A Cleaning Marathon

Clean, tidy, AND organized... that is, until we move our stuff in

I like to celebrate the New Year by cleaning my place, top to bottom. On New Year’s Day, I can sleep in, wake up to a gleaming apartment, drink tea, and read a book. I love that feeling of a fresh start. No loose ends or unfinished business from the previous year. Nothing but exciting new goals and plans and projects and trips! The unlocked potential of a new day!

Also, the weather is usually lousy at this time of year and there’s not much better to do. Cleaning up is a way to beat the post-celebration blues, creating anticipation for something new and different.

Cleaning marathons are easy for me. I’ve run an actual marathon, and it doesn’t take nearly that long to clean my house! I can still walk afterward and I don’t have to scoot up stairs backward on my butt. Cleaning marathons are also easy because I’ve moved so many times that there isn’t much buildup, and because I’ve been doing this on a regular basis for many years. I’ll demonstrate my minimalist method, and then I’ll describe how I’d do it if I were one of my chronic disorganization clients.

The minimalist way: Start the laundry. Strip the bed. Take a dust cloth and some canned air and wipe down all the surfaces in my 680-square-foot apartment. Get a chair and wipe down the ceiling fan blades and the top of the fridge. Use a bottle of white vinegar, an old toothbrush, and a squeegee to wash our two windows and the mirror. Check the fridge for anything old. Wipe down the fridge racks and shelves. Wipe out the inside of the microwave. Wipe down the kitchen counters, the stove top, and the sink. Clean the bathroom sink, the toilet, and the bathtub. Take a shower. Put the laundry in the dryer and put the sheets in the washing machine. Get dressed. Take out the garbage and recycling. Start the robot vacuum. Read a book. Later, put the fresh sheets on the bed.

I’m not kidding. I can deep-clean my entire apartment in a couple of hours.

The reason it’s easy to clean a minimalist home is that it operates on a system. My people tend to mix up ‘cleaning’ and ‘tidying’ and ‘organizing.’ Cleaning means removing dirt from surfaces. Tidying means putting things away, which you don’t have to do if there’s no extra stuff and everything is already put away. Organizing means creating a system, and that only needs to be done once if it’s a system that works well.

This is why my chronically disorganized people have to do all three things over and over again. Clean, tidy, organize, in no particular order.

Okay, let’s assume I’m doing a house that hasn’t really been “done” in, oh, ten years. It’s a standard American disorganized maximalist house. I’m going to say it’s about 2000 square feet, three bedrooms, two baths, a double car garage, front and back porch, with two adults, two kids, a hairy pet, and two vehicles. It’s driving everyone crazy. Living there has stopped being fun.

1. Laundry bankruptcy. Load all the dirty laundry into a car and take it to the laundromat. Bring a roll of garbage bags. If you go at the right time and there are enough empty machines, you can have it all done in under three hours. Use the garbage bags to sort out items to donate: Anything that doesn’t fit someone, anything that isn’t getting worn or that nobody likes anymore. Drop off the donation bags on the way home.
2. Pantry reset. Methodically go through every single package, can, jar, box, bag, tub, bin, bowl, and container of food. Check the expiration dates. Check for dust, weevils, cobwebs, damp spots, rust, holes, mold, spores, and any other sign of spoilage. THROW AWAY everything that is expired. Or, okay, don’t. My food hoarders and squalor survivors tend to have serious emotional blocks about throwing away ruined, nasty, potentially lethal old food. One way to do this is to delegate the job to someone else and agree not to look.
3. Paper sorting. This is actually a great job to delegate to a little kid. Sort papers into categories as quickly as possible, and then make decisions about what to do with each category. A ‘scoop and stuff’ household will probably have about 80% completely useless junk paper, anywhere and everywhere, making it difficult or impossible to find truly important papers when needed. Sort the bills, financial statements, junk mail, receipts, coupons, newspapers, magazines, school papers, art, invitations, photos, business cards, and “other” into distinct stacks. Only the financial papers, invitations, and school papers should need any real mental effort at that point.
4. Culling. I do a cull several times a year. Every time I buy something new, every time a shelf or closet rod starts to feel crowded, every time there’s a charity rummage sale or donation drive, every time I plan a donation drop-off or trip to the used bookstore, at the end of each quarter, and especially at the New Year. I whip through my clothes, shoes, books, costume jewelry, and all the jars and bottles in the bathroom. I cull the fridge and pantry every time I go grocery shopping. It only takes a few minutes if it’s done regularly, but it can take days or weeks if it’s a new habit. (Or if it includes a two-car garage full of stuff!).
5. ACTUALLY REMOVING THE DONATION BAGS. It’s standard to run around sorting stuff to donate, and then let the bags sit in a pile for days or years. Often the bags start to work their way back into circulation, as other people in the home aren’t informed about the contents. My advice is to carry each bag straight to the car as it’s filled, and then drop them off during an errand like grocery shopping or going to the movies.
6. The actual surface cleaning. Believe it or not, it’s permitted to hire a cleaning service to do this. Depending on where you live, you might pay by the hour or by the square foot. For a house of the size I’ve described, it might cost $50 to $120. Compare that to the price of cable TV, a family trip to the movies, a manicure, or a coffee habit. Personally, I would freak if a stranger came into my home with a sponge - I’d definitely rather do it myself. A house like I’ve described that hadn’t really been scrubbed in several years would probably take me eight hours. (Because I’d wipe down every shelf and the inside of every cabinet, clean every light fixture, etc).

A large, disorganized house doesn’t have to take forever to dig out. It’s about decisions, systems, and policy. Not everyone wants to spend forty minutes a day on maintaining a clean, organized home. Not everyone wants to live in or look at a clean, organized home! To some people, it will feel sterile, boring, strict, strenuous, and depressing. I say it doesn’t have to mean plastic slipcovers or lace doilies. Your home can be whatever you want, whatever feels like home to you. It’s possible, though, that doing a little every day will feel easier than having to do an epic, revolutionary, top-to-bottom cleaning marathon.

Think what it could look like a week from now, though! Think of how it would feel to start the New Year in a sparkling clean, organized home. Decide what you want for yourself and just get started.