80% clean

When I was a kid, I learned that if you make your bed, then your room is 80% clean. I probably picked this up from paging through my mom's magazines. Regardless of where I learned it, I always liked the idea of being able to make my room mostly clean by doing only one thing. My mom, of course, was totally onto this game.

Mom: Did you clean your room?
Me: It's 80% clean.
Mom: Did you make your bed?
Me: Yup.
Mom: Go back and clean the other 20%.

Yeah, it didn't really get me out of actually cleaning my room, but it never hurts to try, right?

I think a similar principle works in cleaning other parts of my apartment. For instance, if I pick up the shoes in the living room, I think I could call it 80% clean. Considering that on Saturday I picked up and put away 12 pairs of shoes that I'd left in the living room, that may not be over-estimating things too much :)