IT'S amazing what you can do if you push yourself.

Get out bed. Feed the cats. Spoon breakfast in the general direction of your mouth. Head off to work.

Achievement is relative, and having a job these days is a bit of an achievement, according to Joe Hockey.

We all have to lift.

Lest we lean and fall over.

Thankfully there are ebbs and flow in how dynamic we have to get at various times of the day, week and year.

New Years Eve, State of Origin, Star Struck - the usual Herculean efforts.

Some months are busier than others.

We're not talking life-or-death busy.

At the time it's far more serious.

For example, for me January is all about getting over Christmas, which in turn was about respite from December.

February, it's the wife's birthday.

Then there's a bit of plain sailing through to June, which is always a biggie.

There's a kid's birthday, car rego and the wedding anniversary.

A clutch couple of weeks where things hang in the balance.

Not the least the car and marriage.

Sometimes it's hard to tell which needs more work.

Then, being June, tax is due.

Often from two years before.

That's where you get a gauge on how poorly your life has been filed.

If only under the "Dewey Decimal" system. More like a 747 crashing into the side of a mountain.

That's what the kitchen benchtop looks like as you scratch round for those pesky statements.

But you've been there, got the refund before, you don't feel too stressed. Well, actually I do this year - a refund looks remote - but eventually it gets done with a vow to file things more creatively next year. Only that year's already gone too, so you flag the year after that.

Time for personal forgiveness.

Eat, love, pray, possibly abuse red wine.

Then back into June.

I find if you put things off long enough, you can avoid just about anything.

Except cleaning the house.

Which is why I mention June and a guest we have staying with us for a couple of weeks.

A good and bad thing.

Good in that we love our guest.

Bad in that it triggered a momentous, pre-guest arrival, spring clean, in winter.

Spring, or winter, cleans go way beyond the standard wet and forget procedure.

They are epochal OCD events requiring the removal of all, as far as I can see, and apparently I can't see much, invisible dust and marks accumulated over the years off all surfaces, with ligament-testing vigour.

Twice.

Once with sugar soap, a second time with tears. I mean hot water.

Only in this way can we say Jesus. I mean see Jesus and how he felt as he was crucified, and actually mimic some of the positions.

Take a three-way bathroom, for instance.

An infinity room of surface areas worthy of a HSC geometry question.

Four walls, plus four walls, plus four walls, plus two doors and four sides, one roof and a crink in the neck equals how much do I need a massage?

Such equations lead you to wonder, often before you start, why?

Cue heated words of encouragement.

There is no why, there just is. Ommm.

It is enough to give you the ... but you don't want to go there either because you know in the great scheme of things, that's where it's all heading with bathrooms.

But you never know what you're capable of until you push yourself.

And who knows, after cleaning such a room with the surface area of a large intestine, you might have to drive down to Sydney to pick someone up from the airport. That's good and bad too.

Good in that it interrupts the scrubbing.

Bad in that who wants to drive five hours down and back for a dash and grab when they could have caught the train?

Curse you track work.

So you hop in the car without further ado and off you speed.

Failing, or course, to ensure that there's any good music in the car, except one very dodgy tango CD you got from a cereal packet all those years ago.

As the radio stations fizzle out of range at Dora Creek you whack it on, and hit Mooney Mooney bridge at warp speed, in fading light, with a very dramatic soundtrack blaring and a rose between gritted teeth.

The Saturday night M3 GP is on in earnest and you dare not take your eyes off the road because you're literally doing the tango with a P-plater up your butt and headlights on high beam.

You are Tron.

Thank god for Super rugby because by the time you hit Chatswood, the entire north shore is migrating to ANZ Stadium in a flotilla of Range Rovers.

That gives you 30 minutes to ponder the unbearable lightness of being stuck in a traffic jam on Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Things could be worse. You could live in Sydney.

Five hours later you're back home facing up to the reality that the winter cleaning ain't done just yet.

But when push comes to scrub, you know it'll get done.