Tidying and Cleaning are NOT the Same Thing
I have employed many cleaners. Whenever they’re due at my house, I run around like crazy and tidy the house. There’s a classic clichéd conversation that happens between men (usually men, usually of a certain age) about how their wives clean before the cleaners come and how silly they are. (Cue indulgent smiles and ‘they’re so daft’ head shaking.)
Errr no! They’re not cleaning, they’re tidying. This is likely very-much-not because they care about the cleaners’ opinion of their standards or for any other mad reason like that; it’s probably because they want the cleaners to be able to get on with the cleaning instead of having to tidy first. (Also, I don’t need my cleaners putting my stuff in all the wrong places - I have a husband and son for that!)
Tidying and cleaning are completely different jobs requiring different tools and different knowledge. Tidying is picking up stuff that’s been left in the wrong place and putting it where it belongs (so essential knowledge here would be ‘where the stuff belongs in my house’ - something that cleaners often don’t know). Cleaning is removing dirt from surfaces and materials - dusting, vacuuming, wiping etc.
Some people who employ cleaners really like them to tidy - they love the fact that they can leave their house in a hideous mess and come home to a blissfully tidy and clean home with no effort on their part. I get it. I like that too but there’s quite a big downside… the house cannot possibly be as clean as it would have been if you’d tidied first. Logically, some of the time that your cleaners were in your house, they were tidying not cleaning. They have limited time so something has to not get done. The tidiness is what you see first - it’s what everyone sees first, so your cleaners prioritise tidying - they’re only human! The trouble is that tidy doesn’t last very long.
I don’t know anyone who is entirely happy with their cleaners. This is not because their cleaners don’t do a good job but because people don’t tell their cleaners what they want and they don’t have the vocabulary defined so that they can make a clear distinction between the tasks that are priority and those that are not. For example, I don’t care about my cleaners smoothing my quilt and plumping my pillows - I can do those things easily myself and the chances are that I’m going to mess the bed up (by sleeping in it) before anyone has the opportunity to admire its plumped and smoothed beauty. I do care if they clean the mirror in the bathroom (that they forgot to clean last time) because it’s a now a bit grim and I hate looking at the toothpaste spray that gets a bit denser each time they forget.
A newly tidied house only lasts as long as it takes for your kids/husband/dogs to rampage around the house and chuck a few things around but if it’s really clean, that will be true for much longer. Really clean is not TIDY (I can’t see out of place things around the house) but CLEAN (I can’t find any dirt or dust). CLEAN lasts much longer because your children/dogs/husbands cannot possibly touch every surface within the 10 minutes it takes them to chuck a couple of things on the floor in every room.
The meaning of words is important to me. Tidying, cleaning, organising and decluttering are all different things. I cringe a bit every time I see the title of Marie Kondo’s ‘The Life-changing Magic of Tidying‘ (or Tidying Up if you’re in the US.) What Marie describes in her book is absolutely not tidying, but decluttering and organising. All of these different activities have their place and are undertaken by most people at some point but they’re nothing to do with cleaning (although, cleaning is very, very much easier when you’ve decluttered and organised). If you’re remotely interested, in my opinion the definitions are…
Tidying - picking up stuff that’s been left in the wrong place and putting it where it belongs.
Cleaning - removing dirt from surfaces and materials - dusting, vacuuming, wiping etc.
Decluttering - reviewing the stuff in your house, in a room, in a category of belongings (e.g. books) and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of (by whatever means).
Organising - arranging the items you’ve chosen to keep in suitable storage (suitable = sufficiently accessible for the frequency of use, unlikely cause damage to the items you’re storing etc.).
Why am I writing this? Well, I want you to understand that all of these tasks are different things that take time, effort and thought and a different mindset. You may be casually beating yourself up for not being able to ‘stay on top of your cleaning’ but actually you’re probably trying to stay on top of the tidying, cleaning, decluttering and organising that goes with living in a home and having changing needs (because you’re human).
Give yourself a break and at least tackle one job at a time!