Thinking about housework and perfectionism

My house is usually a mess. Here it is, in a photo taken this morning with no tidying done and dust on the beams. I’ve always been untidy and never thought about housework until I was in my late 20s and found myself living with someone who wanted a tidy house. I grew up in a house where horses and dogs were looked after first, and I learned to muck out and make a stable beautiful with the straw up round the walls, a space cleared for the water bucket and always, always the stable door hooked back if there was no horse inside. I learned to keep tack clean and well maintained and to ensure my pony never had straw in his tail when I put him out in the field. But my bedroom was untidy and the house, although clean, was usually a bit of a muddle. Except for a nice room we didn’t go in very often which is where we took visitors.

I hope my mother will forgive me for outing her like this but I’m not judging; it’s just how it was. Also, I do think that 40 years ago there wasn’t as much emphasis on how our houses looked as there is now. Anyway, somehow, since my 20s, I have added to my List the obligation to have a perfect house. This is the List that many women carry around with them, a catalogue of goals to be achieved, without which they will not be good enough. Years ago, my List only contained the items ‘be thin’ and ‘do well academically,’ but items have been added over the years, so that now it would be impossible for me to satisfy all the conditions.

The trouble is, I don’t like housework, I’m not practical and I’m not very visual. The only time I tend to see the dust, the muddle and the cobwebs is when I’m on the phone. I think to myself, ‘after this call I’ll do x/y/z’ but as soon as the call is finished I find something important to attend to and the dust, muddle and cobwebs stay. As you can see, the house is ancient and my son’s friends used to say that it was just like the Weasley’s house in the Harry Potter films. It is lovely, and it could be ‘Homes and Gardens’ perfect if someone else was in charge of it, but it also attracts dust and spiders and is hard to keep tidy.

I realised some time ago that my discomfort about the state of my house was a symptom of perfectionism. Sure, perfectionists like to get things done perfectly, and this can make us obsessive about tasks, but we also recoil from some jobs because we are convinced that they are only worth doing if we do them 100%. I have noticed that the problem with housework is this: you work like mad, get everything looking nice, and then half a day later the muddle is creeping back, someone has left a muddy footprint on the kitchen floor and there is a new cobweb. It’s never ending. With a house that works overtime, doubling as an office for me, a school for my Teenager and a playground for a large hairy dog, keeping any semblance of order for very long would be a full time job. And I don’t have the time or energy for that!

So what is the answer? Well, I’ve tried feeling guilty all the time and feeling ashamed when visitors turn up, and that didn’t get anything done; it just made me feel bad. I’ve also tried forcing myself to clean and tidy much more than I wanted to. That made me feel bad too. I have now decided that ‘have a perfect house’ needs to be crossed off my List. I am good enough, acceptable, whether my house is tidy or not. As long as the important bits (kitchen, bathroom) are clean, then if no-one here cares too much about appearances, I’d rather have a happy house. I also found that setting myself a time limit to clean and tidy worked really well. I had always, in the past, told myself that I would have to work until the room, or the whole house, was perfect or until I couldn’t work any more. Invariably, it was the latter and I labelled myself a housework failure. But if I decide I will work for 15 minutes, or an hour, and do everything I can in that time, and after that I must stop, I am a success as long as I have filled the time constructively, even if there is still plenty left to do.

And this has been a really good lesson in letting go of perfectionism. These are the steps broken down:
1. Identify the condition I have placed on myself;
2. Ask if it’s realistic and if I agree with it. If it isn’t and I don’t, cross it off the List;
3. Give up on setting open-ended goals;
4. Set a timed process (rather than outcome) goal and make it a rule not to go over time;
5. Decide to focus more on pleasing myself and my family and less (or not at all) on reaching external standards set by magazines, advertising and other people’s sparkling homes!

Having said all that, Spring will arrive eventually and, for a few days, I will get the urge to clean, throw open the windows, have a declutter and do some polishing. The urge won’t last long, but I’ll take advantage of it when I can. Otherwise, I am proud to have a house that is welcoming and relaxed, where no-one has to take off their shoes and anyone who is miserable can cuddle the dog on the sofa.
I’d love to know – what triggers your perfectionism and what do you do about it?