Oh, how I wish I loved to clean my house. I definitely love the finished product, but I find it hard to get it all done. And is it ever really all done? By the time the bathrooms are clean and the kitchen is mopped, the laundry needs folded and the floors need vacuuming. Then lemonade spills on the mopped floor and more laundry needs laundering and more counters need wiping and the mom needs napping.
So, any great suggestions for keeping it all clean? Do you have a daily schedule where you mop on Mondays and dust on Tuesdays? Or do you just clean what needs the most attention on whatever days work for the week? Any list makers out there that want to share some good tips? I'm seriously open to any great ideas that work for you. Except for the idea that a cleaning lady comes to your house on Wednesdays. That will just make me envious.
5 comments:
I've recently begun a daily chore schedule (check my blog a couple weeks ago), and it's working fairly well, but it hasn't been perfect and I know that it won't last. For example, I've put laundry on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but... please. There's only four of us, which is a lot smaller than many other families, and two days for laundry isn't enough, if I don't want to do laundry for hours on end. So, I've already nixed that idea, and I do laundry when it needs it, which for my sanity, is one load per day. If I get the washer going before breakfast, I can get that load done and back where it belongs before lunch. That works better for me. So, to answer your question, doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done is what works best for me, and I'm quite good about keeping on top of that -- because it's staring me in the face. A schedule is less effective for me, because it's easy to say "I'll vacuum later when the baby's asleep" (etc.). I'm sorry I have no fantastic ideas for you. I guess this comment is just a windy way of saying: I hear ya.
Julie, your thoughts are mine exactly! I get so overwhelmed at "keeping up" with everything! Pass on the good tips! Unfortunately, I've yet to figure it out! :(
My only cleaning tip - I make sure my sink is clean before I go to bed at night. For some reason when that task is done the rest of the house doesn't seem to messy. Plus it makes the kitchen so much more inviting in the morning.
A cleaning lady comes to my house on Tuesdays, not Wednesdays, so can I say that? :) But, for a little validation on your side, I spend HOURS "cleaning" for her to come and clean. I'm usually just one room ahead of her, so it's still labor intensive. And four hours later, it's trashed. Can't win. Housework is never "done" when you have a house full of kids.
I recently read (parts of) "Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House" by Cheryl Mendelson -- it's thicker than the Bible, so I just read the parts that interested me most. But, what I did read was inspiring.
I spend all day most days just picking up. And then sweeping, and then picking up. I do laundry Mondays and Thursdays -- but the kids (even the boys) are responsible for getting their laundry to the laundry room. If it's not there, it's not going to get done. In the Egan tradition, my kids do Good Clean Jobs on Friday afternoons. We use the Chore Sticks and then I do which ever jobs are still left over after they pick their sticks. So then we all work together. I'm not a great vacuumer unless there's large spill that needs immediate attention. But, having the kids do it assures each floor gets done twice each week. The idea is that the house is mostly clean by the time the babysitter comes on Friday night. I usually spend a little bit of time each night, too, cleaning up the main rooms of the house so that we wake up to a "clean" house.
I want to concur with what you said about the lemonade on the floor after mopping. I CANNOT believe the things that spill on the floor the day it gets mopped (by someone else). It makes me CRAZY. If it were just water, I'd be alright, but it's always something super sticky or awful to clean up.
Good heavens that was long! Good luck! I'm always looking for better ways to be organized, too, so I'm excited to see what others say.
I find that my house is either picked up OR deep cleaned. I struggle to have it both ways. I don't have great pointers for you. I tend to do most cleaning as needed. I have a weekly, monthly, and long-term list in my iCal program. When I have some free time, I try to do things on one of these lists. If beds are made and my sink/counters/table are wiped I feel much happier. I prefer doing mass laundry in one day. I hate doing it daily and like to do 5 loads in a day.
The FlyLady website has some fun ideas to involve kids, but overall I'm in agreement with the quote that goes something like "Trying to have a clean house when you have kids is like raking leaves as they're still falling." None of us ever look back on our life and think, "Remember that month when the house was so perfectly clean?" It's just not eternal, but it sure affects my mental health when it gets too messy.
Good luck!
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