I have heard tell of “spring cleaning” but don’t remember my mother ever engaging in such an activity when I was growing up which I now appreciate as I have no compunction to do any such thing myself. I have however, known others who take spring (or fall) cleaning so seriously they even vaccuum the mattresses! A totally unecessary and completely ridiculous waste of time if you ask me. Okay so now you don’t want to sleep over right? Never mind!

Yes, I do vaccuum the floors, clean the bathrooms and wash the sheets occasionally but that is about the extent of my regular maintenance. I do not enjoy cleaning. ConsequentlyI usually wait until the condition of things is pretty intolerable before I act. When I literally can’t stand it anymore, I crank up the music, open all windows and go like a maniac all weekend.

This used to drive my former husband crazy. He would say condescending things like, “if you would just do a little each day you wouldn’t have to spend the whole weekend cleaning.” Please! My method was obviously superior since it allowed me to go long periods of time without doing ANY cleaning which really suited me fine. Besides which, since I was the one actually doing the cleaning, I reserved the right to do it my way thank you very much.

The only thing more motivational than ”I can’t stand it anymore”  is COMPANY. Having people over is truly the only thing that can get me to take an objective look at my house and shake things up. Given this knowledge, I have hit on a (I think) brilliant strategy for keeping my house relatively clean for most of the year and here it is:

HAVE A PARTY!

It really is the perfect solution. I love parties. And if I am having friends over I want my house to look nice. It’s as simple as that. I do a walk through of the house and imagine I am a guest seeing it for the first time. Finally, I notice the ratty looking rug in the mud room or the mess in the laundry room or the pillows on the sofa that need cleaning or replacing. I love puttering around the house changing up artwork and rearranging furniture, rugs, plants, etc.

And of course if I am busy doing all that, and time is getting tight and it’s becoming hectic then hmmmm…….I can justify hiring a cleaning service for half a day to do the stuff I hate. You know, the things that only need doing occasionally or seasonally like wiping down baseboards, replacing shower curtains, cleaning windows and screens, etc.  Huh, spring cleaning. Only I don’t have to do it ’cause I’m doing other equally (or more) important things.

So in the last year I have had an end of summer barbeque, a holiday cocktail party, and a spring event of some kind. This year it was my step-daughter’s bat mitzvah and six out of towners stayed at our house! Trust me, if you take any pride in your home, having a party or company visiting will literally force you to take stock and clean up. In my case, it’s just about the only thing that does.

If you haven’t taken an objective look at your house in a while or it doesn’t excite you anymore, plan a party or invite some friends or family to visit. If someone is graduating soon or has a big anniversary coming up, play the host. It doesn’t need to be costly. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask your guests to bring something or have family members help you get ready. You really don’t need a special event to celebrate friends, good food and music and the wonderful space you call home. Just plan some fun. It will motivate you to get your house in order.

If you like the idea but don’t know where to start or what you’d like to do call me and I’ll help you make a plan.

P.S. This strategy is useful with all kinds of tasks you dislike, especially ADHD challenges. Pinpoint something you love or enjoy doing and find a way to use it as a springboard to deal with the things you don’t like doing. I think you’ll be thrilled with the result. All my guests are gone now and the house still looks wonderful and the results will last ’til the next time we have company! 

When’s the party?

Even this week as I sit down at my desk with a renewed commitment to this blog and to my business; a hot pink list of priorities in front of me reminding me that I AM the top five, I see that my daily agenda contradicts my aim. Three of the top four “to dos” are in the interest of others. I can’t stand it! Even armed with new resolve, it is hard to avoid getting sucked back in. As I have tried to explain to my daughter who has undoubtedly inherited my tendencies to drop everything for folks in need, this is an admirable trait until it it begins to jeapordize your own health and/or well-being. At that point, which I hope you can learn to recognize, you would be well advised to take a step back. I am trying to do that now.

Ultimately, I do think the hot pink sheet with my name all over it will be an effective reminder to focus on MY goals. I am a visual person so this method should serve to pull me back. At least for a month or so after which it will begin to melt into the landscape of my mess, ceasing to be visible at all and requiring me to devise a new reminder of a different color, shape, etc. and to regroup once again from my continual attentiveness to the problems and needs of the people around me at the expense of my own.

I will resist the urge (for now anyway) to talk about the huge and perpetual dilemma for me and probably many women; that we can’t devote the time and energy we would ideally like to one thing without compromising another. The amount of time we devote to our families can make our careers suffer. Likewise the time required for a business will cheat our families. Maybe I simply haven’t found right the balance. Maybe that’s impossible. Another blog, another day. When I have lots of time. And can invite lots of comments.

What I can talk about today is my intention to focus more on me, the things I want to accomplish, and my little strategies for staying on track. So, though I don’t usually make a traditional New Year’s resolution, I am declaring my intention to you in the hope that this too will help keep me focused on what I want. Sounds selfish already but too bad. This blog is important to me and I would like to make the time to post an entry………….. minimum, three times a week. Think I can do it?

I’m curious, where have you been? And what do you intend to do about it?

I knew you did ’cause it’s amusing, fascinating, frustrating, and it may even be you! So here’s a story with some real irony. I met a friend for a cocktail one evening. I’ve been working with this guy on and off for years and he’s always got an interesting perspective on his ADHD. That evening, he told me what a full and varied day he had. ADHD’ers out there will recognize that this agenda is full of potential roadblocks and complications.

Beginning with snaking out the clogged drain in his kitchen sink before he even left the house, he then went to a board mtg, from there had a presentation to give somewhere like four towns away, detoured on his way back to pick up an industry expert before the next consultation, dropped the guy back off afterward, picked up stuff at the printers, headed to his next appointment, and circled back to his office before meeting with his accountant at the end of the day.

“Wow!” I said. ”Of all the things you did today, what was your favorite part?”

“Nothing”, he said. “I hated all of it.”

“That doesn’t answer my question though,” I countered. “Of all the things you did today, what was the best part?”

He appeared to give it some thought, then smiled and said, “Snaking out the drain!” And we laughed. How in the world could running a snake through a pipe of icky, smelly, decomposing food waste possibly be the best part of the guy’s day?

 Because the rest of the day went exactly as planned. He was on time to every appointment. He didn’t get distracted or forget anything. He wasn’t stressed or rushing around. He even maximized his earnings for the day! It couldn’t have gone more smoothly. It was just the kind of day he typically wished he could have.

And he hated it. It was boring and predictable.

Snaking the pipes was the best part because it was unexpected, messy, and demanded his immediate attention. Jeff is naturally in his element and on the ball when the frenetic energy flows! Many ADHD’ers find this to be true and it explains why they make excellent EMT’s or ER docs. They thrive under pressure. Since the remainder of the day held nothing as urgent or exciting, it just went downhill from there. Until the drink with me of course! 

Is there something you think you want that you might in fact be better without?

This is ADHD.

• He could not just stand there and wait for the toast to be done.
• He was distracted from the toast by thoughts of another task. 
• He anticipated it would only take “a minute” to get the brick.
• Ultimately he may have even forgotten he put bread in the toaster.

I happened to enter the kitchen and smell the toast about to burn. I decided to take it out and butter it. Then I went looking for the toastee or the toaster or whomever.  And I found him outside, kneeling on the ground with a chisel and hammer trying to get the mortar off the brick.

“You put bread in the toaster, then went up on the roof??” I asked.  ”That’s hilarious! I’m curious. Did you underestimate the time it would take to extract a brick from the chimney top or did you simply forget you were making toast?”  

“I thought it would only take a minute to get one of the bricks loose”, he replied.

This is adult ADHD in action. It is such a superbly unique and comical example that I just had to share it with you. 

Got one of your own to recount?

Being ADHD, we felt sure we could accomplish something like two years worth of work in the next 48 hours. We planned to finish painting the laundry room, de-clutter the house and sell some stuff on Craigs list, organize the office (hopefully locating the tax folder we somehow misplaced at a very inopportune time), study (test on Tues; haven’t even cracked the book), shop for some comfy chairs for the bedroom, etc. Yeah, right!  Saturday did go pretty well even though I spent a lot of my time on something that was not even on the list.

Easter Sunday, after sleeping in a bit we started thinking about brunch. We called our restaurant of choice, Mary’s at www.innatbaldwincreek.com  and miraculously got a table at 10:30. What a fabulous treat! We had fantastic bloody Marys topped with three jumbo shrimp and an incredible four course meal including their famous garlic soup, seafood omelettes with fresh tarragon, home firies, homemade toast, fresh fruit. The service was perfect and delightful. And I NEVER say that as I’m notoriously hard to please when it comes to eating out. We literally rolled out of there at around 1:00 promising ourselves we would come back soon.

It happened to be a brilliantly sunny but very cold day and we timed our arrival at home to coincide  with the precise time the sun was over the hot tub. This is a brief window of opportunity, only about 40 minutes so we stripped as soon as we hit the door. If you live anywhere that’s cold and snowy for half the year, a hot tub in the sun at midday is the ultimate luxury. I wouldn’t want to face the Vermont winters without it.  So we soaked in the tub with the sun on our faces and were lazy just a bit longer.

Given our wonderfully self indulgent morning and the fact that the sun is a powerful aphrodisiac you can probably guess what we did next. By then I think it was 4:30! Not the most productive of days, huh? I resisted the urge to nap and instead read the paper a bit and did some laundry. Around 7:00 I left my sweetie studying on the sofa and went out to pick up some sushi. What a fabulously lazy, deliciously decadent Sunday to remember.

My point, other than reliving our wonderful Sunday on a creepy Monday, is despite our best intentions of getting some serious work done, we did exactly what we needed to do. Our bedroom is still a mess and we have no groceries for the week but…….we also have no regrets. I would pity the kids if we didn’t take that day to rejuvenate!

What would you do if you took a day for yourself?