Mr. (or Mrs.) Clean

I recently read an article in my Working Mother magazine (which by the way I get a year long subscription for free) about how working moms and also stay at home moms feel guilt for not having a clean house. The article talked about how we've worked toward equal pay, and Dad's taking more responsibility in the home, but Mom's still feel guilt about whether the house is clean, or clean enough.
I can completely relate. I don't really know what is wrong with me. I mean I can rationalize with myself about how I am a single working mother of two small children, and it is impossible to get everything done. Yet at the end of the day, even when that day is ending when the boys finally get to sleep at 10:30pm, I can not leave a dirty dish in my sink and go to bed. Seriously, I'm not kidding.

I wish I could find a way to cut myself a little slack. I try - I really do. But the guilt creeps in. Anyone else feel this way? Please tell me I am not the only one. I guess the article is my proof that I'm not.

What do you do to keep from feeling guilt about a not clean enough house? How hard is it for you to cut yourself slack?

I have a housework "plan" that I bought from Motivated Moms, that lists task for each day. It helps me break my cleaning and household chores into small, manageable bites. A little bit for each day. Because if I had to do it all on the weekends, we would never have time for anything else. And I don't want our weekends to be consumed with chores. We've got to have some memory making time in there too.

What I had been doing was if something didn't get done on say Monday, I would add it to Tuesday's list. And what was happening was by the end of the week the list was enormous. Making me feel incapable and overwhelmed.
So, what I'm trying to do now is prioritize the daily list and if it doesn't get done, it doesn't get done. So be it. Put a period at the end of that sentence, and move on. Hard for me to do, but good therapy I guess.

Who invented guilt anyway? I think it is a terrible emotion that should be banished.