We talked about the tradition of spring cleaning last week, but barely touched on how we need to change our game plan as we age. Change is difficult, especially if you have fond memories of spring cleaning frenzies. A friend of mine still insists on carrying on the tradition herself. Here, with her permission and mostly in her words, is how she does it. Her plan, at the very least, might give you some ideas about how to carry on this venerable tradition.
She writes:
“Up until 5 years ago, I specified a week and cleaned my house from top to bottom both spring and fall. Four years ago, I backed off, and decided to hire outside help. It wasn’t the same and it wasn’t me. I decided to rethink my original plan and modified it to meet my capabilities.
Three years ago, I divided up my chores and tackled one floor (a three-story house) at a time, but even that was too ambitious. Two years ago, I started doing all of one thing each day. For example: wash windows one day, shampoo rugs another day, clean light fixtures and moldings the next and so on and so forth. The trouble with this method is I never felt quite finished. It wasn’t the same as having the entire house clean at one time.
This year, I am approaching it a little differently. I am going to do one room at a time, or actually half a room at a time. I will work one day, rest the next day, and finish up on day three. That’s 3 days out of the week. The other 2 days I plan to do an overall vacuum/dusting of the whole house and run usual errands. The following week I will tackle another room and see how that works.”
Well, what do you think? It isn’t perfect but if she can live with it, it will keep her from doing too much at once and getting too tired.
Spring cleaning has never been easy, but you can continue to take pride in a job well done if you are willing to modify your plan of action.
Please write and let me know what works for you.
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