How I Earn Money From Cleaning My Own Home

By Ruth Barringham

Every week I clean my house.

In fact, I clean it 3 times a week, but the second and third cleaning are only minor catch-ups.

But once a week I do a complete clean through which starts with a big bucket of soapy water to clean the bathroom and continues with polishing/dusting, vacuuming, wiping down the kitchen and laundry and mopping the floors.

How long does this take me?

Usually between 2 to 3 hours (it’s surprising how much I can get done once I start).

And even though I earn all my money from my writing, most of it comes from when I’m cleaning my house.

You see, while I’m cleaning, I plug in my earbuds and listen to several podcasts that I download every week.

And it’s so amazing how many ideas I get this way.

I keep my ideas book and pen nearby and every time a great idea hits me, I write it down.

Sometimes I get a brilliant idea from what I’m listening to.

Sometimes it’s an idea that seems to literally come from nowhere.

And sometimes it’s a writing problem I’ve been trying to work out for a while and suddenly I’ll have a “Eureka!” moment.

But whatever it is, I get it written down fast so that I don’t forget it.

Once I’ve finished cleaning I look through all my notes and sometimes even more ideas will jump into my marvellous monkey mind and other times I’ll sit and flesh out a few of the notes I’ve already made.

So What Podcasts Am I Listening To?

There are several that I subscribe to and they are mostly about emails, auto-responders, blogging, creating online courses, novel writing, making money from writing, online business and entrepreneurship.

It’s quite a mix really.

But some that I listen to regularly are The Tony Robbins Podcast, Ben Settle dot com podcast, Copy Chief Radio and Entrepreneurs-Journey.

I sometimes listen to audio books too, all on similar subjects as the podcasts.

Working this way means that I actually look forward to cleaning my house because I get to listen to all my podcasts.

And because I’m so deep into listening, the time seems to fly while I’m busy.

I always call this busy-hands-empty-mind time because cleaning is a job I’ve done so many times, I don’t have to think about it and I work virtually on auto-pilot.

So while I’m busy, not only is my house getting a really good clean, but I’m also earning money through all the great ideas I get as I work.

Not only that, but it works equally well for car cleaning, weeding and gardening, although I’ve found that it’s impossible to listen to anything at all when I’m mowing the lawn, because the mower is far too noisy (sad face).

So next time you’ve got a mind-numbingly boring job to do that’s going to take you a while, subscribe to a few podcasts on iTunes and make money while you’re busy.

It works for me.