To be a total slob?

[Bubspub]

I have realised that I've lived like a slob I think my whole life! I'm ashamed but I don't really know how to change these behaviours, as though I'm stuck in a pattern I'm struggling to change. It drives my DH up the wall as he is quite tidy and perfectionist. I think before we got married I managed to an extent to keep a lid on it, but now we have been married many years he knows the truth about my inner slob and it is often the source of arguments. I often think about sorting everything out but spend a lot of time thinking and not much time doing
When I look back my parents lived this way, stuff everywhere, a 'we'll sort that out later' attitude to things laying around. I was always really embarrassed if friends came home and we would tidy up in a hurry to cover up our slovenly ways. I hated living like this yet it's how I live now as an adult. Yesterday a colleague asked if she could have a lift home and I was so embarrassed about the state of my car (coffee cups, sandwich bags, bits of paper, receipts etc) that I secretly ran down to the car park and quickly cleared the rubbish? AIBU to live like this, AIBU to expect that I can change these habits of a lifetime?

For the car you need to buy a plastic cereal storer (from the tupperware aisle at supermarket )
Take off the lid and line it with a plastic carrier bag, clip the lid on over the bag and then use the flap (where you would pour the cereal from) to post your rubbish in.
My kids quite enjoy the novelty of using it and as the lid clips shut the rubbish doesn't fall out.

FAD I think I get overwhelmed by it all too. Funnily enough, before I was married I lived in house shares and this was the tidiest I have been, as you have to be. I wonder if it's something about group situations that forces us to be tidy, but behind closed doors we're shameful

OP, don't allow DS to eat in the car then - simple solution. Unless it's a very long journey where you NEED to have a snack e.g. On holiday or visiting family 4 hrs away, why does anyone need to eat in a car?

Or is it drive thru Maccy's etc? Again, a simple habit like taking any rubbish out with you as you get out the car after each journey is just so easy. I can't understand how rubbish in cars can build up unless you are a district nurse etc

I'm going to whisper Flylady at www.flylady.net/ I'm whispering because I suspect it's a very unmumsnetty website to recommend but I love it. You do have to do the tasks though - not just spend all day on the site. And don't read all the emails. They slow you down.

Oh and I totally agree with the "because I have to be tidy" mentality. my house was the untidiest and uncleanest it's ever been when I was a SAHM when the kids were toddlers. Not all their mess. Was partly because I thought "oh I will be here later to do that anyway", or "it will be done as a deep clean when DH and I have more time At the weekend" so things got left. (Remembers one memorable standoff with not cleaning the white plastic draining board and watching red mould/whatever accumulate in the ridges over a couple of weeks. I don't know how we lived like that when I think of it now.

What actually made our house more tidy was me going full time when the kids were older. Cos a) no-one's in during the day to make any mess and b) we just CAN'T live in chaos with no ironed clothes and no clean packed lunch containers etc because I found out it was too fucking stressful in the mornings. So now it is just normal that we clean up the evening's dinner dishes the same night (rather than leave them till morning thinking "I can just do it tomorrow"), and make the kids empty their school bags as soon as they come in from school etc.

I do think that people who have very busy lives are actually sometimes more organised, clean and tidy than a family who have someone at home during the day/part time working. Because you HAVE to be that way otherwise life wouldn't run properly.

And I think it's easy to become depressed if you're home all day for a couple of years and fall into the trap of feeling you have no structure or meaning to your day.

Regent's Park: . Fly lady is SO mumsnetty - a couple of years ago it had its own regular thread. Does it still have that I wonder?

The Home Routines app is better than Flylady because it's adaptable. I found flylady too prescriptive for someone who wasn't home all day to follow "today we're all doing this" type of instructions. It was very useful for making a list of weekly and monthly tasks etc but for the routine itself I just tailored the Home Routines app to suit my schedule and put the fly lady tasks in there.

I used to be messy, I'm now anally tidy and it's the embarrassment that got me, plus the discomfort of sitting looking at mess, or waking up in the morning and looking at it.

I'd say get on top of it then just tidy as you go. I'm always putting stuff away or picking it up, but it takes seconds.and honestly, it's so much nicer getting up in the morning to a nice tidy house.

curlyhaired yes I use home routine now instead but I've got it set up in a very flylady way. FLYLADY. There look - I shouted it this time.

The secret for me is routine with the bigger jobs and little and often with other things. So put jacket/shoes/clothes etc away as soon as you take them off. We have a coat rack in the hall which makes jackets tidy but accessible so think about storage solutions that may help. We each keep one pair of shoes at the front door, any surplus shoes have to be out straight into a wardrobe.

My pet hate is a messy or unclean kitchen or bathroom! So we load dirty things straight into the dishwasher and anything that can't go into the dishwasher goes into the sink and is washed same day. Dishwasher emptied as soon as the cycle is finished. As most items can go in dishwasher it only takes a couple of minutes to wash any items that need hand washed and only a couple of minutes to empty the dishwasher. Bathroom is similar towels hung up straight away and cleaning the bathroom equally means it's a quick job. Recycling taken out to outside recycling bins immediately and our kitchen bin is emptied daily again a 2 minute job.

Hoovering/dusting we probably do once/twice per week as no pets and one baby so we don't get much dust. I usually blast it and do whole house at one time but if I'm having a hard day with baby or busy with other things I'll do the upstairs one day and the downstairs the next day.

About once a month I'll clean internal windows and other jobs like that which are less frequent

I have a lot of clutter and am not great at putting it away. I like tidiness but I procrastinate and am fairly lazy...
Got an app called UnfuckYourHabitat - it gives you excellent motivations and has a timer function. Brilliant. Also likes Marie Kondo (knickers have been folded for a year now - about the only habit that stuck) it is a good method for decluttering, just never did the whole house as the novelty wore off.

Yes there is a Flylady thread! Come and join us . I have no idea how to link but the latest thread is called "New start November". Also going to heck out some of the apps and tips mentioned on here.

No it's not Maccy Ds I promise! I give him toddler snacks, rice cakes and wafers, to try to distract him from his massive tantrums every time I put him into the car seat. It's not ideal but we have quite a drive to child care and it's a long time to listen to him screaming. I've tried toys, nursery rhyme music, leap pad too. But the snacks are one of my solutions. I've got no excuse for not cleaning out week old rice cakes though

I like the sound of 'unfuck your habit'

Our house was always untidy and always sometimes a real mess.
The final straw for both of us was the dust from me renovating our bathroom (the bathroom is brilliant and I love it). We got a cleaning company into clean the whole house. We now have them coming every 4 weeks so we do a tidy up of all the clutter before the cleaners arrive. It works as it keeps us in a routine of sorting stuff out regularly. The piles of magazines and papers never seldom get out of hand now.

It's terrible for me because i spend ALOT of time cleaning and tidying, but my house is so small so it always looks a mess when even a few things are out of place. If I don't tidy and clean everyday my house is a bomb site. I dread visitors, everyday.

I would definitely consider a cleaner in the future, if anything to give me motivation to pre-clean before the cleaner came!

I really believe that YANBU even though I am a very, very tidy and organised person! I always think of it as some kind of trait that is part nature, part nurture. Some people can't get maths, some people are naturally good at it, and some will be good at it and then to top it off their circumstances will encourage it. I NEED to be clean and tidy and organised, but that's not always a good thing. I get stressed when things are disordered. It's not OCD or anything but I do wonder if I'd be less stressed by the time I get to mid-morning, if I hadn't left my spotless house with my spotless kids to get to school a couple of minutes early. I would have had more time to relax before starting the day. I let my kids be free and relaxed and I want them to enjoy art etc so they're always at it, but I always clear up afterwards when they're in bed. There's more to life than everything being just so, but I cannot let it go. The pp saying they just stare at the mess, I never do that - but will start to settle down for the evening and then realise I didn't file away some paperwork or what have you.... and I can't just bloody leave it! I annoy myself with it, but can't switch off otherwise. Pity us poor tidyers

Ii hear you mygorgeous! You do have my sympathy a bit! But also my envy! Agree about the nature/nurture thing too. I'm pretty sure I have the 'slob gene'