Guess who’s coming to dinner… Does the thought of having company give you vertigo? Are you ready for guests? Or do you categorize your rooms as the good, the bad and the ugly? Watch this video for some strategies to make sure you are ready for guests. Cleaning for company and tidying the guest rooms is for the birds, but it doesn’t have to be if you get the help you need.
(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/TCDHome.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and today we’re going to talk about making your home ready for guests and friends to come over.
You know, I’m at my dining table right now, and we actually have some laundry being folded here. And that’s kind of a normal thing for our family. We use this really nice, open surface to do our folding, because we have usually a lot of stuff at one time to fold. And it’s a great work surface. So we do that, but we know that normal isn’t to have laundry out on the table. We know that normal means that this table is cleared off, and we use this table temporarily. And I’d like to explain to you that there is a medical term called homeostasis, and it’s a tendency of the human body to seek and maintain balance just in the way that our body temperature is almost always around 98.6. So, I’d like to suggest to you that your home has a certain state of readiness and balance that is your home’s homeostasis. And it’s that state of being ready for friends to come over, maybe it’s someone’s going to drop by, or you’re going to have a dinner party. There might even be different states of readiness that you discuss in your household, but you could have another level for, of course, mother-in-laws or camera crews to come over. But I’d like you to have that conversation with the people you live with. “What is that definition of homeostasis in our house? What is that flexible state of balance and readiness that’s the most comfortable for our family in every room of the house?” So, for example, you can go into a bathroom and have a conversation of “Okay, well, to me, a clean bathroom that’s ready for guests to come over means that there’s enough soap and a fresh hand towel and there’s toilet paper available and the surfaces are all generally clean. And that’s my definition of ready.” And you guys can compare notes on that and everybody in the family can work to maintain that state of balance. But what I would like to say is that this is your definition of success. It’s the combination of preventing and reducing clutter and maintaining the habits that are required to consistently keep this flexible state of balance and readiness.
If you want some help with this, we have the Household Systems and Routines Workbook that’s part of our on-line program that you can experience for free for 14 days with our Quick Start Program. You can find out more about that at https://www.clutterdiet.com/quickstart, and you can go through that workbook together and talk about all the different tasks that are required to maintain your house and what that standard is for you.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
You may have been searching for how to get a house ready for guest or how to maintain a clean house.
Great advice again. It is something i am always trying to re-evaluate, but i had never thought about it in that way.
Thank you, Jill!
Thanks for the advice. I think you’re absolutely right. Clutter does prevent you from losing weight. I have my exercise bike under a lot of junk and you’ve motivated me to set it up so it’s ready to use.