"PCS Clean"

I am a total perfectionist. Now, this is not to say everything in my house is perfect. Quite the opposite in fact. Although it's true I do have a place for everything, hardly ever is everything in its place. One flaw that plagues us perfectionists is low productivity when we can't get everything, well, perfect. If the desk is cluttered, I can't bring myself to wash the dishes. If the floor isn't vacuumed, I can't bring myself to do the laundry (well, honestly even if everything is done it's hard to bring myself to do the laundry). My inner self knows that no matter how clean I get this place, it won't ever really be clean. So my strong will rebels against my body. Instead of getting down to work, I just sulk and sulk over the fact that I can't reach the dust bunnies behind the refrigerator.

I know, I know.

One crazy way that I've helped put my perfectionist self at ease is by doing a "PCS clean" once a month (for my readers not familiar with military lingo, PCS stands for "permanent change of station." Or in other words, when we get the heck out of here and move elsewhere). You know all that scrubbing marks off walls, washing floors and windows, cleaning light fixtures, large appliances, and trying to get whatever that stain is out of the carpet so your house can pass inspection...yes, I do THAT once a month.

I'm a huge fan of FlyLady. I know she emphasizes baby steps, but during these once a month deep cleans I throw that out the streak-free shiny window and take giant leaps instead. It generally takes me about 4 days to completely clean my home. I'm very big on lists and organization. FlyLady has a handy detailed cleaning list for each "zone" of the house. I generally start out my cleaning following that list, tweaking a bit to fit our home (check out her website if you have no clue of where to start with your cleaning! It's pretty helpful).

I like to break down my cleaning schedule like this:

Day 1: Declutter- I go through all closets, cabinets, and drawers and toss, sell, or donate anything just taking up space. These monthly purges are probably the most important and beneficial step. We accumulate a lot, and trying to go through everything during an actual PCS is overwhelming.

Day 2: Downstairs- I deep clean EVERYTHING downstairs. From the cobwebs on the ceiling to the dirt on the floorboards, everything gets scrubbed, wiped, and bleached. I dust all surfaces, clean off windows, computer monitors, and picture frames, wash all of the walls, clean the light fixtures, wash curtains and couch pillow cushions. The floors are all vacuumed, swept, mopped, and shampooed. The bathroom is cleaned from the top of the ceiling to the bottom of the toilet, the kitchen appliances are thoroughly washed, the litter box is bleached...you get the idea. Everything.

Day 3: Upstairs- I do a thorough deep cleaning upstairs just like downstairs. I'll spare the details, but our upstairs consists of 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a linen closet.

Day 4: Laundry- I hate laundry. I usually put it off so long that it takes a day or two to complete, so during my "PCS clean" I dedicate a whole day to just washing and folding. To be completely honest, sometimes I put off doing the laundry so long that this once a month laundry marathon is the only time it gets done.

While I'm cleaning, I corral my kiddos in the playroom so that any mess they make will be confined to that one area. The playroom is usually the last room in the house that I clean, and they "help" at that point (help being they do what I tell them to do, and then I redo it when they aren't looking).

Overwhelming, slightly. But these monthly deep cleans calm my perfectionist soul. There is nothing quite like the feeling of Day 5.