Vacations are one of those things that house cleaners really need, and not a lot of house
cleaners will take vacations, so we're going to talk a little bit about that today.
Hi, there.
I'm Angela Brown and this is Ask A House Cleaner.
This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question,
and I get to help you find an answer.
Now today's question comes from a house cleaner who's been in business for 14 years without
taking a vacation, and she says, "Angela, I was just on your Facebook page, and I saw
that you traveled to three different countries in the last few weeks.
As busy as you are, how on earth do you find time to take vacations?"
All right, well, that's an excellent question, and the answer is I don't find time.
I do not have time to take vacations, but I plan my vacations, and you should too.
I plan my vacations the beginning of every single year, and I let all of my clients and
customers know there are three weeks that I'm not going to be able to clean your house
or work with you this year.
When I was cleaning houses for 25 years, this was my process.
Now that I'm consulting, this is for my consulting clients.
So I let them know if you have a regular scheduled appointment with me during one of these three
weeks, and I let them know what the three weeks are, I can find a replacement for you,
or we can just skip your service that week.
Now for me, the vacations are strategically planned throughout the year.
I have a really big holiday push in the cleaning business.
It was always right after Thanksgiving and Christmas, right before Thanksgiving and Christmas
all the way through to the end of the year.
So we would have family, and parties, and holiday events, and gatherings, and social
occasions that would happen during the holidays and everyone would need extra special care.
So right after the holidays when you're reaching that burn out mode and you're just like, "Wah!
I need a vacation."
I would plan a vacation, which was a week long vacation every year in January that's
a week long vacation in Miami, Florida.
And so that would give me a chance just to reset, reboot, get away from all of the hustle
and bustle of the holiday season.
Then I would take another vacation in July, so that during that spring window where we
have spring break and spring cleaning, and people are cleaning up from the holidays,
and packing up their winter clothes, cleaning out closets, and doing a lot of professional
organizing type stuff, after all of that you get really busy and slammed.
In July, I would take another week long vacation.
The week long vacation in July was for my family.
Me, and my mom and dad, and all my brothers and sisters, their spouses, all my nieces
and nephews we go camping once a year up in the mountains, and we all sit around the campfires
at night, and we pull out the guitars and we all sing songs.
Couple of us will break off and we'll going for a private hikes and catch up on each other's
lives, and we stay up in each other's tents until 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 in morning visiting,
and laughing, and catching up on old times.
So it's just a week away from all of my clients, away from my schedule up in the mountains
where there's no cell phone service.
There's no internet to distract us.
It's just me and my family.
Then in September, after the summer crunch when everybody's then going back to school,
and you have teachers that are going back to school, and everybody now needs a new reboot
for their home before they head into the holiday season, this is the end of summer, and so
it's a really busy time during that part of the year.
In September I then take a week vacation with just my husband and we travel the world, and
we go to exotic places that we've always dreamed about going to.
And so for me, the whole purpose of going on vacation is not just to say,
"Well, you know, hey, I'm fancy. I'm taking some vacations."
But it's literally to reboot my system.
Now imagine if you had a party at your house where 30 people were coming over to your house,
and you were going to cook all these hors d'oeuvres, and special dishes, and whatever.
Your kitchen sink is going to be loaded with dishes, okay, so at some point, I don't care
if it's tonight or tomorrow or next week, but at some point all of those dishes have
to come out of the sink, and they all have to be cleaned, and they all have to be put
back in the cupboard, and your kitchen has to be reset, right.
So the little things that you do during the week to wash a dish here and there as you
go, that's fine.
That's regular maintenance. But if you have a really big party at your house, you need
to take time to then clean all the dishes out of the sink, and put those back where
they belong.
The very same thing is true with a vacation.
We can go for so long doing the little dish here and there in our life, but when something
really big happens like the holiday season in the house cleaning business, that's like
having a party of 30 people coming over.
Your system is so overloaded and so overwhelmed, and that kitchen sink is so crammed packed
with dishes that at some point you need a reboot.
You need to stop and clean all that stuff out and start over again.
I'm not saying that you can't go for 14 years with no vacation, but my question is
why would you?
Why would you?
Everything in our life needs a reboot.
Every single year we reseed our yard.
We put new fertilizer on it, and it gives the grass a whole new life.
Every once in a while my cell phone will do an update.
It'll say, "Hey, we got new software for you.
Do you want to do an update?"
Yes, I do, because all the little kinks, and bugs, and everything in the old software I
am assuming that you fixed, and so as I do an update on cell phone, things might be moved
around a little bit, but they work better, they work faster, because there was a reboot.
And the same goes with us as people.
We need a reboot.
So if you're asking yourself, "Well, I'm living paycheck to paycheck.
How do I afford a vacation?"
Well, the answer is you don't afford the vacation.
You plan for the vacation.
So if you know at the top of the year you're going to be taking three weeks off, you have
that entire year to earn the money for those vacations, because as we go through our life,
it's not the things that we remember.
Okay.
You don't sit around at night just so joyous that you have a Korg Triton in the other room
that you never have time to play.
What you remember is that you got a ride through the little canals in Venice because you took
a trip and you had memories that will last you a lifetime.
It's the things and the experiences you have that you remember.
It's not the stuff, okay.
You can have really nice stuff, but the stuff doesn't bring you joy.
What brings you joy is the memories you have created, either with the stuff, or places
you've been and the people you shared that time with.
So, yeah.
My suggestion is plan a vacation at the top of the year.
Tell all of your customers that you will be gone during those weeks.
Save the money to go on those vacations during those weeks, because you do need a chance
just to get out and just to reboot.
Tell you one quick story before we leave here today.
In May of this year, my business absolutely exploded, and I was so excited, and I was
so busy, and I was working just around the clock, and my husband came in and he picked
me up like a little ragdoll and he said, "We're going to London."
I said, "I don't have time to go to London.
I can't do London right now.
I am so busy."
He said, "That is exactly why I'm taking you.
Pack your stuff.
We're going to London.
It's non-negotiable."
I went kicking and screaming, and this sounds so bizarre because who goes to London kicking
and screaming, right?
I did not have time, and it was not a scheduled vacation, and I had not planned financially
for the trip.
He said, "Don't worry about it.
I have it covered.
All you have to do is show up."
I said, "I've got to work during the night."
He said, "Great.
Work during the night, but come spend the days with me and enjoy the days with me, because
you need a vacation."
I cannot tell you on the other side of that vacation what a world of good that did me.
I needed to get away in the worst sort of way, and I was so close to what was happening
in my career that I couldn't see it.
So I got away.
I left the country.
I left everything behind, and I had so much fun.
I've got some fabulous memories from that.
I got some awesome pictures, too, but I really needed that time to get away.
Even though you've been fighting this for 14 years, give yourself the opportunity to
schedule a vacation, and take the vacations that you deserve.
As you look back on your house cleaning career, you've got 14 years that have all melded together.
Where in that are your lavish trips?
Where are the memories that are going to last you a lifetime that make the 14 years worth
of hard toil and effort worth it?
So my suggestion to you is, yeah, take a vacation.
Please, please, please schedule a vacation, and take your vacations, because you need
them to reboot, and to come back and better serve your customers.
All righty, so that's my two cents for today, and until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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