed for many reasons, but the one that stuck out to me, was this:

When you wake up and the first job you do is make your bed —no matter what happens for the rest of the day, no matter what else you accomplish, you at least started your day by successfully making your bed.

Have Fun

Long time viewers of Clean My Space may have seen me dance in a video before, I have no shame about that, but there’s good reason for my dancing; long before I was good at cleaning, long before I got any sort of fulfillment out of cleaning, I knew the importantance of having fun while cleaning. I listen to music, I sing, I dance, and I always find time to take a break to be silly with Riley. While cleaning has become very important that’s not to say that cleaning can’t also be fun.

So, there you go. There’s a few of the things that I’ve learned about my cleaning game over the past couple of months. Now it’s your turn, what have you learned about cleaning, decluttering, and/or organizing your home during this time?

Clean my space nation is all about sharing and supporting one another especially through difficult times like these so remember, sharing your experience could really help someone else out

I hope this video finds you all staying safe and sane.