How Hiring a Cleaning Company Improved My Life

Hiring a cleaning company to help you run your household might seem like a thing only rich people do, but it doesn’t have to be. I toyed with the idea of hiring someone to help me clean my home after I realized I hated doing it and, quite frankly, I wasn’t good at it.

It would kill my mother if she heard me say I’m not a good housekeeper, but it’s no surprise to me. It’s not that I think I’m better than cleaning my own home, it’s that if someone doesn’t come around and remind me to change the laundry so we’ll have dry clothes on Monday morning, we won’t.

I have ADHD and while I’ve got as much executive function as a human could hope for, I struggle desperately with household tasks that don’t need urgent attention. Of course, I’ll run and do the laundry when I realize either my son or myself don’t have any clean underwear, but that’s no way to live. It fills me with pangs of shame when I realize I’ve gotten so distracted with other things (that I’ve obviously deemed more important) that I forget to switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer.

And I’m embarrassed to death when I realize there are no clean forks in the drawer because they are piled so high in the kitchen sink they’re toppling over onto the counter. I’ll wash them eventually, of course. But it usually involved needing to put off making dinner so I could wash the damn dishes.

Don’t get me started on vacuuming the floor. I’ll just never do it. I want to. I try to remember to. But then I find something else to do. Usually outside of the house so I don’t have to look at the floor anymore. And rather than continue to feel bad about myself and my home, I decided to invest in hiring a cleaning company.

Why I Almost Didn’t Hire a Cleaning Company

I hesitated to tell people I was hiring a cleaning company because I didn’t want people to think I was too lazy to clean my home. But the truth is I am too lazy to clean my home. I just don’t want to do it. I thought it was a symptom of my ADHD, but when I got quiet and I listened to my reasoning, I realized, yeah, I actually hate cleaning my house.

And the most amazing thing happened: I started telling people, “I’m just bad at it, so I hired someone to help me.” It felt great to be honest about why I’d done it and to remind people that we haven’t failed if we’re not good at something or if we simply don’t want to do it. I simply don’t want to do it.

Hiring a cleaning company to come in once a week and give my home a solid once-over has been game-changing for me. It has freed my mind up in a way that I wish I had a bigger vocabulary so I could describe it to you. Of course, I thought I’d hate having a stranger in my home cleaning while I…what? Sat around? Watched TV? Nope.

It turns out, my cleaner is delightful and so, so good at her job. She takes pride in cleaning and enjoys it. Why would I want to take that away from her? Just so I can avoid feeling uncomfortable? It was worth it to me to have those first few interactions with her to realize she’s totally got this. I tried making excuses, of course, and then realized I didn’t have to. I was paying good money for someone to clean my house. That meant I didn’t need to worry about it anymore. Worth it.

Hiring a Cleaning Company Created More Capacity in My Life

Here’s how hiring a cleaning company has changed my life. We only have so much capacity for things in our day-to-day lives. The things we’re not good at usually take the most time and drain the ever-loving life out of us. I rarely felt energized when cleaning. But I feel super energized while writing blogs, painting or even when I was working in my consulting company.

The advice given to most entrepreneurs is to hire employees to do the work for you. The trouble is I’ve done that. I had three full-time employees a few years ago and I worked more than I ever have. It wasn’t a good return on my investment. I hate being a manager and I hated feeling like I had to be at work all the time because my employees were working. Sure, I could have done more to be better at being a manager, but that’s not a good use of my time either. If I don’t like something, I just don’t do it. Hence: my messy house.

Running My Household Like a Business

So when I thought about hiring a cleaning company from an entrepreneurial perspective, obviously I could expense some of the cleaning costs because I work from home, but more than that, if I could hire someone to write my newsletters back when I was sending newsletters every week because I didn’t like writing them, why couldn’t I hire a cleaner? Oh wait, I could!

And I did. That was three months ago and now I look forward to Mondays when my cleaner arrives. I don’t fret about the pile of dishes in the sink left over from the night before. She’s here to clean them. I don’t worry about the laundry because I know it’ll get done. And I don’t have to worry about taking out the trash because she takes it when she leaves.

The best part? I requested she clean the cat litter once a week because I have two cats. And boy, are they gross cats. That’s probably the thing I appreciate the most, actually. I haven’t changed cat litter in three months and like so many of the things she’s helping me manage, it’s worth every penny.

Is it Expensive to Hire a Cleaning Company?

So how many pennies does it cost exactly to have a house cleaner? It was much more affordable that I thought. My cleaner comes one day a week for 3-4 hours and charges me between $100 and $150 depending on how long she’s there. Some weeks she does a deep clean of one room and other weeks she does all the baseboards and windowsills.

She routinely cleans my bathroom so that it literally sparkles. My bed sheets get changed. My office gets cleaned. And she mops the basement floor after cleaning the cat litter so it doesn’t smell like ass down there. I love it. And I’m so grateful to her for the work she’s doing in the world. It’s changing my life in such a positive way.

No, I don’t feel one bit guilty about not cleaning my house anymore. What’s happened instead is surprising, even to me. My home is so clean on a regular basis now that I want to keep it that way. Everything has a place. I don’t keep clutter around. I do the dishes during the week when they pile up and it doesn’t feel like a never-ending job anymore because I don’t have to do it all by myself.

And before you say it, yes, I could get my teenage son to do the dishes. But what teenager wants to wash dishes? We’re creating our own best lives here and doing dishes is not part of my best life. But when I see them now, because I know I don’t have to always do them alone, I feel better about doing them to move them along.

We Easily Spend Money on Our Businesses but Rarely on our Lives

I’m not here to give you business advice, but if you’re an entrepreneur trying to duct tape pieces of your life together by hiring employees into your business, consider hiring people into your life instead. I pay a fraction of the money I used to pay three full-time employees to my cleaner and she’s worth more than those three employee positions ever were to me. Not because my employees weren’t good people, but the return on that investment wasn’t immediate to me or worth the continued investment. My cleaner is worth it, every single time.

Other Services I Regularly Invest in that Improve My Life

And I haven’t stopped with hiring a cleaning company either. I’ve also hired two men to mow and maintain my lawn. My yard is sizable and I have no interest in buying or maintaining a lawn mower, much less mow a lawn. After separating from my now ex-husband and buying a home by myself, it became obvious to me the things I didn’t want to do.

Sure, my ex did lots of things around the house and so did I, but I was building a new life. And with a new life came the opportunity to choose how to live that life. Not mowing lawns was one of the first decisions I made. I’ve had lawn mowers at $60 a pop for two years now and I’m so happy to pay them. They do a beautiful job of keeping my yard looking pristine.

Finally, I’ve got a guy that cleans my car from top to bottom for $100 a cleaning. This trio of service providers has not only cleared my schedule, but freed up on mind to focus on other things, like writing about how awesome these people are. I’m putting money back into my community, supporting other small business owners, and I don’t have to stress about the work it takes to manage an entire household by myself.

I’m done pretending I’ve got all my ducks in a row. I have a team of people who help keep my ducks in a row for me and there’s no shame in that. I’ve never been the type of be a homemaker or stay-at-home wife, and now that I’m not even a wife, I don’t need to pretend I’m any sort of homemaker either.

You Can Invest in Long-Term Services, Not Just Short-Term Services to Improve Your Life

I take care of my home and I have a lot of pride in it, but maintaining it is a 4-person job, at least. I realized I didn’t hesitate to call to have my furnace fixed, or have my attic insulated, or have vents installed in my roof. We often think it’s normal to put out money for one-time services, but I’m finding out, and here to share with you that having ongoing services is worth it too.

If you’re struggling with any of the day-to-day upkeep of your life, whether that’s in business or your home, don’t hesitate to ask someone for help and be willing to pay for it. It will give you space and release you from that sense of obligation you have. By the way, that sense of obligation isn’t even your idea. That came from other people. To hell with them. Figure out what kind of help you need and ask for it. I’m not a machine and neither are you. We shouldn’t have to pretend we are.

And if you want some help getting clear on what kind of help you actually need, check out my 5-Day Journal Challenge. You’ll be sent a series of emails for 5 days that help you uncover your wants, needs, desires, and more. You can’t ask for what you don’t know you need. Take some time to consider your options. It’s fun and rewarding to ask, “what else is there?”