midweek cleaning binge

Apr 10, 2024

Some follow-up thoughts on Shaking the House, Erma Bombeck styley.

My friend Cayce asked me why I had a dirty toothbrush among the sponges at my kitchen sink.

“It’s for cleaning,” I replied, with an assumed duh in my tone.

She was befuddled. “Why would you want to do that?” with an assumed eeeeew in her tone.

I did not grow up in a spotless house. As a child, one of my Saturday chores was dusting. I stretched a one-sock over my hand like a glove and swiped at surfaces randomly. That was cleaning.

In my early twenties, I launched into a career as a chef on yachts. Superyacht cleaning and tidying goes beyond sponges and socks. It’s toothbrushes, toothpicks and Q-Tips. Dust or anything akin to dirt or grime is anathema. Every night after a day of intensive culinary shenanigans, the galley is to appear ready for a rich-people photo-shoot. Every shower is completely cleaned and dried after each use, as though it’s never been used. After guests brush their teeth, the toothpaste tube is to be wiped and cleaned so that it looks new. Some shag carpet is raked several times a day to eradicate footsteps, as though it’s never been trop upon.

As a result, I now have very high cleanliness standards, but as I said, I am a slob who doesn’t like to clean very much. This is a painful dichotomy.

Shut & Run: noun

That’s right, this is not an action, but a thing. A shut & run is the catchall cupboard, closet, or drawer in your house, the vessel for all of the things that don’t have homes, or their homes are too hard to access. You simply toss the object in, shut the door, hoping it will stay shut and not burst the seams, and run away.

Pre-Amelia ™

Coined by a friend who gifts herself the joy of a cleaning service once a month. “Partly,” she says, “for the shiny clean, but mostly for the accountability.” Clean and tidy are two different goals, you can’t really clean if it’s not tidy, if there’s shit everywhere. “My clutter can’t get too out of hand if I know she’s coming to clean. Twelve times a year Amelia comes over and does everything I don’t want to do.Twelve times a year I go on a mad tidying tear. I’d so much rather spend my money on a clean house than a mani-pedi or a daily coffee.”

Before Amelia comes over, my friend is a Tasmanian Devil of tidying. The mail stack is sorted, magazines sent to recycling, all the little bits that have accumulated on the coffee table are put away. The pre-Amelia ™ process is as important as the cleaning process.

My ideal kitchen would have two dishwashers. I would never have to unload a dishwasher. I’d just grab dishes, mugs and silverware as I need them from the clean one and then load their dirty selves into the other one. When the contents of the clean dishwasher have all been used, the other one would be ready to run. Repeat.

Ten things

Have I mentioned that I am a bit of a slob? I can’t quit clutter, although for a short time ADHD meds seemed to help. I’m still on the meds, but back on my clutter game.

When I find myself in a moment of pause or overwhelm, I stop what I am doing. I find ten things in my immediate vicinity that are not where they belong and return them to their rightful place or make a decision about where they go/whether to keep them. It usually takes less than 3 minutes.

Ten minutes or 3 repeats

This is like ten things, but instead of quantity, it’s time. I’ll set a timer for 10 minutes, or listen to the same high-energy cleaning song 3 times, while I whip around a room putting stuff away (away-away, not in the shut & run).

Valuable procrastination technique™

start a running playlist of your fave high-energy songs to clean to. Avoid naming it something like “cleaning music,” but find a good title like “The Souls Refreshes,” “Fuck This Shit,” or “How Did Nail Polish Get on the Ceiling?”

Feel free to share your title (and/or link) if you are particularly proud of it.

Spring cleaning adjacent: Ezra Klein on firing Gmail. (gift link)

Last week we tried an experiment that is still going strong: we’re all collaborating on a slide deck with images of what brings us joy. I’m going to keep it open for another week or so before turning it into a video.

It’s this easy:

Go here.
Think of something that brings you joy.
Find an image/picture or gif that represents your joy.
Have a look around through the slides.
Copy/paste or drag/drop it on one of the slides in a way that makes you happy. You can create a new slide, or drop your joy bombs on an existing page.
Repeat if desired.