This may or may not be one of my New Year’s thing-a-ma-jobs.

This is how my house looks tonight as I head off to bed. In fact, this is how my house has looked almost every night this month. Isn’t it refreshingly clean?! Compared to the 101 things I de-cluttered from my piano recently, I’d say this picture is worth some money.

I was inspired by my sister-in-law in CA when we visited over Christmas. Every night we’d have dinner, clean up a little, play games, then after the kids were in bed she’d flit about the house picking up clutter and wiping down counters. It took her fifteen minutes TOPS to do this, because her house was extremely clutter free.

I was like, I don’t know what this is, this working you are doing. Why are you doing this?!

She admitted to being a little obsessive about order, but still. If her house was a man he’d be HOT.

I’ve always told myself clutter didn’t affect my productivity. I’ve always told myself clutter was homey. I’ve always told myself I kept just a little bit of clutter around so others wouldn’t feel intimidated by an immaculate house.

And seriously, don’t we all have better things to do than constantly pick up after ourselves? I mean, who’s going to feed these people if all I’m doing is cleaning?! But best of all, I continually chose spending time with me, myself, and I over providing a safe and sane environment for my family. Why clean when you can write?

I rebelled against maintenance cleaning because I was afraid I would spend 95% of my time Getting Things Done, and have no time left for myself. And I am. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m spending 95% of my time Getting Things Done. But you know what? Do you know how I spend that other 5%? I know you do – you naturally organized types can see this coming: I RELAX GUILT FREE.

Yeah. For people like me this is mind blowing. For you organized types: yawn. You’re like, I could clean my kitchen with my eyes closed and one hand wrapped around a cocktail.