Purple Figger Confesses to Laziness

This Tip Tuesday is more like an anecdote with a lesson in the end.

‘J’ doesn’t clean very much. That sounds like a complaint, but it’s not really. I’m never quite happy when someone else cleans. I feel they either do too little or concentrate on the wrong things during a quick-y. I was doing the dishes the other night because I’m very picky about how the dishwasher is loaded. My rule is: if you’re going to be particular about something, do it yourself. J does his own laundry for this very reason. I can’t do it the way he likes it.

By the time I was done ‘doing the dishes’, I realized that I had not only put the dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on, cleaned any non-stick or special knives by hand and put them away; but I had also wiped down the counters, the stove top and the cabinet fronts. J and I are both free spirited chefs and we don’t economize our movements. Splatters generally are rampant, but we have a blast.

I came to the conclusion that keeping things clean can be a lifestyle change. I didn’t always do those things just to get the dishes done. I came to see, over time, that it would be easier to take the smidgen of extra time to do it while it was fresh and easy to wipe, than to wait for cleaning day and try to scrape it all off. It’s why I do a myriad of things that seem compulsive to others. However, when it comes time to clean the whole house, it takes me far less time than most and less effort as well. I’m avoiding harder work later by doing it the easy way now. So really, I’m just lazy.