Posted by claudeah on January 31, 2000, at 12:56:09
In reply to Re: DP's Lair--The Tedious Play By Play, posted by Kev on January 31, 2000, at 12:45:03
Kev---
That sounds like lawyer or consultant talk......so which do you fess up to being???
Claudea
> *** The thing to do is to throw out the concept of "cleaning"
> and replace it with the concept of "dirt reduction". The notion of "cleaning" seems to treat cleanliness as an end in itself, as an absolute (viz., a moral absolute: "cleanliness is next to Godliness, et cetera). A more rational way to go about it is to conceptualize "cleaning" as a means to a given end (which you have done already: not getting evicted); the problem shifts from "How do I get the place clean?" to "How clean do I have to get the place in order to avoid eviction"? This is the concept of dirt reduction. To put it in economic terms, it means a cost-benefit analysis; calculating how much a cost in energy-expenditure in cleaning is necessary to "purchase" immunity from eviction. The idea, then, is a) NOT to get the place "clean", but to define the level of messiness at which eviction will no longer be a risk and to reduce the mess *to that level*. This way of conceptualizing the problem helps not only to avoid unnecessary effort on your part (does the plumber really care if the place is dazzling with polished brilliance?), but helps to define a more "doable" task by providing an easy way to know when you're being "over-perfectionistic". The latter amounts to no more than making more of an effort than you have to to attain a goal.
>
> -Kev
poster:claudeah
thread:19971
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000128/msgs/20195.html