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15.03.2020

How to keep your living space clean and stay calm about it? How to spend minimum time for cleaning? Special housekeeping systems will be useful not only for women but also for men – as if some of them live alone, and some people celebrate International Women’s Day more than once a year, and deliberately choose division of household responsibilities without regard to sex (our journalists are just like that).

The sight of litter, smells in the kitchen of unwashed dishes, dirty plumbing fixtures, dirt felt by the feet that is a great source of stress. Even the remembrance about trash in the corners increases the level of cortisol (a stress hormone) and ruins the mood for a long time. We feel anxious, guilty, worried, how to clean everything and where to take time for it.

But do not rush to start the general cleaning on the last leg. Balance, awareness and common sense are important in everything. Also the rational approach, under which that most life hacks are working – life tricks that can make our lives much easier.

Philosophy of «small steps»: 15 minutes every day

Marla Cilley, an American was the first who offered to treat cleaning as a system and to abandon from house “rush job”. She decided to plan her day every minute and found out that systematic helps make housekeeping easier and free up time for herself. Her system is called “Fly Lady” (FLY – abbreviated from the English phrase finally loving yourself – “love yourself at last”).

Marla Cilley advises to divide the house into conditional areas (hallway, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc.) and during a week clean only in one area no more than 15 minutes. In practice it looks like this: these 15 minutes are noted, and today during this time, we wash the kitchen cabinets. Time is up – stop, we leave everything as it is. Tomorrow we will clean a window, the day after tomorrow we will scour the saucepans, then we will clean a fridge and so on. If some work has not yet been accomplished, it is not a bad thing, because the FlyLadies think that the main thing is to do something, gradually approaching perfection, rather than undermining health.

There is another secret in this system in creating of order: every day to pay attention to the so-called “hot zones” – the most cluttered surfaces. For example, a drawer in the sitting room, where during the day we put on our keys, bills, newspapers. Or a sink that filled with dirty dishes in the morning and causes yearning in the evening. Or an unmade bed in the morning, tempting to throw something at it. The author proposes to clean up your house as soon as a mess occurs (wash dishes immediately so that it does not gather) and do it between this and then. For example, you can to deal with a drawer while waiting for the soup to boil or wash the sink while talking to your friend on the phone.

If during a week, you were paying attention to all the areas at the same time and honestly, it is no longer necessary to “lick” every corner during the “wet” cleaning at the weekend.

It should be remembered that perfectionism (the inexpugnable desire to do any work to the point of exhaustion, alpha plus – it is not always a useful habit, but excessive delusions of cleanliness and elimination of microbes in general can be a sign of obsessive compulsory disorder. This is the case where there is nothing to be pleased about the lack of dust on the shelves. Instead, small steps theory and a list of small things done, make you feel satisfied with yourself and your house, which is one of the effects of dopamine (the so-called feel-good chemicals).

Get rid of the unnecessary things. Not without magic

Another manifestation of mental disorder is the compulsive accumulation of things. People who clutter their houses with unnecessary belongings, broken meat, junk, souvenirs, and packing, we call them “pliushkiny”, remembering the character of “Dead Souls”. There, their own things evoke a strong emotional response. Doctors say it can even be seen on an MRI: when looking at personal trash, a part of the human brain called insula is highly activated.

“Do not let things spread all over your house,” Marie Kondo, a Japanese author of another system of house space organization, says. Unlike Marla Cilley, she does not teach when and how to wash dishes, and offers to get rid of unnecessary things not gradually, but immediately. Like, cleaning every day and every little time, we are at the risk of turning our lives into a whole cleaning. And having globally sorted the junk and found place for the necessary thing, we can say goodbye to the mess once and for all.

The system is based on minimalism and smart storage, which allows you to fill a house with “air”. In this case, it is recommended to clean up the order by a category, rather than by a zone. And in this order: clothes, books, documents, miscellaneous (household appliances, kitchenware, cosmetics, etc.), memorabilia.

So, let us start with the clothes. You should immediately get all clothes from the wardrobe and drawer chest, look at each thing and decide: does it bring happy for you? Kondo offers to get rid of those things immediately, which: upset, annoy, duplicate each other, have not worn for a long time, do not fit in style or color, and are associated with unpleasant moments in life.

Unnecessary clothes should be put away, and the remaining one should be placed in one place – so that it will be before your eyes and things could be easily taken. However, the main thing is that it will be easy to put a thing in its place – it is a way that you will keep order automatically, without even thinking about it. All other household items also need to be carefully turned over and got rid of which you do not use. It is necessary to sort things in silence and alone, so that no one influences your choice. That is why you should not try to free yourselves from the belongings of your relatives’ rooms without their consent.

In an average house, it is really to re-arrange the space in 3-9 months: during this time, new habits are formed, the attitude to things changes, a person is pleased to be able to control everything down to the last button and the farthest shelf.

By the way, Kondo was the first who used the fashionable term “information noise”. The point is that our brains cling to the numerous labels on food packaging, household chemicals and more. It deprives from us complete peace and tranquility. Marie advises to remove labels from bottles and tubs, all that is possible to repack to other, free from labels, containers (for example, cereals and spices in the kitchen pour into tubs). Having used this recommendation, you will notice how much more harmonious and quiet your interior has become.

The Kondo method is also called “magical cleaning”, because she advises building relationships with things: thank the old things, carefully put socks to give them rest, ask for the clothes, how they want to be stored, folded or hanged. In Japan, these recommendations are absolutely adequate: they are more respectful to things. But this approach can cause different emotions in people with a different cultural background – from astonishment to indignation.

As for cultural differences: have you ever known that in Sweden there is a phenomenon called fulskåp – “a special warehousing unit for ugly things that you do not look at without tears and do not present to someone else anymore”. As a rule, distant relatives present them. To impress them, these things should be brought to a prominent place when the presenters come for a visit. There is no specific name for such places in the Ukrainian language, but the difficulty of just to throw out unnecessary gifts is almost in every home.

However, what to do with unnecessary things, the experts of the order say little for some reason. Just take it to the trash can? Namely, this thought prevents us from getting rid of unnecessary – it is a pity to throw it away for no special reason. So, here are some rational solutions of this task:

  • clothes that you like but it fit badly, carry to a seamstress, where you get fitted
  • clothes in good condition can be sold online or carried to commission store
  • laundered clothes and clean shoes carry to social services for children, families and youth, as well as to church, shelters and charitable organizations – where they can be taken away by needy
  • worn-out clothes made of high-quality fabric can be remade: sew hot-pot holders from jeans (such fabric has rather dense texture and does not melt), cut knitwear into strips and weave a rug, sew decorative pillowcases from unnecessary men’s shirts
  • unnecessary books – to the library or waste paper
  • glass and plastic utensils can be processed – both for nature and good for you, and it will not extra money for you.

Juliia CHEBRETS/Gromada Skhid No. 4 (13) 2020

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Broken window theory

Cleanliness and order also affect the organization of social life. Instead, a chain reaction of disorder can make any decent city a cloaca.

According to the broken window theory, formulated by James Wilson and George Kelling in 1982, if no one has installed new glass instead of the broken one, then no unbroken window will be in this house soon, and later looting will begin.

The first experiments conducted in the Netherlands have shown that people more likely violate accepted standards of behavior when they see that others are doing the same and are getting away with it. That is, if someone in your yard has made a mess and the street cleaner did not clean it, then there will be those who also do not bring the junk to the trash. If several cars are parked on the sidewalk, then there will be other drivers who want to leave their car there. And when violating one of the adopted rules, people allow themselves to violate others.

But the theory works in the opposite direction as well. The most famous example is the reform of the New York subway, which in the 1980s became a hotbed for natural crime. But with the peak of 1990, the city’s crime epidemic has plummeted, and since then New York has become one of the safest metropolitan city in the world.

Why have tens of thousands of thuggish groups stopped breaking the law and keeping the locals at bay? Because the new director of the subway, David Gunn, began to fight with the graffiti artists that painted the subway cars. “Graffiti is a symbol of system failure. There is no sense in introducing new subway cars and equipment unless we can protect them from vandalism”, Gunn said.

Nobody tried to catch “artists” in the act. The painted subway cars left the depot only after its workers had washed down all the newly painted graffiti. When the graffiti artists realized that no one would see their masterpieces, so there was no sense in wasting time and effort – the subway cars became clean.

After the first victory, the subway management began to struggle with the farebeating. Behind the ticket barrier, dozens of police officers, dressed in civilian clothes, arrested people who jumped over the ticket barriers, searched them, handcuffed them, and placed them next to the entrance for all to see. At the end of the day, they were got on a police bus and taken to a police station. Often the stowaways had illegal weapons or drugs. So, the subway has become a dangerous place for street gangs, so underground crime rates dropped by 75%.

The success of the subway management inspired the mayor of New York to launch a “zero-tolerance policy” in 1994 for the smallest offenses. To do so, he appointed William Bratton, a head of the subway transport police, as the city’s police chief. Police punished even for a piece of paper thrown near a trash can. So, in two years Bratton managed to reduce the level of serious crimes by more than a third, and the killings – by almost half.

It is interesting, that the broken window theory works in any country. Here is an example from Ukraine. Automobile operating company. If at least a turn signal was removed from the bus, which stands on a separate site without a driver in line for repair, then only the carcass remained. Several thieves’ drivers were tracked down and signed off, and the problem has disappeared.

The conclusion is simple. The broken window theory works. Do you want to live in a clean city? Keep it clean. Do you want so that there will be more goodness around? Do good by yourself.

Yevhgen TARAN/Gromada Skhid No. 4 (13) 2020