My hour of power.

For a week now, I’ve been implementing a new approach to housework.

One hour a day.

I pick a room, start in one corner, and proceed all the way around it cleaning everything in sight—whether it needs it or not.  For exactly one hour.  When the hour is up, I’m done.

It seems to be working pretty well.  My house is as  clean as it has ever been since we moved into it.  Now, it should be noted that I had done a big housecleaning push before I started this hour a day method.  Company was anticipated, so, you know—extra cleaning.  Honored guest, and all that.

So, my goal is to keep the house in that condition without killing myself.

So far, so good.

I’ve also been doing an hour of yard work a day—for the same reason.

Seven days have passed since I began this experiment.  That’s exactly one-third of the time “they” say it takes to create a new habit.  I don’t know for sure if it’s going to last, or if an hour a day is going to be enough.  (My house is a lot bigger than the apartment I used to live in.)  I might need to devote extra time periodically.  Almost certainly, big projects—like cleaning out closets, etc.—will require extra effort.  For general, ordinary cleaning, however, this is promising.

It’s enough time to make some progress, but not enough time to exhaust me or bore me silly.  (I started out silly, so. . .that’s probably not a fair criterion.)

You might want to try this.  Maybe you can’t spare an hour a day.  You might manage a half hour or fifteen minutes.  There’s definitely something pleasant about hanging out in an environment you know is clean.

It’s kind of a miracle.