Twice a week I take my rambunctious boy-toddler to a local playgroup hosted in a church hall. It runs from 9:30 till 11:30, there is instant coffee and chocolate cookies, interesting toys and a sloping path for the kids to hurtle up and down riding on plastic tricycles. It is also securely fenced in, so I can take my eyes off him to make a cuppa without him making a run for the hills or the main road.

Around 11am, a mysterious force calls us and all the parents there begin to pack up and clean up.  There’s no great rush, no list of tasks pinned to the wall, but we all just pick a job and finish it, then look around for another one to do.  By 11:30, someone’s vacuumed the hall and we’re ready to lock up and leave.

I was wondering why I found it so much easier to tidy up after playgroup than at home, and I realised there are several reasons.

• Working together is easier
  Many hands make light work and so on, but it’s much more encouraging when there are other people working companionably alongside you.  You can still chat, and ask someone else if you’re not sure where something goes. Furthermore, you can’t exactly sit on your bum fiddling with your phone while everyone else tidies up.
• Everything is part of a set and has its own container
  I don’t like toys with bits at home, but here the Weebles come out of the Weeble box, and then at the end of playgroup they go back in the Weeble box and the Weeble box lid goes on top, and then it goes out to the storage shed ’til next time.
• It’s someone else’s system
  It’s not my responsibility to justify the quality or quantity of the toys, the storage system, or the number of cups and saucers in the hall kitchen.  I have to focus on the task at hand. Wash the dishes, dry the dishes, turn the dishes over,  hang the tea-towel on the rack, wipe the bench and it’s done.
• There is a limited number of possible tasks, and they are all correct
  The hall tea towels are magically washed and dried (I guess the church ladies do that?). The lady who runs the playgroup makes sure there is playdough made and that there are sufficient teabags and bickies.  All I can do is choose between stacking chairs, putting toys in containers, washing the dishes, wiping the children’s table, sweeping, and carrying things out to the storage shed.  Any job I choose is the right job.

At home, on the other hand, the possibilities are literally endless:

Right now, I can see that

• the lounge needs a vacuum, again
• there is a washing basket with the random socks in it that I hate to pair up
• I emptied the dishwasher after lunch but didn’t reload it yet
• It’s nearly time to put some pizza dough in the breadmaker for dinner
• The shoe rack is overflowing
• I still haven’t posted that one gift from the baby shower I didn’t go to
• The cat thinks it is his dinnertime too
• Someone has dropped playdough on the carpet

… and so on.

But I realised that if I apply my experiences at playgroup tidy-up time to my own home, I can step beyond the anxious overwhelmed feeling, put down Words With Friends and “get off my chuff and do stuff” (as one of the ladies on the Facebook puts it)

• Working together is easier
  It’s companionable if there is someone else to work with. I find I am energised when Tim and I can work together for an hour on a Saturday morning and do a bit of a housework rampage.  The girls tidy up their rooms at the same time.  Everyone keeps moving and we have a brief moment when the kitchen, bathroom and lounge are all clean and vacuumed and all the rubbish bins are emptied.  Same goes for tidying up after dinner. It’s even better if we’ve invited someone for dinner. There’s nothing that makes you aware of the dust that gathers along the edge of the tiles in the toilet room than a guest going in there.
• Everything is part of a set and has its own container
  Like I said, I don’t like toys with bits at home, but limiting the toys in the lounge to duplo, books and a big toybox to biff any remainders back into helps keep it manageable.  I know where most things go, I’m just not very good at putting them there.
• It’s someone else’s system
  OK, this is the one I get hung up on.  But if I focus on getting my daily routine tasks done, that is the priority, with the added sidelines of getting the kids to and from school and wiping sticky faces as required. If I find myself getting distracted by the need to redesign my “system” and organise my entire life right now then that is just an insidious form of perfectionist procrastinating and doesn’t do a damn thing about the dishes.  (That’s pretty much the main reason I designed HomeRoutines, by the way – to get the system that I could use and not get distracted by “tweaking” the whole time and then having to print out again…)

• There is a limited number of possible tasks, and they are all correct
  This point was the one that was an epiphany for me. If I’m feeling overwhelmed, I can set my timer, walk into the kitchen and start working. It’s the starting that is often the difficult thing, rather than sitting on the sofa feeling defeated. Furthermore, as long as I don’t get sidelined into decluttering a closed cupboard rather than facing up to the duplo bricks all over the lounge floor, or digitising CDs instead of making lunch, then whatever I start doing is the right thing.  Especially compared to not doing anything.

So if I am reading The Tiger Who Came to Tea, or straightening the bookshelf, or loading the dishwasher, or wiping the marmite off the face of Captain Sticky, or sorting out the school uniforms for next term, or baking lunchbox muffins, or sweeping, or starting the difficult part of peeling a banana, or putting crayons back in their bucket – or even digitising those CDs or decluttering a few things out of that one cupboard:

all of those are right when compared to playing Where’s My Perry on my phone to distract myself from thinking I don’t know where to start.

And I’m setting my timer now and going to Do Some Stuff.