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There are many wonderful, equally valid reasons to hire cleaning help. Let's face it, housework happens, and is an absolute necessity to maintain a healthy life (or at least to keep the health department at bay).

Enter the cleaning lady, that wonder woman with a mop who will whisk away your domestic nightmares so that you can spend an evening with Calgon, candles, and soft music.

This would be true, in a perfect world. There's an old saying which reminds us if that we do not thoughtfully plan how we are going to spend our time, it will get filled, and not necessarily with those activities we would prefer.

For purposes of this discussion, this translates into, "Yes, I will have time freed up if I hire someone to help me with household chores, but if I don't consciously decide how I will USE that time, it will be eaten up before I even know it's there."

When trying to decide how to best spend our newly found few hours a week, it's a good idea to decide why you hired a cleaning lady in the first place. Is it because you have preschool children underfoot? Do you need to work more hours at the office? Do you have no time to read even one sentence of a book you recently purchased?

While pondering the "why" question, here are a few specific suggestions for making the most of those golden moments:

1. Use the time to further your education. Not in formal fashion, necessarily. For example, if you've always wanted to learn Spanish and your Rosetta Stone software has been merely gathering dust for the past few months, consciously decide to set aside time to get started.

2. Treat yourself to an outing. I took a writing course once (by Julia Cameron) that suggested taking "artist's dates" once a week, alone, to start the creative juices flowing. I used my extra time to give myself permission to do this. And you know what? I still take those dates with myself, to this day, several years after the end of the writing class.

3. Do "nothing". In other words, do want you want to do with no thought of achieving a specific goal. It's fun to read a book, simply for the sake of reading it. Taking a hot bath with no thought of your cleaning "to do" list can be a gift from heaven.

4. With "cleaning time" taken care of, you might want to spend more time planning those things that you sort of "wing" when you don't a moment to yourself. For example, if you would like to spend more time together at the family dinner table, you could take some moments to thoughtfully plan a special meal. If you need to have some quiet time to make your Christmas list, or plan the Thanksgiving menu, you can do so.

Remember that the goal is not necessarily "productivity" (unless, of course, you want it to be). It's simply important to remember that unless we "plan" how our time is going to be spent (even if the plan for said time is to simply listen to beautiful music), the expedient "busy-ness" of life, those activities which can be delegated or delayed, will demand our attention, like an over indulged two year old. Use the time your maid has freed up to tend to the "important" things (the things that are important to YOU, not someone else). Your life will, indeed, be fuller, richer; and you will live those freed moments to the fullest.

Learn more about this author, Rachel Stockton.
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