The "Clean for Company" Feeling
Have you noticed that you look at your house totally differently when you know company is coming over? All of a sudden you start noticing little pockets of clutter and little bits of dirt and dust that you hadn't noticed before. This gives you a great burst of energy and motivation to clean up what had seemed perfectly fine to you, five short minutes ago.
It is a natural bit of pride to want your home to look nice and tidy for upcoming company. We all want guests to "ooo" and "ahh" and tell us how nice our home looks.
There's nothing wrong with this and in fact, I will use it to my advantage sometimes. If I'm having a difficult time maintaining my routines and keeping my house clean, I'll use any excuse to invite some friends over.
First of all, I love to have company and it gives me a chance to entertain, which I love, but also it forces me to get busy and tidy up.
However, you have to think about the message you're sending to yourself and your children. You are telling them that it's more important to present a good face to others than to make the house nice for your own family.
That would be brought home to me when I would start my regular Saturday morning cleaning and the kids would always ask me who was coming over.
I hated the fact that they associated cleaning with company and not with us doing something nice for our own family.
So why not treat your family as company? Why not bring out the special tablecloths and dishes once in a while and make as nice a meal as you would for guests?
Why not make an appointment with yourself to take a quick tour every few days and look around your house with "company eyes" and notice the areas that need a little extra attention.
Your family will love it and start feeling extra special and you'll likely catch them making their own efforts to pick up after themselves. Well, that's the theory anyway - come back and leave me some comments and let me know how it works for you and your family.
Be sure and come back next Monday and Friday for the next installment in my Clutterbugs series. To see the rest of the series, just click the Clutterbugs tag at the bottom of this post and it will bring up a list of them.
It is a natural bit of pride to want your home to look nice and tidy for upcoming company. We all want guests to "ooo" and "ahh" and tell us how nice our home looks.
There's nothing wrong with this and in fact, I will use it to my advantage sometimes. If I'm having a difficult time maintaining my routines and keeping my house clean, I'll use any excuse to invite some friends over.
First of all, I love to have company and it gives me a chance to entertain, which I love, but also it forces me to get busy and tidy up.
However, you have to think about the message you're sending to yourself and your children. You are telling them that it's more important to present a good face to others than to make the house nice for your own family.
That would be brought home to me when I would start my regular Saturday morning cleaning and the kids would always ask me who was coming over.
I hated the fact that they associated cleaning with company and not with us doing something nice for our own family.
So why not treat your family as company? Why not bring out the special tablecloths and dishes once in a while and make as nice a meal as you would for guests?
Why not make an appointment with yourself to take a quick tour every few days and look around your house with "company eyes" and notice the areas that need a little extra attention.
Your family will love it and start feeling extra special and you'll likely catch them making their own efforts to pick up after themselves. Well, that's the theory anyway - come back and leave me some comments and let me know how it works for you and your family.
Be sure and come back next Monday and Friday for the next installment in my Clutterbugs series. To see the rest of the series, just click the Clutterbugs tag at the bottom of this post and it will bring up a list of them.
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3 comments:
Oh, wow Adrian. This is SO GOOD.
I'm one of those daily cleaners--picking up everything before bed and eliminating clutter, for the most part. But my girls DO notice when I go on a major, all day cleaning tangent...they know we're having company.
I'd love for them to see me dusting, cleaning glass, emptying trash cans, mopping, sweeping, etc, and have them ask, "Who's coming over?" so that I can reply, "No one! Just keeping things nice for us, because we live here and I love y'all!"
Great, great post.
Soooo funny you write this. I was just thinking I need to have Sunday dinner at my house this week so I will actually get my house in order.
We are trying to sell our house right now but it is still not as clean as it should be. Two dogs and 6 kids are not real condusive to clean.
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