Cleaning buddies and how to find them
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Last year I read "How to Keep House while Drowning" by KC Davis. It's a small book, so it is quick and easy to read. It has changed my perspective on what a clean house is and how to deal with it a lot. (Here's a video where she talks about it.) In chapter 36 ("Oursourcing care tasks is morally neutral") the author says that "[s]ometimes just having someone to keep you company while you complete tasks is helpful." I agree! This thought then has sparked the following idea:
An online platform where people can find cleaning buddies.
Cleaning buddies?
Some people struggle with house work, or care tasks, how KC Davis calls them. (I so goddamn certainly do.) So through this platform/ service you would find a person who's there virtually, while you do said care tasks. That way it may be easier for you to actually get up and do the work. You could both work at the same time, or one person could just keep the other company.
I don't know if I'd actually use such a service myself. I would much rather have a friend on the telephone to be my buddy than a person I don't know, but I bet there are people out there who would.
I acutally wrote a very short summary about how this could look like. I am not posting it here though*, because it's not really something I want to build. Thinking about it however is fun. (Am I weird that I like to plan out stuff that will never be, just for fun?)
... and how to find them
Anyway, in the meantime I actually have started a weekly phone call with one and sometimes two of my best friends. And we do stuff while talking:
- dishes
- laundry
- cleaning
- cooking
- taking the trash out
- etc.
The cool thing was that when I talked to my friends about my struggles and the book, one of them immediately said that we should have calls every week. I thought that I may have to offer that idea and ask them to do it, but I was preaching to the choir. We started at the beginning of the year, and are still going. We sometimes have a few weeks where we do not talk for various reasons and then I tend to not do as many care tasks. But at the same time these calls have been motivating me to do them even before the call: I often start working an hour before.
Though the cleaning buddy system I've been building with my friends is working, let's be real here: My flat still is very messy. Just not quite as messy as before.
Bonus: I've never talked to my friends that often before. They are my best friends, we go on holidays together, but I never talked to them on a regular basis like that since the first Covid lockdown, or even before. (We held weekly digital "Covid Parties" during lockdown where we played silly games and just had a lot of fun together.)
Sometimes the "cleaning calls" take only an hour, sometimes they take three hours. It's simply a wonderful way to stay in contact, talk (and rant) about our week, have fun, and get a few things done that I wouldn't have done otherwise.
Another thing that has helped me getting stuff done is posting about it on social media. I simply publish a post saying that I need stuff to do, sometimes I even add a list with all the things. People quickly start liking or even commenting, which motivates me a lot. Even if they doubt I will cross everything off my list. (In good fun! I asked once in a poll if they thought I could finish all my tasks or not.) During the day I update my progress until I am done, or out of time. It's amazing how talking about my care tasks publicliy motivates me to start and continue doing them.
How do you motivate youself to do care tasks?
Do you have a buddy system like that going? Do you meet with friends for errand hangs? I recently learned about those, and was pretty surprised that some people think they show that you're not independent enough? Please, if you feel you could need a little help from your friends by having them hang out with you while doing care tasks, you are not not independent enough!! What you show in those moments is that you know what would help you do the thing. And a good friend will be willing to help you and spend quality time with you. Humans are group animals anyway. Most of us need company to feel good. So please do never ever feel bad about wanting company, no matter the reason.
- Elena.
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or write me an e-mail: hello [-at-] theresmiling [dot] eu
*Ok, I lied. Here it is: (click to open) ↩️
An idea for a cleaning buddy platform
How it could work:
- You could do video chat, or voice chat, or text chat. Nothing is a must.
- You do not have to give your real name or real time zone. No place will be needed. To find someone you have to set a time zone, but you can set any time zone you prefer. All times are then shown to you in that time zone.
- You can give as many information about you as you want. There are tags you can add by clicking on them, like what kind of communication you wish (see below). You can add the topics you'd like to talk about, or describe your needs and offerings. (depending on which side of the buddy support you're going to be.)
- You can contact (request?) a possible buddy and they can then accept or decline. If they accept, this then gives the opportunity to start a (video/ voice/ text) chat according to the lowest common settings between the two.
- The platform would provide the infrastructure for the video, voice, and text chats. Nothing will be recorded or stored anywhere. Once the chat is ended all data will be gone. The platform would have the best privacy and security possible.
- It would be possible to bookmark (like) people so that you can easily find them again if you had a good time. That would have to be mutual somehow though. Maybe it would be good to be able to say if a person is allowed to contact you again or not.
A profile could include the following:
- Name (nick name)
- Time zone (either real or not)
- Time needed/ available (set to given time zone)
- Language/s spoken
- Level of communication wished (none, sporadic check (like: I've done this task now, moving on to that one next.), check in every x mins, small talk, deep talk)
- Visibility (text only, voice only, room view (no face), face view)
- Topics you'd like to talk about
- Other info you'd like to share (like hobbies or anything that is not required or clickable above)
Problems could of course arise if people abuse the purpose of the service. How could that be prevented? There would have to be a way to flag/ report/ block users. Rules would have to be very clear, and strictly and quickly enforced.
So... is this already a thing? Should this be a thing? How could this be a thing? However, stop right there! I mean, let's be real: To make it the most safe and secure thing would probably be impossible. So this idea will live forever in my head and never see the light of day beyond this blog.