January 12, 2025 • 10 mins
How to Know When You've Done Enough Cleaning – Stop Overdoing It!
Ever feel like you're never quite done cleaning? In this episode, I’m breaking down how to recognise when you’ve done enough without burning yourself out.
Forget the myth of the 'perfectly clean' home – it's about balance, not perfection. I’ll share practical tips to help you stop when the essentials are handled, your space feels calm, and cleaning no longer feels overwhelming. Plus, I’ll show you how to set boundaries with your housework so you can enjoy more life and less scrubbing.
✅ Learn how to set a timer and stick to a routine
✅ Discover why perfection isn’t the goal
✅ Find out how to stop cleaning guilt once and for all Remember, there’s more to life than housework.
Hit subscribe for more tips on keeping your home manageable without the stress!
Here is the link to everything that you need. https://theorganisedmum.com/quick-links/
If you have a question that you would like answered on the show please email contact@theorganisedmum.com
Listen to the TOM Rocks Guided sessions via The Organised Mum app. We’ll start you off with a 7 day free trial 🎉 TOM Rocks guided sessions are available via an in app subscription on The Organised Mum cleaning app.
Or listen via Patreon 📱 If you don't need the cleaning app and just want the guided sessions then head to Patreon and search for The Organised Mum (please note that you are not able to save your faves or play your own music with this option)
Ever feel like you're never quite done cleaning? In this episode, I’m breaking down how to recognise when you’ve done enough without burning yourself out.
Forget the myth of the 'perfectly clean' home – it's about balance, not perfection. I’ll share practical tips to help you stop when the essentials are handled, your space feels calm, and cleaning no longer feels overwhelming. Plus, I’ll show you how to set boundaries with your housework so you can enjoy more life and less scrubbing.
✅ Learn how to set a timer and stick to a routine
✅ Discover why perfection isn’t the goal
✅ Find out how to stop cleaning guilt once and for all Remember, there’s more to life than housework.
Hit subscribe for more tips on keeping your home manageable without the stress!
Here is the link to everything that you need. https://theorganisedmum.com/quick-links/
If you have a question that you would like answered on the show please email contact@theorganisedmum.com
Listen to the TOM Rocks Guided sessions via The Organised Mum app. We’ll start you off with a 7 day free trial 🎉 TOM Rocks guided sessions are available via an in app subscription on The Organised Mum cleaning app.
Or listen via Patreon 📱 If you don't need the cleaning app and just want the guided sessions then head to Patreon and search for The Organised Mum (please note that you are not able to save your faves or play your own music with this option)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
How do you know done enough cleaning? Especially if you're
a perfectionist or something like that, At what point can
you feel comfortable that you have done enough without feeling guilty.
It's easy to feel like you're never quite done when
it comes to cleaning. There's always one more corner to wipe,
one more draw to sort, and that nagging voice whispering
(00:20):
you could just do a little bit more. The trick
is recognizing it before you burn out or lose your
entire weekend to scrubbing the skirting boards. You know, obviously,
I am self employed. I've been self employed for years,
and if you're also self employed, you will know. Bear
with me. I'm going somewhere with this. You're never done, right,
If you are self employed, you are never done. There's
always something else Sydney's doing, and you can always be
(00:44):
doing more marketing, doing more sales, all of you know
XYZ right. And sometimes I think to myself, I wish
I like had a boss. I am my own boss.
I mean, I don't wish I had my own boss,
because I'd hate to work for anyone, but I sometimes
think I wish I had my own boss who could say, right,
you've done enough. Here are your tangible tasks to do
(01:05):
this week or this month or this quarter. Once you've
done them, you've done them. And I had this like
ping in my brain. I was like, that is exactly
what housework is like floads of people and sometimes me,
which is why I still follow Tom. I still follow
the organized one method because it helps me compartmentalize the
cleaning and it kind of acts as that boss that
(01:29):
this is what you need to do today, and once
you've done, you're finished. Because if I didn't have that compartmentalization,
if I didn't have the full stop, and maybe you're
the same, I would just keep going because like how
long is a piece of strength. So let's first of all,
bust the myth of the perfectly clean home. Spoiler alert,
they don't exist. If you are using your home and
(01:50):
utilizing it for its purpose, you will be living in it.
You will be living it, which means, because we know this,
that there will be mess, because what do we call
it housework maths. The more people they are in your home,
the more mess there will be. But we know that's
supposed to be lived in. We know that they're not
supposed to be preserved like show homes. Which means, and
(02:11):
this is the fantastic news that it can be clean
without being pristine. That's a rhyme. I think I've come
up with something, because the goal isn't to erase all
sign of existence. The goal isn't to eraise any sign
that your family and you live in your home. Mess
is an inevitable sign of life, which is lovely. You
(02:31):
can refame it. That's a really lovely positive thing. So
the myth here is that you can have a perfectly
clean home. It's impossible to achieve, so there's literally no
point in you even trying. It is a fool's Errand
the aim here is to create a space that feels comfortable,
safe and welcoming, where everyone can relax, including you. I mean,
(02:52):
I mean even if you are a sort of person
that likes everything tidy before you relax. There is a
balance here that we can absolutely strike. So with that
in mind, then how do we know that you have
done enough well? Number One? When you can move, When
you can actually say, hand on heart that you can
move through this space or this house or this room
without stress, and this means that you've probably handled the essentials.
(03:16):
And if you're following Tom you will know that we
deal with these essentials daily, which are your level one jobs,
which is a load of laundry, making the beds, making
sure that the high traffic floor areas are hoovered or swept,
your bathrooms are hygienic, and everything is just generally ticking along.
So it's like the top level essential jobs. That's what
(03:36):
we handle every day in our level ones. Another really
good sign that you are doing enough is that you
are keeping up rather than catching up. And this is
something we talk about all the time again, proactive cleaning
over reactive cleaning, So you'll know if you're in a
reactive cleaning state where you just don't know where to start, overwhelmed,
you feel like there is mess literally everywhere, right you
(04:00):
are reacting to mess as you see it. There's no strategy.
Maybe you're not following the Tom cleaning routine and you
feel a little bit all over the place. When you're
doing proactive cleaning and you're following a cleaning routine like Tom,
you are staying one step ahead. You are making sure
that you are cleaning efficiently. You're getting to things before
they get too bad. Yes it might not be perfect,
(04:20):
but that's not the point. Of TOM. The point of
TOM is to balance the housework and life as well,
because there is more to life than housework. And now,
a sign that you're potentially doing too much and you're
on the way to burn out is when it's starting
to feel overwhelming rather than good. Cleaning should help not
only your home look better, but also help you and
(04:43):
your family feel better whilst you are in it. So
if you find yourself exhausted snapping at the kids and
then thinking, oh my god, I got to do this, and
then I got to do this and got this and
the other, could be a sign that you are overwhelmed
and you're trying to do too much. And I spoke
to someone about this this week on my Instagram. They
just started a new job, they were working longer hours,
(05:03):
they've got a dog, they moved to a bigger house,
and they were just feeling like they were constantly falling behind.
My advice here is to just strip it right back,
right back to the basics, back to those level one jobs,
and just slowly build from there. Now, it could start
to feel frustratingly slow at first. It could be that
you're like, oh, I'm just doing the beds and I'm
(05:24):
just in the kitchen and I'm doing the bathroom, but
I'm not actually getting to the nitty gritty of the
living room. Once you've nailed your basics, it might take
you two or three days. Then what you need to
do is TOM room of choice, Okay for that date,
could be living room, bedrooms. Don't worry about your timer yet, right,
just do two or three priority jobs in those rooms
and build on it slowly, because if you are just
(05:45):
thinking to yourself, just one more job, just one more job,
and you find yourself sacrificing your downtime, you are probably
crossing the line into doing too much. And not only
is that going to make you feel resentful and frustrated
and going to lean to burnout, it's also probably going
to mean that youre going to just give up your
cleaning routine altogether, and then that means you're gonna have
to start all over again, which don't want you in
that space. We want you to maintain it. Even if
(06:08):
you just feel like you are plodding, I promise you
are getting somewhere. And another thing is you need to
make sure that you have time to do other things.
The whole point of doing TOM is to make sure
that you are balancing the cleaning, you are putting a
full stop on it so that you actually have time
to live your life right. You are not put on
this earth to cook and clean. You are put on
(06:30):
this earth for way much more important things than that,
and it's really important to keep it in perspective and
recognize that. So it's really important to set boundaries. And
the ways we can do this are to set timers.
We do this all the time with Tom. Say right,
I know that I've got thirty minutes or twenty minutes today,
I'm going to set my timer. I'm going to promise
(06:50):
myself that I'm going to commit and focus and do
as much as I can not get distracted in that time.
And as long as you start with your priority jobs
in that time, you are going to be onto a winner.
And don't forget if you're following Tom as well, we've
got the Friday focuses. So if you're thinking, yeah, but
what about the deep cleaning, what about the skirting was
that is what your Friday focuses are for. Another really
good way to set a boundary with the cleaning is
(07:11):
to stick to your routine. So if you aren't already
following tom head to the description. There will be a
link there so you can download the free print outs.
We'll send them straight to your email and you can
see if it works for you. Then obviously, if you
like it, if you love it and you want to
tweak it a little bit to suit your house and
your life, then that is what the organized Mom app
is for. But following a cleaning routine is going to
(07:33):
help free up so much headspace time and also help
you set boundaries. Often the feeling of being overwhelmed and
feel like you need to do more and more more
when it comes to cleaning is as a result of
having too much stuff. So be really realistic with yourself.
Be honest. Do you need to declutter first? Why? Because
we can't clean clutter? It's so much easier to keep
(07:54):
a house clean, tidy, and organized that isn't growning under
the weight of So it could be that that's where
you need to start first and just let go of
the guilt. Your home doesn't need to be perfect, it's
there to be lived in. Doesn't need to be spotless
to be enough. I promise you. I know it can
feel like empty words. I tell myself this all the time.
(08:18):
There are six of us living in this house. My
laundry room is just it's just overflowing. But I know
that I do enough every day and I am fine
with that. Yes, I would love it if all the
surfaces in my laundry room were clear, and you know,
it was just something out of pinterest, but it isn't.
And in order for me to get it to that point,
(08:41):
I will need to spend all day doing it. And
I don't want to do that. I work, I want
to spend time with my family. I don't want to
be locked away in the laundry room cleaning. That's not
why I was put on this earth. And you know,
just trust fine, And finally, I'm just gonna leave you
with this thought. Right, cleaning or a clean home is
not a reflection of how capable you are, right, I
(09:02):
think that's really important to recognize you are more than capable.
You might have a job, you're doing all sorts of
other things. Your home is just one of those things
that you need to do, and it's about creating a
house that works for you, not you working for the house.
Trust your efforts. If you've tackled the key priority areas
in your home kept up with the basics, and you
(09:23):
can feel like you can relax in your space and
it's not tipped the other way where everyone else is like,
I can't relax in this space in case in case,
she shouts at me, You have absolutely done enough. There
is more to life than housework, and you deserve to
enjoy that life. And you also deserve to enjoy your
house and create free time. So I hope wherever you
are in the world, you're happy, healthy and well guided.
(09:45):
Cleans coming this week are a twenty minute upstairs power
tidy and a twenty minute downstairs power tidy. You can
do one or the other way, you can team them together,
because sometimes all your house needs is a really good tidy.
Because there's a different, isn't there between a home that's
messy and just got signs of life because people live there,
and a home that is truly dirty and needs a
(10:06):
good scrub. The two things are completely different. I have
a fantastic week everyone, and I shall speak to you
all really really soon. Bye.
How do you know done enough cleaning? Especially if you're
a perfectionist or something like that, At what point can
you feel comfortable that you have done enough without feeling guilty.
It's easy to feel like you're never quite done when
it comes to cleaning. There's always one more corner to wipe,
one more draw to sort, and that nagging voice whispering
(00:20):
you could just do a little bit more. The trick
is recognizing it before you burn out or lose your
entire weekend to scrubbing the skirting boards. You know, obviously,
I am self employed. I've been self employed for years,
and if you're also self employed, you will know. Bear
with me. I'm going somewhere with this. You're never done, right,
If you are self employed, you are never done. There's
always something else Sydney's doing, and you can always be
(00:44):
doing more marketing, doing more sales, all of you know
XYZ right. And sometimes I think to myself, I wish
I like had a boss. I am my own boss.
I mean, I don't wish I had my own boss,
because I'd hate to work for anyone, but I sometimes
think I wish I had my own boss who could say, right,
you've done enough. Here are your tangible tasks to do
(01:05):
this week or this month or this quarter. Once you've
done them, you've done them. And I had this like
ping in my brain. I was like, that is exactly
what housework is like floads of people and sometimes me,
which is why I still follow Tom. I still follow
the organized one method because it helps me compartmentalize the
cleaning and it kind of acts as that boss that
(01:29):
this is what you need to do today, and once
you've done, you're finished. Because if I didn't have that compartmentalization,
if I didn't have the full stop, and maybe you're
the same, I would just keep going because like how
long is a piece of strength. So let's first of all,
bust the myth of the perfectly clean home. Spoiler alert,
they don't exist. If you are using your home and
(01:50):
utilizing it for its purpose, you will be living in it.
You will be living it, which means, because we know this,
that there will be mess, because what do we call
it housework maths. The more people they are in your home,
the more mess there will be. But we know that's
supposed to be lived in. We know that they're not
supposed to be preserved like show homes. Which means, and
(02:11):
this is the fantastic news that it can be clean
without being pristine. That's a rhyme. I think I've come
up with something, because the goal isn't to erase all
sign of existence. The goal isn't to eraise any sign
that your family and you live in your home. Mess
is an inevitable sign of life, which is lovely. You
(02:31):
can refame it. That's a really lovely positive thing. So
the myth here is that you can have a perfectly
clean home. It's impossible to achieve, so there's literally no
point in you even trying. It is a fool's Errand
the aim here is to create a space that feels comfortable,
safe and welcoming, where everyone can relax, including you. I mean,
(02:52):
I mean even if you are a sort of person
that likes everything tidy before you relax. There is a
balance here that we can absolutely strike. So with that
in mind, then how do we know that you have
done enough well? Number One? When you can move, When
you can actually say, hand on heart that you can
move through this space or this house or this room
without stress, and this means that you've probably handled the essentials.
(03:16):
And if you're following Tom you will know that we
deal with these essentials daily, which are your level one jobs,
which is a load of laundry, making the beds, making
sure that the high traffic floor areas are hoovered or swept,
your bathrooms are hygienic, and everything is just generally ticking along.
So it's like the top level essential jobs. That's what
(03:36):
we handle every day in our level ones. Another really
good sign that you are doing enough is that you
are keeping up rather than catching up. And this is
something we talk about all the time again, proactive cleaning
over reactive cleaning, So you'll know if you're in a
reactive cleaning state where you just don't know where to start, overwhelmed,
you feel like there is mess literally everywhere, right you
(04:00):
are reacting to mess as you see it. There's no strategy.
Maybe you're not following the Tom cleaning routine and you
feel a little bit all over the place. When you're
doing proactive cleaning and you're following a cleaning routine like Tom,
you are staying one step ahead. You are making sure
that you are cleaning efficiently. You're getting to things before
they get too bad. Yes it might not be perfect,
(04:20):
but that's not the point. Of TOM. The point of
TOM is to balance the housework and life as well,
because there is more to life than housework. And now,
a sign that you're potentially doing too much and you're
on the way to burn out is when it's starting
to feel overwhelming rather than good. Cleaning should help not
only your home look better, but also help you and
(04:43):
your family feel better whilst you are in it. So
if you find yourself exhausted snapping at the kids and
then thinking, oh my god, I got to do this, and
then I got to do this and got this and
the other, could be a sign that you are overwhelmed
and you're trying to do too much. And I spoke
to someone about this this week on my Instagram. They
just started a new job, they were working longer hours,
(05:03):
they've got a dog, they moved to a bigger house,
and they were just feeling like they were constantly falling behind.
My advice here is to just strip it right back,
right back to the basics, back to those level one jobs,
and just slowly build from there. Now, it could start
to feel frustratingly slow at first. It could be that
you're like, oh, I'm just doing the beds and I'm
(05:24):
just in the kitchen and I'm doing the bathroom, but
I'm not actually getting to the nitty gritty of the
living room. Once you've nailed your basics, it might take
you two or three days. Then what you need to
do is TOM room of choice, Okay for that date,
could be living room, bedrooms. Don't worry about your timer yet, right,
just do two or three priority jobs in those rooms
and build on it slowly, because if you are just
(05:45):
thinking to yourself, just one more job, just one more job,
and you find yourself sacrificing your downtime, you are probably
crossing the line into doing too much. And not only
is that going to make you feel resentful and frustrated
and going to lean to burnout, it's also probably going
to mean that youre going to just give up your
cleaning routine altogether, and then that means you're gonna have
to start all over again, which don't want you in
that space. We want you to maintain it. Even if
(06:08):
you just feel like you are plodding, I promise you
are getting somewhere. And another thing is you need to
make sure that you have time to do other things.
The whole point of doing TOM is to make sure
that you are balancing the cleaning, you are putting a
full stop on it so that you actually have time
to live your life right. You are not put on
this earth to cook and clean. You are put on
(06:30):
this earth for way much more important things than that,
and it's really important to keep it in perspective and
recognize that. So it's really important to set boundaries. And
the ways we can do this are to set timers.
We do this all the time with Tom. Say right,
I know that I've got thirty minutes or twenty minutes today,
I'm going to set my timer. I'm going to promise
(06:50):
myself that I'm going to commit and focus and do
as much as I can not get distracted in that time.
And as long as you start with your priority jobs
in that time, you are going to be onto a winner.
And don't forget if you're following Tom as well, we've
got the Friday focuses. So if you're thinking, yeah, but
what about the deep cleaning, what about the skirting was
that is what your Friday focuses are for. Another really
good way to set a boundary with the cleaning is
(07:11):
to stick to your routine. So if you aren't already
following tom head to the description. There will be a
link there so you can download the free print outs.
We'll send them straight to your email and you can
see if it works for you. Then obviously, if you
like it, if you love it and you want to
tweak it a little bit to suit your house and
your life, then that is what the organized Mom app
is for. But following a cleaning routine is going to
(07:33):
help free up so much headspace time and also help
you set boundaries. Often the feeling of being overwhelmed and
feel like you need to do more and more more
when it comes to cleaning is as a result of
having too much stuff. So be really realistic with yourself.
Be honest. Do you need to declutter first? Why? Because
we can't clean clutter? It's so much easier to keep
(07:54):
a house clean, tidy, and organized that isn't growning under
the weight of So it could be that that's where
you need to start first and just let go of
the guilt. Your home doesn't need to be perfect, it's
there to be lived in. Doesn't need to be spotless
to be enough. I promise you. I know it can
feel like empty words. I tell myself this all the time.
(08:18):
There are six of us living in this house. My
laundry room is just it's just overflowing. But I know
that I do enough every day and I am fine
with that. Yes, I would love it if all the
surfaces in my laundry room were clear, and you know,
it was just something out of pinterest, but it isn't.
And in order for me to get it to that point,
(08:41):
I will need to spend all day doing it. And
I don't want to do that. I work, I want
to spend time with my family. I don't want to
be locked away in the laundry room cleaning. That's not
why I was put on this earth. And you know,
just trust fine, And finally, I'm just gonna leave you
with this thought. Right, cleaning or a clean home is
not a reflection of how capable you are, right, I
(09:02):
think that's really important to recognize you are more than capable.
You might have a job, you're doing all sorts of
other things. Your home is just one of those things
that you need to do, and it's about creating a
house that works for you, not you working for the house.
Trust your efforts. If you've tackled the key priority areas
in your home kept up with the basics, and you
(09:23):
can feel like you can relax in your space and
it's not tipped the other way where everyone else is like,
I can't relax in this space in case in case,
she shouts at me, You have absolutely done enough. There
is more to life than housework, and you deserve to
enjoy that life. And you also deserve to enjoy your
house and create free time. So I hope wherever you
are in the world, you're happy, healthy and well guided.
(09:45):
Cleans coming this week are a twenty minute upstairs power
tidy and a twenty minute downstairs power tidy. You can
do one or the other way, you can team them together,
because sometimes all your house needs is a really good tidy.
Because there's a different, isn't there between a home that's
messy and just got signs of life because people live there,
and a home that is truly dirty and needs a
(10:06):
good scrub. The two things are completely different. I have
a fantastic week everyone, and I shall speak to you
all really really soon. Bye.
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