Making the house more pleasant.
May. 14th, 2011 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tj_roweI have discovered a way of thinking that makes doing things to the house a lot more doable - seperating the concepts of 'cleaning', 'tidying' and 'clearing'.
Clearing is the thing where you remove Items Of Mess from a particular room - sometimes just moving the mess around, sometimes separating out one Item Of Mess into several items of non-mess (e.g. the shopping bags I've had in the living room for ages - a bag containing shampoo AND food does not have a place, but removing the shampoo means that it has a place in the kitchen!). This often makes the other two easier, but isn't strictly neccessary, and has the effect my itself of providing more space that is usable, and of filling up the recycling box.
Cleaning involves bleaching and/or scrubbing and/or hoovering things, and far too often changes the colour of the thing being cleaned (I should probably do this more often). Also known as 'that thing you do to make sure you get the deposit back from the landlord'. At high levels can include polishing and dusting things, or using the washing machine on things which aren't often washing-machined. Causes hygene!
Tidying involves finding things which are clean or clean-enough and putting them into their proper places, and also picking stuff up off the floor before it becomes not-clean. Receipts will be all over the place. Often involves recognising that an Item Of Mess does not have a place and vowing to clear it.
Things like defrosting the fridges and freezers and replacing or fixing lightbulbs and broken things don't fit into the above, but still need doing occaisionally and are even easier to put off for months.
Today I have cleaned the kitchen floor, cleared the living room floor (I had ambitions of cleaning that too, but tea), made tea, and cluttered up the dining room with furniture from the kitchen. Also decided that if I win the lottery today, I'm going to buy that little house in Heslington that I've had my eye on a bit for months now.
Clearing is the thing where you remove Items Of Mess from a particular room - sometimes just moving the mess around, sometimes separating out one Item Of Mess into several items of non-mess (e.g. the shopping bags I've had in the living room for ages - a bag containing shampoo AND food does not have a place, but removing the shampoo means that it has a place in the kitchen!). This often makes the other two easier, but isn't strictly neccessary, and has the effect my itself of providing more space that is usable, and of filling up the recycling box.
Cleaning involves bleaching and/or scrubbing and/or hoovering things, and far too often changes the colour of the thing being cleaned (I should probably do this more often). Also known as 'that thing you do to make sure you get the deposit back from the landlord'. At high levels can include polishing and dusting things, or using the washing machine on things which aren't often washing-machined. Causes hygene!
Tidying involves finding things which are clean or clean-enough and putting them into their proper places, and also picking stuff up off the floor before it becomes not-clean. Receipts will be all over the place. Often involves recognising that an Item Of Mess does not have a place and vowing to clear it.
Things like defrosting the fridges and freezers and replacing or fixing lightbulbs and broken things don't fit into the above, but still need doing occaisionally and are even easier to put off for months.
Today I have cleaned the kitchen floor, cleared the living room floor (I had ambitions of cleaning that too, but tea), made tea, and cluttered up the dining room with furniture from the kitchen. Also decided that if I win the lottery today, I'm going to buy that little house in Heslington that I've had my eye on a bit for months now.
