Pacing is Everything

My dear mother-in-law came up with what I consider a brilliant idea.  Although she calls herself a B- housekeeper she's from a generation that I'm convinced her B- is my A+.  I feel conflicted about house work... the whole finding balance between down time and relaxing vs. achieving and doing more more more!  One day when she was visiting I lamented that when it comes to housework I feel like I can never do enough and it gets to be so discouraging/frustrating, yet I just plain out refuse to drive myself crazy (aka stagnate my qi!) over being a perfectionist about my house.  Still, when I have major cleaning days I still end up feeling like I have 1,000 more things I could do and when I am swamped and assess the situation I feel so overwhelmed I sometimes end up in a complete tizzy, wandering around and getting less done than I could.

And here's what she came up with:  Why not come up with a regular schedule for the things you do each day.  Then everything rotates and you know what you need to do that one day and it's easy!

Well, anyone who knows me knows A) I like me some charts!  & B) I'm just a touch OCD :)  So, I decided to implement her suggestion "Nicole Style."

I broke out a ruler and multi colored sharpies, a nice piece of card-stock in a color I love and drew a little chart on it.  The chart was 6 rows tall and 8 columns wide. Along the left hand side in the first column I labeled: (starting with the second row down) 1st week of the month, 2nd week of the month, 3rd week of the month, 4th week of the month and 5th week of the month. On the top row (starting with the second column in) I labeled the days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, etc.

Then I thought about the jobs I do regularly, not the ones I do every day like the dishes, but all the others like clean the bathroom, wash the floors, dust, wipe down the microwave and stove, clean the fridge, water the houseplants, etc.  And I started plugging in the chores taking into account how often I wanted to do them (would they be once a week, every other week, once a month...) as well as my schedule and which days it would be easier for me to do bigger jobs and which ones were already pretty full.  Because the chart doesn't have actual dates on it, it works for every month, you just follow which day of the week and which week of the month.

Voila!  House keeping MAGIC!  I've now been doing this method for about 3 years and it is truly fabulous in my book...  On the days when I get done what I'm supposed to I feel good, on the days I don't I know I only have to make up one or two extra things the next day to get back on track, on the days when I go above and beyond instead of feeling rotten because there is STILL more I feel like a rock star.  And on the days when I look around my house and fixate on the dust bunnies under the sofa or the furry food in the back of the fridge... I just let it go and think... all in due time, just pace yourself Nicole.  I may be no Martha Stewart with the perfect B&B type house, but I'm pretty sure what I've got going on... It's a good thing :)