Progress is not always tangible, sometimes it’s just cleaning out the crap

I missed a day writing yesterday; I decided to have a lie in instead. Roll on the failure train and the regret and the disappointment. But no, not today, although I am a little later than normal thanks to a small person getting up earlier than usual... But I’m not getting on that train again. Today I will start right back where I left off.

It leads me nicely onto consistency. Whilst acting consistently is sold as a ‘you will improve/get better/conquer your wildest dreams,’ I feel sometimes consistency does not always make something directly tangible. Or at least not obviously.

Yesterday I spent a good couple of hours scrubbing my bathroom. Top to toe. I cleaned the mirror, took more than a few carrier bags of crap out of there, put in some smelly stuff (as you do), gathered the kid’s toys, and even cleaned in all the cupboards. And now it’s a delight, but how long will it last? If I want to keep it that way, then I have to be consistent at putting away and cleaning, forever. But it’s not going to get any better or more exciting than that, is it?

I mean, you could argue you get quicker or better at cleaning, but the end result is the same. There’s no … progress beyond the initial mega-clean.

Therefore the major problem I have with cleaning, is that you’re back to square one or even minus one fairly quickly. Even if you’re not back to square one, you have to just keep on doing it, day in day out. Nothing gets better, it’s just maintaining the same. And for me that’s painful and it makes cleaning a real challenge. It just doesn’t feel ‘productive’.

It’s not that I don’t like a tidy house. I would describe myself as a disorganised organised person. It tends to be one extreme or the other with a lot of stress in between.

I was reading yesterday that there is a clear link between tidiness (and cleaning) and mental health. Spending the time getting everything sorted and then enjoying a clean and tidy home is supposed to be good for you. Now, I’ve known that for a long while and it doesn’t take a genius to work it out anyway. I can certainly feel the difference in a room after its been cleaned and/or tidied. Would my mental health improve if my home was neat and tidy, absolutely. Would my mental health suffer when it reduces below the higher standard I set myself; absolutely.

It just seems like a circle of spiralling doom; damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Normally when I clean the bathroom I just do the sink and toilet, quick wipe of the floor and done. But every time I get so frustrated with having to move everything around; the toothpaste and toothbrushes, the bottles of shampoo and conditioner…. So this time, I made an extra effort to clear every surface. Instead of two plants, said toothbrushes and toothpaste, various showering ingredients and who knows what else on top of the cupboard, now I only have the hand soap. It’s all clear. Same goes for the other shelf that had hair stuff; now it just has that smelly thing. I’m still working on the bath; there’s a mountain of kids toys in there. But it’s behind the door so I don’t see it so much. Out of sight, out of mind.

So apart from those things, everything has gone out of sight. Neatly, I may add, each in its own little box or bag to keep like with like. Now if I want a shower, I lift the box containing the essentials out of the drawer and then I put it back in again when I’m finished. Admittedly I have done this in the past, but I had to take each bottle out individually and put it back in individually.

This is with the ultimate intention that now I don’t have to move anything to clean. It’s just spray, wipe, done. Will it work? I have no idea, but I feel like I made progress.

In this sense, my progress was that I have made it easier for next time. What I'm trying to say is that progress developed through consistency is not always tangible. It’s not that I’ve made more money, or increased my outputs, I’ve made something easier which lightens the mental load which I can spend on something else.

The other reason I wanted to talk about this, is that I made a concerted effort to do two things differently than I normally would. One I already mentioned which was clear all the surfaces. The other was actually dealing with the bag of crap that came out of the bathroom; old shampoo bottles, a couple of kid’s socks, cloths for the wash, various kid’s bubble-making supplies, a book; you get the picture.

Normally on this sort of exercise, I would clear out the bathroom into the bag and then the bag would sit elsewhere around the house for a few weeks or most likely a few months until I sorted through it. It’s all essential stuff I need right?! But this time I made a point to do it straight away.

How often do you feel you’ve made progress on something only to realise that there’s a bag of crap hanging around that you still need to deal with? Believe me when I say it’s easier to deal with this straight away. Deal with it and it’s done. It’s like finishing with a bow on top. It doesn’t have to be a nice bow, just make the bow. Future you will appreciate that little after sight and how perfect it is won’t matter. It’s progress.

Next time I feel like I could make a prettier bow or enjoy a bath without as-big-a-mountain of kids toys to move.