Don't worry about the house keeping

I read an article in Sunset magazine this week.  It was written by a woman who teaches a writing class.  She talks about how she tells her class that they need to spend 1 hour a day writing if the really want to become good writers.  Then she talks about the litany of excuses people have for NOT spending an hour a day doing this.  It boils down to, "I just don't have time I am super busy."

As the article progresses she says that we fill our lives with super busyness and do not actually enjoy our lives.  That if we spent 1 hour a day not cleaning out houses or not working or doing what ever it is that sucks our time and makes us feel that we are so busy.

So, there I am thinking, oh, a reason to not clean the house and then I thought, this article is not telling you to clean less.  That does not apply to you.  I actually think that the article is telling me to clean more.  I spend a great deal of time lamenting about the mess that is in my house.  I was a lot of energy worrying about how messy my house is, but don't actually fix the problem.  So, I decided, that rather then complain about the work, I will just do it.  I will stop spending time being upset about the state of the house, and use that time to actually address the problem.

My house will never be perfect, I am not really striving for that, but I love to have that feeling of peace when everything is picked up and not all over.  The chaos of the mess creates negative energy for me, and it becomes a spiral.  I am not happy because the house is messy, and I am depressed that my house is yucky.  The more depressed I get, the messier the house gets, and so on. 

What I have found, is that if I do a little bit of work everyday, that the house isn't out of control.  If the house isn't out of control I feel better and have more time to do other things that I like.  It seems counter intuitive that an article that is telling you to let go of your busyness has actually made me do more work.  The pay off is that I spend much less time worrying about the mess, and can actually enjoy the time I have!