Get motivated tips
Reward yourself
If cleaning feels like a punishment, promise yourself a reward at the end. Watch your favorite show, paint your nails, or go grab a coffee. If you tell yourself you can’t have that little thing you want until you’ve cleaned, you may just feel inspired to take care of that annoying task faster.
Watch A YouTube Video
This one’s a bit unconventional… You may be wondering how that’s going to get your house clean. Well there are actually a lot of videos that offer excellent cleaning motivation. Something about watching a person take their house from messy to clean is actually quite motivating! When you just need energy to clean your house, these inspiring videos really do help. A few of my favorite YourTube channels for cleaning motivation are:
- Beauty and the Beastons
- Love Meg
- How Jen Does It Just be sure not to fall down the YouTube rabbit hole! Watch one cleaning video and then get to work. It won’t do you any favors if you spend an hour watching videos instead of tidying.
Invite someone over
You could have your parents over for dinner, or a movie night with friends. The idea that others are going to come over and see your mess can serve as a great motivator to get cleaning. Even if you don’t want to plan a whole big gathering, just having one person over can do the trick. Especially if she’s the judgy type. : ) Related: How to Speed Clean Your House in 1 Hour
Keep Track of Your Time in a Smart Way
If you want to prevent the bad habit of procrastination from coming back, keep track of the time you spend every day. By having a clear idea of where you spend your time, you can always review your productivity and know which areas to improve. It’s not easy to keep track of every minute you spend throughout the day so I recommend you to use the app Rescue Time. It gets you a categorized breakdown of how you spend your time and helps you to find out how much time you’re really on-task. You can even label activities as productive and non-productive so as to block your biggest distractions. Here’re 5 extra strategies to help you stop procrastinating:
Reward Yourself
It’s important to acknowledge and reward yourself for achieving even the small tasks. It creates a sense of motivation and releases those feel-good, productive emotions that spur you on to achieve even more. Make your reward proportional to the task you completed so getting a bite-sized task done gets you a cup of your favourite coffee or snack. Then plan a weekend away or fun activity for the bigger stuff. Personally I try to make staying focused more fun by using the app Forest. It turns productivity into a game. In the game, you can plant a virtual tree at the beginning of your work time. If you maintain focus for the duration of the timer, you’ll grow a tree to add to your forest. It’s rewarding when you can eventually grow a forest.
Take Planned Breaks
The human brain isn’t designed to work continuously on the same task and this could be a reason for procrastination. Make sure you take regular, structured breaks away from your task so that you can come back refreshed and ready to be more productive. A break as short as 5 minutes is enough to keep your mind sharp and wards off fatigue. I recommend you to use the Pomodoro Time Tracker. It is a great tool to help you take breaks at set intervals. Simply start the 25-minute timer, and follow the prompts.
Form a Ritual
By forming a ritual, you save yourself time from thinking about what to do next. When you don’t need to think about what to do next, you can go autopilot to actually get what you have to do done because you have no time to think about what other things to do besides completing your important tasks. Here’s how to form a ritual and beat procrastination: The Power of Ritual: Conquer Procrastination, Time Wasters and Laziness I know it’s not easy to get over procrastination on your own, so joining the free Fast Track Class – No More Procrastination is an effective way to help you overcome procrastination. In this focused 30-minute session, you will learn how to take over your procrastinating mind and start taking action. Join the free class and never stop procrastinating again!
Face Your Triggers and Get Rid of Them
Whether it’s fear of failure, overwhelming feelings, avoidance or convincing yourself you’re just too busy to get something done, you can improve your ability to be productive by eliminating your procrastination triggers.
Identify Your Triggers: The 5 Types of Procrastinator
Identifying the type of procrastination you personally experience is an essential step for you to fix the problem at its root. Take a look at this flowchart here to find out what type of procrastinator you are: Which type of procrastinator are you? Let’s take a look at the triggers for your procrastination type:
Take before and after pictures
If all else fails, take a picture of your mess. It always looks even worse in pictures. Then, when you’ve cleaned, take another picture. Post it on social media or send it to someone who will be proud of you. (It just might be the cleaning inspiration they need, too!) Seeing your progress in picture form can be highly motivating. That’s why people who are losing weight take pictures of their evolution. It’s easy to forget where you started. Next time you’re having a hard time working up some cleaning motivation, refer back to the ‘after’ picture of your glistening clean home. You’ll feel inspired all over again! I really hope these cleaning inspiration tricks helps you get motivated to clean your house! When your cluttered house makes you feel outright depressed and completely overwhelmed by the mess, refer back to these easy tips and strategies. Most importantly, give yourself grace. Don’t call yourself lazy, or a slob. A trashed house happens to all of us from time to time! Just focus on how good it will feel to accomplish it, dive in, and see just how fast you can get your home tidy. While you may never actually enjoy doing housework and cleaning, I promise that you will enjoy living in a clean house!