You get home from work, exhausted and frazzled. Mismatched shoes greet you at the door, next to a toppling pile of library books to be returned, dishes piled up by the sink, and a block of now-spoiled cheese that someone forgot to put in the fridge. You know you should do some picking up while you wait for the frozen pizza to cook, but you’re just too tired to deal with the mess, so you pull out your phone to play Tetris. You’ll just deal with the todo’s later, and in the meantime, it’ll all drive you just a little bit crazy.
I used to beat myself when I got behind on stuff at home. Something about being surrounded by chaos makes me positively berate my housekeeping abilities and feel like my adult status should be taken away.
I found myself thinking…
I suck. I should be better. Everybody can do this but me.
But as I’ve learned to equate the state of my home with my self care, I’ve eased up on jumping to this conclusion.
Instead, when I see the chores begin to pile up or I find myself hunting through piles and piles of paper to find that stupid receipt, I’ve started to settle on a completely different conclusion—one that’s wildly effective for improving both my present state of mind, and my lifestyle as a whole.
Rather than asking, “Why do I suck at keeping up with my house?” when I get overwhelmed, I see the piles of undone tasks as a signal that I need to slow down.
Maybe there’s nothing innately wrong with me (or you). Maybe the real problem is, no one can keep up with their housework when their life is flying by at ninety miles an hour, as it tends to do sometimes: when a family member has a crisis, work gets crazy busy, or you just find your summer filling up with tons of fun trips and activities. No matter what you do, sometimes the seasons and cycles of life leave no time left over to take care of your regular stuff, like laundry and picking up after yourself. And worst of all, those busy seasons tend to sneak up on you…I’ll be humming along thinking everything is just dandy, meanwhile the hectic craziness has snuck up on me before I realize I’m smack dab in the middle of it.
When you find yourself in a hectic mess, don’t add to the stress by taking it personally. Choose instead to see it as a heads-up to scale back until you’ve reached your balance again.
Look around your home and see if there are any red flags that your schedule has been too packed lately.
You might need to slow down if…
- You have more than two weeks worth of mail, paperwork and receipts that need to be sorted.
- You find that every single pair of underwear you own are in the laundry, except the ones you’re wearing*.
- You find yourself getting stressed out and hungry (hungry+angry) at mealtimes because you don’t have time to cook, or haven’t gotten enough groceries.
- Piles seem to accumulate in odd zones of the house and stay for weeks (or months)…even when you know it would take just a few minutes to clear them away.
- Your computer desktop has so many files you can’t actually make out what your wallpaper is anymore.
So what then? What do you do when you realize you need some space to catch up?
It’s time to pull out your NO and make some real shifts in your schedule to give yourself a break.
Plan a weekend—or a few—to stay at home.
Order dinner out, and use the time you’d save to take a few deep breaths and maybe pay that bill that’s almost due.
Make a commitment to making no new commitments until you feel like you’ve got your head above water again.
Maybe it’s time for a purge—including but not limited to: the fridge, your closet, your schedule, your inbox, your computer. Because the less stuff you have to deal with…the less stuff you have to deal with.
Read this post and make yourself an action plan. (Or…just tear up your todo list and don’t do a damn thing, just yet.)
If you can reorient yourself to approach overwhelm in this way, the fix becomes a simple process of learning to recognize what too much looks like, then taking action to bring your responsibilities back to a manageable level. Sounds easy-breezy, doesn’t it? (So much better than mentally abusing yourself for not being good enough.)
* True story, this was me last week. At least I didn’t have to wear bikini bottoms.
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