Domesticity

[napoleonofcrime]

Does anyone else have trouble summoning, if not enthusiasm, at least the requisite effort for common household activities? Unless the clutter interferes with my activities or ability to locate something, I rarely clean. When something is a health hazard or eyesore, I'll take care of it immediately. When I have no clean clothes, I do laundry.

Comments

[he_was_here]

If you're just a lazy bastard, then that makes two of us.
I am a college student, so that might have something to do with it, but I do laundry only when I have absolutely nothing else to wear (and I'm not above recycling to a certain extent). My room is relatively clean right now, but only because it's literally impossible to walk around it if I don't pick up.
And forget not hating the effort involved in making dinner, sometimes I skip meals because I don't want to walk downstairs to the dining hall...

[lyssiae]

I'm at one of two extremes. Either I'm a person who obsessively keeps everything in it's place and has a minor stress attack if something's half an inch off, or I'm a lazy slob who just doesn't care about dishes stacking up or the laundry not having been done for a fortnight.

[startracer]

Ditto. I'm almost obsessive-compulsive about some household tasks, and then others I can neglect until absolutely necessary to complete.

[purplefolk]

Agreed. Don't know if this is seasonal for me or what. I do notice it takes a lot of effort to shift me from one mode to the other, but once I'm there, it's rather stable for a while.

[7ofclubs]

And it's possible to be both!

In some areas, like arranging books and albums, you can feel heart palpitations if you find something out of order, while in the ssme moment, have a room full of dirty dishes you hardly notice.

I think it's the difference between "N" order and "S" order. Information is generally "N", and we can't stand our systems to be out of line, while "housekeeping" is the ultimate S. Bah, who needs it. I don't think my house is on Martha Stewart's road tour for at least another year or so...

[big_ragu]

Well, I for one am like this with almost everything in my life. Unless I am truly interested in doing something (which sometimes happens only rarely) I will avoid it unless/until it is absolutely necessary. If it IS, in fact, necessary, I will do it almost immediately.

So yeah, I have a lot of clutter ;-) It is clean clutter (i.e. no germ warfare experiments, etc.) but there is a lot of organized archaeology when I need to retrieve one of my many possesions. I have no problem with this, since I can always quickly locate what I need, but more than one person has angrily accused me of being lazy.

[healthnut22]

Mine is clean clutter, too. My mother thinks this, odd, I believe (or, somewhere deep down, actually thinks she *should* be this way, 'since her mother was very similar, but she is not--if something is dirty, it is dirty). My stuff is often a roaring mess because I am an all-or-nothing perfectionist: either something's done perfectly or I dispair and will not do it forever because I think I cannot. I really almost believe that. I can't find moeration very ealist, so I will leave things to "rot" if you will, for months, even years sometimes (and I'm still young!).

But clean clutter it is always (almost). I like cleaning, cleanliness, and I accept my clutter as a possiblity of it's own, but it must be dust free and able to "stand on it's own" as clutter--not just be a wholly unjustified mess with no purpose and much hazard! Does that make sense..?

I want to become a naturopathic physician, incidentally.

[healthnut22]

I love that--"organized archaeology" and "can always quickly locate!" That's me, but with my family (of non-INTJ's) as daily examples, I didn't know others were like that.

How cool.

rachel

[big_ragu]

Yeah, my family is VERY non-INTJ so they don't understand...

Although I find that a really organized/sparse space is aesthetically pleasing, I can't seem to make that work for me. I have entirely too much stuff (books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, memorable knicknacks, etc) so my "stuff" is necessarily all over the place. I do, however (he quickly points out) know where everything is. It IS NOT chaos, Mom, I promise!!! ;-)

[tampakittie]

Agreed.

nope..

[tricstmr]

Although I'm not ocd about cleaning.. I am fairly organized... for example.. I do like to keep my bedroom orderly.. clothes may pile up for a couple of days.. but then it gets sorted...

In addition.. I love to cook.. and in order to do that, I have to keep the kitchen fairly orderly.. it gets cleaned every other day or so...

Partially, this may have to do with the fact that life is incredibly busy and that if I don't keep some semblance of order, then I can not be nearly as efficient as i need to be...