Diary of an Overachiever in Quarantine

These are strange times, and none of what we're doing right now is normal...but we're trying to make the most of the time that's been given to us to spend time with our families and get our world in order. If you need/want to move in the next 12 months, now may be the PERFECT opportunity to get your house prepped, cleaned and decluttered so that future move doesn't hit you all at once!

GUEST POST BY: Rebecca Permack

I recently travelled to Phoenix to run a half marathon, as part of my training program for a full marathon that I had signed up to run in Edinburgh, Scotland at the end of May. We chose Phoenix because our friends live there, and we could ‘kill two birds with one stone’ and squeeze in a long-overdue visit, while at the same time sticking to our training program. Plus, it’s way more fun to run an actual half marathon race and get a medal and a free beer for your efforts, rather than a solo run of the same distance, in the rain, at home, with no medal. I digress.

The day we got to Phoenix was the same day that our Federal Government issued a travel advisory telling Canadians to come home due to concerns of the coronavirus. So, we ran the race and flew home two days later to a mandatory 14-day self-isolation order, and an email that our marathon had been cancelled. And this is where my adventures in home cleaning and organization began.

Normally, spring is an insanely busy time for me. Our Real Estate market really picks up, we host our annual Burke Mountain Community Easter Egg Hunt, and I am typically on the go from morning to night, with little time to do much on the home front. I am fortunate to have a regular house cleaner, but due to the virus, we have put that service on hold. As I looked around my home, quarantined inside for at least 14 days, Easter Egg Hunt cancelled, no epically long runs to do, no clients to meet, I started to get antsy. It had literally been a matter of hours, and I was already feeling all kinds of emotions about being cooped up at home. Guilt was the biggest one – as an entrepreneur and generally highly active person, sitting still is not my strong suit. I couldn’t shake the need to feel productive, so I made a list. Whenever I get anxious or overwhelmed about the number of things I need to do, I find that lists help me truly focus on what’s important, and I get great satisfaction from crossing things off of lists - so a list of epic proportions was born.

At first, I tackled the general basics – unpack, laundry, dust, clean the kitchen and bathrooms, disinfect all surfaces and doorknobs, floors, baseboards, windows, strip beds. Next up was the fridge. It was time to let go of all of those sauces that we ‘might use again’ that expired years ago.

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Once I started, I couldn’t stop – I attacked my home with the same energy of a busy Realtor mid-spring market. I organized my office, my bathroom drawers and cabinets, my laundry room, my pantry and my spice cupboard. I purged clothes, salt and pepper shakers, shoes and sunscreen. Cory and I pressure washed our back yard awning, deck, house, driveway, patio furniture, and sidewalk. I washed throw pillows, bathrobes, baseball hats and dog blankets – basically, anything that could in the wash, did.

Along the way, I discovered I was a bit of an unconscious collector of things: chapsticks, sunscreen (see above), band-aids and more. I don’t think I ever set out to collect these things; it was more of an easy solution type deal:

Me: “do we have band-aids?”

Cory: “I don’t know.”

Me: “I’d better pick some up, just in case.” And just like that, another unnecessary box of band-aids enters my house.

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Side projects that I had put off for years have now become priorities. The photo book from our trip to Spain in 2012 is finally getting the attention it deserves, and that empty photo frame that I’ve been staring at for years now boasts my favourite photo of our dog.

If you’ve read this far, you might be thinking ‘what’s the point of this blog post, Rebecca?’ Well, I’ll tell you.

I recognize that NONE of the things on my list would have been addressed (ok maybe laundry) prior to this quarantine. And that got me thinking about my clients and how these are the types of tasks they need to do before they get their homes ready to sell, or while packing for a move. I really had a moment of deep empathy for how overwhelming this must feel when trying to tackle these tasks while living a busy life. Maybe this quarantine time is a real silver lining opportunity for those people that are needing to move this year but just didn’t have the time in their lives to get their homes ready (or not. Maybe they are just trying to survive living with multiple high-energy children climbing the walls!). Either way, it definitely gave me perspective on the gravity of the tasks that I ask my clients to take on when they are getting their homes ready for sale, and I will do my best not to forget this when life eventually gets back to busy normal.

I have surprised myself how little time some of the things I had been procrastinating about for years actually took. That empty photo frame? 1 minute. My spice cupboard? An hour. So, if you have been planning a move in the near future, or if you are just looking for something to keep you busy while you are stuck inside, I have made a trusty checklist for you to use!

Spring Cleaning Checklist

Approaching this list of home cleaning and organization tasks is a little bit like eating a proverbial elephant. You guys know that saying, right? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Now, what to eat next?