Messies and Cleanies: Sandra Felton, author and creator of Messies Anonymous, believes that although you can be born one or the other, you don’t have to stay that way. She herself is a born Messie who has learned to act like a Cleanie.

Unlike Messies, Cleanies have mental schedules they themselves are not aware of. Their minds are like computers going down their list of things to do.

The power that activates the computer is in the eyes. Again and again they say, “When I see…” or “If it looks dirty, I…”

Their goals are visual and they become uncomfortable if something is out of place. Cleanies are not afraid to use shortcuts because they are confident in their own cleaning ability and don’t feel it necessary to prove anything by doing things the hard way.

They tend to get up with a bang and get going with purpose. They frequently have a time goal in mind and work fast to meet it. You might think they are uptight people. They don’t seem to be. In fact, they often are gracious, warm, and creative. They can afford to be because they have enough time to do whatever they want to do!

So, Cleanies have innate characteristics that differ from me, and possibly you:

• They are sensitive to subtle visual cues that tell them when something needs cleaning.

• They just do it. When something needs cleaning, they do it almost without thinking. They certainly don’t waste time thinking about how to do it.

• They don’t care about perfection. I like the observation that they have nothing to prove. If you are a born Messie, like me, you may often feel like you need to clean something perfectly because you have so much guilt and shame about being messy that you think there is a right or perfect way to clean something.

• They have more time in their lives to do whatever they want to do – they are not weighed down by shoulds because they have already done them!

Sandra Felton on Cleanies:

One thing my Cleanie friends have in commmon is that they don’t understand. They don’t understand at all. I can always tell true Cleanies by the way they react when they hear that I teach a class on housekeeping.

They look blank, very blank.

“Oh, it is a class on cooking.”

“No, housekeeping.”

“Oh, I see, a class on interior decorating.”

“No, actually it’s housekeeping.”

“Oh.”

Silence. How can you continue discussing the inconceivable? Why would anybody need a class on housekeeping?

One blank-faced woman told me soberly that if I did have a class on housekeeping nobody would come. Since I had been having well-attended classes, I asked her why she thought nobody would come.

“Obviously, if people have messy houses it is because they want them that way. And, if they want them that way, why would they attend the class? So nobody will come.”

If Cleanies only knew how we struggle! But housekeeping comes so naturally to them that they don’t understand at all.

Let me know I’m not alone here! Are you a Messie, too?

(***Note: When this was originally posted, I had two kind commenters. Unfortunately, all comments have been lost.)