Welcome to the first post in my series on Elegant Values. I pondered over the format for this series for quite some time. I initially was going to set it up as The Elegant Woman is…. However, I didn’t want any of my readers to feel they are not elegant if they are not those things 100% of the time. So I eventually settled on values – things that we hold as standards but that we also regard as important. So here is our first one:
Cleanliness
Our first elegant value is cleanliness. I think we can all agree that clutter and grime are not elegant. Does that mean our house should look like a show home 24/7? Of course not! We have to live in it – it is never going to be perfect. But that is the beauty of values – it is what we consider important. As such, we make the effort to have those values as our standard in life. They are what we aim for. But how can we take them from an aim to reality? Good question!
One Room at a Time
So you have decided that one of your elegant values will be cleanliness. Your house is quite cluttered and you always seem to have cleaning that has been neglected. How do you change that? Start with one room at a time. Spend a few hours sorting through one room or even one section of a room. What can you give away? What can be thrown out or recycled? Our goal is to have a place for everything so that everything can be in its place. This not only clears the clutter but it makes it far easier to keep it clutter free. Keeping the house presentable becomes a simple job of putting things away. We are busy women – things need to be easily maintainable.
Enlist the Family
The rest of the family live in the house as well. Children can learn from a young age to clean up after themselves – close doors they open, put away their toys and put their dirty clothes in the laundry basket. Slightly older/taller kids can make their bed. They can also be responsible for keeping their own rooms tidy. You cannot clean up after everyone. You can also delegate. As an example, Child A can set the table. After the meal, Child B wipes the table and Child C sweeps the floor. Teaching children to be tidy and take responsibility for their own things is a very valuable life skill. Plus, their future spouses will be eternally grateful!
Automate
Can you automate any jobs or link a job with something you do regularly? What do I mean? You constantly battle the dishes. Do you have room in your house and budget for a dishwasher? The same question could be asked about vacuuming and a robotic vacuum. For me, a robotic vacuum has been a life saver. We have two dogs and one is double coated. He sheds hair 365 days of the year. The robot saves me hours of vacuuming.
Can you create a schedule association? A schedule association is linking one task to another you do regularly. Maybe you clean the shower after you wash your hair on Saturday. You could clean your fridge in the first week of summer holidays. Maybe you clean the bathroom sink when you clean your teeth at night.
Make It As Easy As Possible
We are busy. If a job takes too much time or effort, we likely won’t get to it often. Ensuring everything has a home makes it much easier to keep things tidy. You don’t need to think about where to put something. You just put it there. Boxes for toys and small bits mean you can toss things in quickly.
Something else to make life a little easier is to keep cleaning cloths in the bathroom and kitchen. If your kids are anything like mine, the bathroom sink inevitably gets dirt, chocolate crumbs and everything else on it. I keep a cleaning cloth in the bathroom. I quickly wet it, wipe down the sink and hang the cloth on the tub. Now the sink isn’t constantly covered in smudges and dirt.
Decorate to Discourage
“I thought this first post on elegant values was on cleanliness”. It is but allow me to explain how this can help. Our final tip serves two purposes. It helps discourage clutter. But it also adds beauty to our every day. Completely bare surfaces look pristine but they seem to be clutter magnets. Are there some places in your home that seem to need constant purging? Perhaps a few well chosen and well placed decorations would discourage the clutter from making its home there. Notice I said well-chosen and well-placed. Ensure decorations are tasteful, suit your personality, cohesive and balanced. The last thing we want is to replace clutter with prettier clutter.
An example from my home is my dining table’s lazy susan. The kids regularly stashed toys on it. It held a napkin holder, coasters and salt and pepper. But it also had a large empty spot. I filled it with an indoor plant. It is much rarer for me to find my children leaving toys on it. I also have a beautiful plant to look at and it adds some permanent luxury to my table.
So what do you think? How can you implement some strategies for making cleanliness one of your elegant values? If you aren’t convinced that elegance is something for you, I have a post on why I think elegance is for mothers as well.
