The Cleaning Challenge
The best ways to clean and how it can improve your life.
By: N. Choi
Whenever my friends come over to my house, I always used to feel tense. The reason for this is my messy room. One or two hours before they arrive, I try to tidy up my place in a great hurry. However, because I would do something I haven’t ever started before, it felt really hopeless. Besides, the place to clean is pretty big, and also, the biggest problem is that I don't really know how to clean it. Finally, I had to show them my bare room, and sometimes they would step in and help me clean. And each time, I would feel rather useless. Therefore, after they leave my house, I’d clean it again. But as time passes by, it would always go back to its original situation. I thought it over and over asking myself, “Why I am not good at this?” And I finally found the underlying cause. That is because I don't know the right method, and also I don’t have any experience getting it done successfully. It makes me a person who has no confidence and consequently, I labeled myself as a "naturally-poor-at-cleaning person." I wanted to change myself, so I looked for information everywhere.
At first, I asked help from my friends who seem to be good at cleaning. And they all gave the same suggestion which is to arrange my things according to categories and put similar items together. (Then and up until now, my things are just scattered all around the place, the reason for which is that I believe putting different kinds of things in one place makes me more comfortable. For example, there are always books, writing materials, and something to eat on my desk. But now, I realized that this is a very wrong way of doing it.
Secondly, I turned to watching video tutorials on YouTube. Unfortunately, it was not that helpful. I think the video contents are not very specific.
The last thing that I referred to is a book entitled 'How to Clean' written by Gondo Marie who was selected as part of the "Times 100 list of authors." “Once you clean, you will never mess up your room. I am certain.” What she said fascinated me perfectly. The most important things that she emphasized in this book are "Throwing Out" and "Cleaning things according to their category." Then and now, I have been doing everything in the opposite way. Whenever, I decide to throw out my old stuff, I have this habit of labeling useless item as something sentimental which brings back old memories. From this book, I realized that I have been cleaning my room in a disorderly manner. Additionally, I found out that the reason why I couldn’t clean my room well is because I did not know the method. And it makes me feel relieved. After finishing the book, I cleaned my room for almost 6 hours. The results were not bad at all. Also, I feel really refreshed.
In this book, Gondo Marie said that a clean room makes one’s life cleaner. It means that if you know the appropriate cleaning method, you’d likewise learn how to manage your own human relationships and even improve your study habits to become more efficient. And, of course, there are other benefits. I’m hoping that what she wrote in her book was true. And if it really was, I hope it will make my life better than how it is right now.