Photo Housekeeping

One of the many overwhelming things about housekeeping is that I'm never sure when it is done. The truth is that it is never done. Knowing this, I feel hopeless and find it very difficult to even begin.

I've tried a couple of tricks to help me create a definite beginning and ending to chores. For instance, I will set a timer for 20 minutes and decide that I will clean for at least 20 minutes. This convinces the hopeless gremlins in my brain to shut up, because I can say, "See, this will be over in 20 minutes. This is not the myth of Sisyphus." Once the gremlins have been appeased, I can usually clean for more than 20 minutes.

Today I discovered a new trick. I took a photograph of my disaster zone kitchen. This allowed me to truly see what I'm dealing with. Since I'm accustomed to messy surroundings, sometimes I can't really perceive how bad they are. "Oh, it's just a mess. I don't even want to think about it." Then, when I do allow myself to see the mess, it's like a kick in the head. I say to myself, "How can you live like this? You are a grown woman. This is disgusting! How can you improve your life if you can't even keep your house in order?" Rather than face those ugly thoughts, I will avoid dealing with housework until it reaches a critical mass.

Photography gives me the objective distance I need to overcome all the emotional stuff that hampers my efforts. Better yet, it gives me an inspiring reference point. When I start to feel run down from the tediousness of cleaning, I can look at the photograph and see that I'm really not done, or see that I've made a lot of progress.

Hopefully, I will be able to take a picture of my rooms when they are clean (I'm not sure how to know when my rooms are really clean). Then I will have another useful reference.