422 - Defining Housework Part 1 - Cleaning

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In November of 2020, I did a two part podcast on the four kinds of work in business (</span><a href= "https://organize365.com/podcast/kinds-of-work-1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">361</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">&</span> <a href= "https://organize365.com/podcast/kinds-of-work-2"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">362</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">). It turns out, there are also four kinds of housework, and I introduced these in</span> <a href= "https://organize365.com/podcast/literature-review-research"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Podcast 418</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. There are many of these business concepts that also equate to our homes, we just don’t think of running our household like it is a business. We hear a lot about work/life balance as though these are two separate ways of getting things done. There are so many parallels between your day job and your home job. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A few podcasts ago, I shared that Organize 365 is pursuing research about organization. One of the first challenges we faced is that we do not have a common vocabulary around work inside the house like we have for work in the workplace. As part of our research, we needed to define the words we were using in the survey questions. That meant, we needed to define housework. This is the first of a four part series that defines and explains the different kinds of work we all have to do inside of our homes. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Today, I want to explain the first kind of housework - cleaning. This is a type of housework that we all think about when we consider housework. But, we rarely agree on exactly what “clean” looks like. I define cleaning as anything that a cleaning company would do inside your house. There is a level of cleanliness that is necessary for health. Cleaning will always cost you time, and sometimes it can cost you money. Regardless, someone is responsible for the level of cle