Okay, we’ve been talking about how to keep the house clean on a regular basis, and this is part 4, Video 4. So in this video, I’d like to address the fact that we often think “we can’t.”

Have you ever heard of the 4-minute mile? Until it was broken, everybody considered that it could never be done. And then when it was broken by Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister, thousands of people broke it, and it became the new standard.

The thing is, sometimes we just have to know that it’s possible. And I’m telling you that it is. It is possible to keep a house clean on a regular basis and always be company-ready. Not to say that you don’t live in your house and that it’s perfect, but that it’s orderly. There are always things everywhere. You can welcome somebody in without having to make one apology. There are certain things that you have to make happen in your mind, like adopting a specific standard. There has to be a different standard set, a standard that says,

“This is the way we live. We clean up after ourselves each and every time. We don’t leave stuff out. We live in a way that we don’t leave messes behind us wherever we are. We clean up before we go.”

This is something that could be taught to anybody that you live with. Set the standard for yourself and then you could set this standard for everybody else that lives in your family.

I have a friend whose son was verbally abusive to her. She grew up in a household where her father beat her mother, so verbal abuse was very low on the totem pole in her world, and she allowed him to be verbally unkind. But this is the thing, this woman is organizationally gifted to the nines! There is a certain standard that is set in her life, and it is that we don’t leave messes; we live a neat and orderly life. That same kid that would call her words that I wouldn’t repeat would never spill milk or spilled popcorn on the floor and walk away from it ever. He would never make himself a sandwich in the kitchen, get a cereal bowl, pour cereal, and walk away with the cereal out, the lunch meat out, the bread out, and the mayonnaise out, whatever he used would be put away. He would never leave a mess on the counter. Why? Because it was her standard. She set a standard. This is unacceptable to live any other way and he complied.

We can all make a decision that, from now on, we have a standard where we don’t leave messes behind. One of the videos I’ve done regarding this theme was dedicated to our warped perception of time. The fact that we think there is never any time to clean up, we need to put that into play here.

In that video, I showed that things don’t take as much time as we think they do and that we really can clean up in a much shorter amount of time than we thought was possible.

And now knowing that there are lots of people that absolutely live in a company-ready home that can say, “Come on over!” and not be concerned at all about the state of the house. The bathroom’s always fresh, the kitchen’s always clean, and things are always put away. This can happen for everyone.

I have a roommate, and I live in her home. Her name is Donna. While we’re good friends now, our relationship began when she was a Tidy Tutor client. She took my course, Tidy Tutor University, and when she wanted to do renovations on her house, she hired me to do one-on-one coaching. She lived in almost a hoarder’s state, while not really a hoarder, she lived in a way where there was so much stuff all over that it was difficult to get through some rooms, get to things, and find things. It was in really bad shape. And now it is totally clean, totally clear. She still does have one room with stuff in it that she has to go through, other than that, every other room in her home is beautifully clear of all clutter and it stays that way.

It used to be that if she called me and asked if I could come for an overnight visit because she needed me (her husband passed away a few years ago and there was a time that she liked to have me there), sometimes she would have to take back the invitation because she didn’t get to the clean-up. Now? It is always tidy and orderly!

Just recently, my kids came and some of my family members, my nieces, and my sister-in-law, came for a visit for a beach day. She knew that they’d stop in. And she didn’t have to pick up a thing. She didn’t have to vacuum. She didn’t have to sweep. She didn’t have to put anything away because she had a new standard and habits in place.

• It goes where it goes.
• Do it now.
• The status quo principle.

So I’m just here to tell you that you never have to be 15 minutes from the company! Everything can be done always. Everything can look good all the time. It’s a standard. It’s a belief that it can. There are just some habits that have to be in place, some principles that you have to adhere to.

For example, after dinner: Did you know that there are people in this world who would never, ever, ever leave the kitchen until dinner was cleaned up? I’ll do another video on how I used to incorporate dinner cleanup with my family when they were younger. I have five children, so I’ll do that in another video.

That’s one of the things that we don’t just get up and walk away from. The dinner table. We don’t leave dinner on the stove and on the table and things on the counter. We just don’t do that. It’s a standard. We clean up after dinner and there’s a process to it.

These are things that have to be incorporated, but I’m telling you that it might sound like it’s hard. I’m telling you it’s much harder to put things off till later and just not have the belief and the understanding and the knowing that it can be kept status quo always, it always can be neat, tidy, organized, and picked up. Not perfect, we don’t want perfect, we want happy. But at least in a way that makes us feel good, we’re not always looking for things, we haven’t lost anything because we aren’t putting things away, and we feel really confident if company comes to the front door we can say, “Yeah, come on in!” It could happen!

If this video has helped you, if I have helped you in any way at any time, you can help me by sharing what I do, subscribing to my channel, leaving a comment, or clicking that like button, all of these things helped me to be able to help more people.

Thanks so much for being with me, I look forward to seeing you next time.

Kathy

The Tidy Tutor