HC interviews Hannah Keeley to find out how understanding your personality and the personalities of those you live with can help get the cleaning job done.

 

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HC: How would a person’s personality type — MasterMind, Mother Hen, Creative Spirit and Starry-Eyed Dreamer — affect their style of housekeeping?

Hannah: A lot, because of their perceptions of their home and how their home serves them in certain ways. For example, a Creative Spirit usually likes to entertain and likes the spark and the pizzazz. That enriches her life.

A Mother Hen’s home has to serve her in a different way. It’s the place where she has to have order and predictability in her life.

The Starry-Eyed Dreamer — her home has to be a place where she has the freedom to dream and to imagine. She has to feel at peace in her home.

And then the Master Mind — that has to be a place that’s very orderly, but also a place where they can analyze things.

That would make a difference in how they approach their home and the tasks that they have to do.

HC: So when it comes down to sweeping the floor, how would each of these approach that task?

Hannah: When it comes to sweeping the floor, the Master Mind would sweep if they saw something dirty. The Mother Hen would sweep when it was time to sweep — after a meal, if there was dirt or not. The Creative Spirit would sweep if someone was coming over. And the Starry-Eyed Dreamer would sweep when her foot ran into sticky crumbs — she got frustrated by it.

HC: Out of curiosity, which one are you?

Hannah: Creative Spirit! Fly by the seat of my pants! (laughs) My husband is a Mother Hen.

HC: Your book is strongly geared toward women. Does this apply to men as well?

Hannah: Yes, but it has much broader appeal among women. But men will understand their personality style in this book. And they will also understand their mate’s personality style.

We’ve learned by now, my husband and I, that I’ll tend to get up there and start something — climb up on the roof and start cleaning the gutters. And he’s just like, “What are you doing? Okay, let’s get the ladder. Let’s get the appropriate tools.”

HC: What kind of help can you offer in understanding one another when two different personality types are married?

Hannah: You understand how they process information and it will broaden your perspective. And — this is a good one — it will also help you get your way. (laughs)

Because if I know that, for example, a room needs new furniture, and my husband is more conservative financially, more matter-of-fact, more functional-based … I wouldn’t come to him and say, “I saw this cool sofa!” I would say, “You know what, there’s this sofa that we need to replace anyway because of this and this and this. And this fabric is meant to repel stains….” I would get to the functional viewpoint.

When it comes down to cleaning the house, it’ll help me understand what would be the motivation for him — and he can understand what would be the motivation for me. So he may go ahead and invite a bunch of people over, and then I’m running around like crazy, cleaning.

HC: What happens if you have kids with different personality types?

Hannah: Same way as with our spouses. We’re not going to nag, but we can make our home more conducive to their personality type. Some of my kids are good about cleaning up after themselves, because they notice that kind of stuff. Others will make a sandwich and leave. If I can organize our home so that it is easy for all the kids to keep it that way — that’s half the battle right there.

A clear way of organizing for my daughter … she will just walk over clothes on the floor. She doesn’t even see them. So I would figure out where she was throwing her dirty clothes and put the laundry hamper there, so that she’s more likely to hit it. See what they notice; see what they don’t notice and then design it around that.

 

 

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Hannah Keeley brings her background as a behavior therapist to her roles as author, entrepreneur and homeschooling mother of six. Hannah has developed a personality test and ways to manage your home in tune with your personality. HerWeb siteoffers resources for stay-at-home moms to better themselves inside and outside of the home, including HK Magazine Online and her own product line.