Unfuck Your Habitat

serenevannoy:

I see so many people talking about how hard it is to clean when you’ve got chronic pain or chronic illness.  It is!

However, so is living in filth!

I know, because I’ve done both. So I thought I’d share some tips on how I manage unfucking my abode when I’m having a rough pain day, like today (ow). This is just me speaking about me — it may or may not work for you, but if something sounds like it’s right, maybe give it a try. Or not. Whatever works.

TIP ONE: I get enough sleep the night before, if at all possible! I know that’s hard for some of us, me included, but me on sleep = me more able to deal with just about anything than me on no sleep.

TIP TWO: I have a morning list of things I would like to get done every morning. I’m gonna show it to you, but I know yours will be different. It’s the principle that counts, not the contents of the list.

My morning routine:

1. Get up and make bed
2. Get dressed to street-legal clothes (plus hair, face, teeth, morning meds)
3. Read FlyLady emails and check Unfuck Your Habitat
4. Put out Hot Spots for 2 minutes (using timer)
5. 5-minute room rescue (again, timer)
6. 15 minutes of decluttering (annnnnd, timer again)
7. Laundry (make sure clean laundry is put away and dirty laundry is in hampers)
8. Amsler grid (a diagnostic test I have to do for my eyes every day)

TIP THREE: I am gentle with myself. If I can’t work for 15 minutes (see #6 on the above list), then I do it ten or five or two minutes at a time. As long as it gets done, who cares how many tries it takes? It’ll still be better when I’m done than when I started.

TIP FOUR: I SIT.  If I can do it sitting, I do, because sitting is the least painful position for me. (I do walk for exercise, a couple miles a day, but standing still is painful for me, and housework doesn’t present enough movement to count as not-standing.) 

A few examples of things I can do while sitting:

• Chop veggies
• Wash dishes
• Sort things into give-away/put-away/throw-away bags
• Go through paper clutter
• Clean off almost any flat surface
• Fold laundry

There’s more, but these are the main ways I manage to get work done when my body hates me. Got any to add?

Excellent list! (And fascinating melding of FlyLady and UfYH systems!)