Reinstating the 15 Minute Policy

Now that I am living alone again, and now that people are actually regularly coming to visit or even stay with me, I want to reimplement the 15-minute policy.

Before lockdown or having a partner move in, I always held myself to what I called my 15-minute policy. The overall policy is that I would spend 15 minutes (or less) keeping my flat in a general state of cleanliness. That way, if someone said they wanted to come over or I invited someone to come over, I was always only ever a 15-minute clean away from a guest-ready flat.

Once the chance of anyone coming over was removed, the policy fell by the wayside. It also didn’t help that my stress reaction to being in lockdown was to hoard everything to the point that my flat was so filled with clutter that all the cleaning in the world wouldn’t help it.

But the lockdowns are now a thing of the past.

And I spent the last several months purging unnecessary things from my flat.

There is still a long way to go. There are projects I’ve started that I would like to finish and supplies (both art and self-care) that I would like to use up. There is also a need for better systems of organisation so that everything has a place.

As I’ve been slowly, slowly cleaning out all of the extra things and finishing projects, the place will feel even lighter. Cleaning when things are organised has always had more of an impact, I have found.

But I’m not going to wait until things are perfect before I start putting things back to right and getting my flat to a place where it doesn’t overwhelm or stress me out. I want to feel like I have things together, at least within these walls. My mental health is always better when my home is more together too.

I am going to recommit to taking care of myself by taking care of my flat.

I look forward to being excited when people come over rather than stressed out.

And I look forward to enjoying my space.

The 15-minute policy is officially reinstated.