Are there any cleaning tasks that you find yourself avoiding because you dislike them so much? Maybe it’s laundry, washing the windows, dusting, scrubbing the toilet, or cleaning the blinds (does anyone even do that??).
When you are feeling unmotivated to begin your cleaning challenge what do you do? Do you check your email, log into Facebook, clip coupons, or start pricing stuff for your upcoming rummage sale? Basically doing anything other than the task at hand? Okay, maybe that’s just me.
But I have found that if I am facing a dreaded cleaning task (which for me is typically dusting, washing the windows and washing the floors), I find that music, the right music, makes all the difference in the world. I can face the caked on bird poo on the windows when I’m listening to some inspirational music. And what’s more inspirational than the song that a lovely princess from Andalasia sang to motivate a bunch of rodents, birds and bugs to help her clean?
Oh yes, I am talking about a Happy Working Song from the movie Enchanted (and if you haven’t seen it and have no idea what I am talking about, check out the clip below, then run – don’t walk – to your local library to pick it up so you can see the whole thing).
I’m not sure why, but just listening to that song makes me pick up my feather duster to brush the one inch layer of dust off my shelves (Okay, you got me, I don’t really own a feather duster. But if I did, this song might actually put me in the mood to use it).
And thinking about all those rats and roaches helping clean the house is oh so gross but you can’t turn down cleaning help, right? If those nasty little buggers showed up at my house to clean I just might let them in. 🙂
Unfortunately, I think our children inherited my lack-of-cleaning-motivation gene and trying to get them to clean up can often be painful. But using the same strategy on them that I use on myself has worked, at least some of the time.
So I use cleanup music; Barney cleanup music to be exact. It really just works with the girls because Snootz is 6 and no longer tolerates the big purple dinosaur. But the girls are my biggest challenge when it comes to making and cleaning up messes so whatever motivator works for them is what I use.
The song is short so you may have to play it like 12 times in a row but it works like a charm.
I could ask our girls 100 times to clean up their messes and they will act as if they can’t hear me. But put on a little Barney tune and our two little ladies transform into a couple of cheerful, singing, cleanup stars.
It’s amazing what a little music can do.
What happy song will you put on today in order to make your home cleaner and tidier?
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