As you can tell by the title of this post I HATE cleaning. Keeping a clean and organized space is one of the most difficult tasks that I have ever faced. As a child, I was always ‘talked to’ about the state of my room. Sometimes I was yelled at and sometimes my Mom was so frustrated that she would clean it for me.
I vividly remember coming home from school on a rainy afternoon and seeing big black industrial trash bags in front of my house. I thought nothing of it and went straight to my room. As I opened my bedroom door I was amazed at how clean it was. Who cleaned my room and where did all of my stuff go? It didn’t take long for me to put the pieces together… Someone had thrown all of my belongings outside with the trash!
As this discovery began to sink in, my Dad walked into the room behind me and told me what he had done. “If you treat your stuff like trash, I’ll put it with the trash,” he said.
If you were expecting that event to be a turning point in my life, you’re wrong. My cleaning habits changed for about 2 weeks before I reverted back to my old ways. My room is still a mess to this day… even as I type this post.
They say that your space is a reflection of your mind. If you live in chaos you will become chaos. By that logic, I guess my mind has been in chaos since I was a child. But that’s a different topic for a different day.
At 20 years old I am just starting to realize the importance of keeping a clean space. It has a lot of benefits.
- It has been proven to reduce stress and anxiety
- It can promote better sleep
- It makes you feel good 🙂
Even with all of this information, I still can’t keep a clean room. I do not know how. So today I decided to start small. I looked around my room and found three things that I could organize. I wrote them down, cut on some music, and got it done. I felt a wave of satisfaction flow over me each time I checked a task off of that list. My room is still a mess. But it’s a little less messy than it was before, and I am okay with that.
It turns out that I don’t hate cleaning. I just needed to find a method that works for me. I’m even considering cleaning my room more often.
Everyone deserves to have a clean space to live in. Even those of us who hate cleaning. I hope this post inspired you to start small and clean up what you can. Remember, baby steps are still steps.
If you’re interested in seeing my cleaning process head over to my Instagram @becomingkendallj
Until next time,
Kendall J
I really enjoyed this post . Yes, maintains a organized environment environment is challenging sometimes.i find that my room is not necessarily dirty but messy ( disorganized , cluttered) . I like using pretty storage containers and an giant box that looks nice in my room. I throw everything I’m not ready to deal with at that moment in them . It helps my room look less messy for a while until I have the motivation to declutter .