When dust and dirt start piling up, finding the motivation to clean can be tough. After all, there are tons of fun things you would rather do than scrubbing a filthy counter or sweeping dusty floors.
Why do people lose their motivation to clean?
Most people lose the motivation to clean their house for obvious reasons. For instance, life may be busy with work, or there’s a temporary shift in priorities. But once the priorities in life are over, though, it can be hard to shift them back to your responsibilities at home.
With so many things taking place in life, once you get home, you’d prefer to take a rest and do the things you like. Cleaning the house, then, seems not worth the effort. Plus, it’s not fun. Unfortunately, your endless complaints and unwillingness to clean won’t get the job done.
Although you don’t particularly love the idea of cleaning, there are ways to trick yourself into not being a lazy scallywag. If you’ve lost your motivation to tidy up, a cleaning service in Dubai tells you how you can find your driving force again to keep your home free from dirt.
1. Start with small tasks
Breaking down a big task into little ones helps combat procrastination. Completing a task, even a tiny one, can be quite rewarding. Try deconstructing your cleaning job into these steps;
- First day – buy all needed cleaning supplies
- Second day – sweep the living room floors
- Third day – clean the kitchen counters
You are more likely to finish the cleaning project this way rather than forcing yourself to do the whole thing in one afternoon. Start with one surface and not one room of the house, nor one floor of it.
Don’t think about your entire house yet, and don’t feel guilty about it. What’s important is that you’re doing something little by little, and that’s the first step.
2. Focus on one spot for several days
Commit your efforts to one place, like clearing any nicks or stains. Make it a point to clean that surface every morning and again before you sleep. The point here is that you’re starting to create a routine of giving your house the attention it deserves twice a day.
By selecting one surface to focus on, you’ll get past ‘clutter blindness.’ After a while, once you’ve reclaimed an area and cleaned it, you can’t help but notice how the rest of your house looks. Soon, you’ll start to feel motivated to clean the rest of the house, too.
3. Go along with your mood
Sometimes you’re going to feel motivated to clean and sometimes you won’t. So when you do feel pumped to clean, you should do something about it. For instance, whenever your motivation is high, you should buy and store cleaning supplies right where you need them. This way, when you come home from a long day, all you need to do is fetch the cleaning supplies, then start the task right away.
Remember that it’s also okay to not feel like cleaning. You don’t need to wait until you feel like ‘doing something’ before you start doing it. Though it would be nice to feel inspired to clean, it doesn’t have to be that way as long as you get the job done.
On days when you don’t feel like tackling household chores, it’s fine to outsource the work. You can hire professional housekeepers to help you instead of forcing yourself to do something you don’t like.
4. Make a deal with yourself
If you have a tendency to procrastinate, make a promise to yourself that you’ll do the task even if you don’t like it. You can start by setting a 10-minute timer and see how much you can get done within that time. This will get you motivated even after the timer goes off.
Even if your progress is small, as long as you made some, it’ll become less tempting for you to quit. Once you regain some sense of accomplishment, start tending to the rest of the house through small, manageable tasks.
For several consecutive days, repeat the all-out 10-minute effort of cleaning in various rooms. Then, move to 20 minutes at a time. At the end of the week, you’ll be surprised to see your house back in shape, and the sense of control you get from it will be your source of motivation.
5. Take note of the time
The more you become consistent about cleaning on a weekly basis, the less time it will take for you to finish the job. To keep track of your productivity, set a timer to monitor yourself as you work in a room. Then, time yourself again a week after to see and compare the results.
When you track your output, it helps you overcome the fear that cleaning takes forever to finish. Soon, you’ll discover that cleaning the bathroom, which seems like an enormous task, will only take you 20 minutes. You’ll get more motivated to clean knowing that it won’t take too much time as you previously imagined it to be.
6. Give yourself a reward
You’ve successfully committed to cleaning an area while doing it on a schedule. Your effort, no matter how small, deserves recognition. Maybe buy a new shirt or eat something good. By rewarding yourself for your positive efforts, you are telling your brain that what you’re doing is worth continuing.
Rewards will make you feel good. And the ‘good feeling’ you get is what will make you want to keep going. Telling a loved one about your accomplishments can also work as it will make you feel good having someone, other than yourself, recognize your efforts.
Are you back into the swing of things?
Once you’re back and feel comfortable with doing the same cleaning routine, try to expand your efforts weekly until you got the entire house covered. If there’s a need to, clean in 10, then 20 minutes while shifting with rewards and validation. Do the job at your own pace; what’s important is that you keep going.
There’s no need to panic if it takes quite some time at first. Work slowly and consistently until you get your house cleaning groove back.
