Marie WheelerI know, it seems like a crappy present to give a Cleaning Calendar, but it’s really the gift of reduced anxiety!
It may seem silly, but I find that I am more relaxed, calm and confident when my house is in order. If my house is a mess, my brain is a mess.
This makes sense for the following reasons:
- Clutter provides unnecessary visual, olfactory and tactile stimuli (think piles of clothes, stinky sinks and sticky counters) and distracts our focus.
- Clutter makes it more difficult to relax as the stimuli signals our brains that work is not done.
- Clutter makes us anxious as there is uncertainty for how long cleaning will take to complete.
- Clutter breeds shame/guilt cycles in our minds, especially when someone drops by your home or office.
- Clutter can impact creativity and productivity by making it harder to get the job done.
So while these reasons are compelling and known to me, I don’t always succeed at keeping my home clean. In fact, there are times when it gets downright messy. I will neither confirm nor deny that I may have been too busy, distracted or lazy to vacuum for a month or so. It doesn’t feel good.
Since I don’t like feeling that way and the massive guilt and shame induced by being so messy and gross, I made the Cleaning Calendar for myself and figured I’d just share!
It’s mainly useful for the things that I forget to do (like clean my vacuum cleaner filters!) or that I can never seem to remember (wiping down the molding or door knobs) when I did them last.
The calendar is broken down into schedules based on frequency: weekly, monthly, quarterly, biannually, and biennially. Additionally, it helps ensure everyone can remember the difference between biannual and biennial; that’s fun trivia right there!
If you’re interested, I have linked a printable and an editable spreadsheet for Excel!
I hope these help you as much as they have helped me to ease my anxious mind!
