Housekeeping is just not a natural for me. I like having things clean and neat but I’d so much rather do anything but clean…
I’ve been trying lately though to get the house clean on Thursday and Friday- all laundry done and put away, kitchen clean etc. so that cleaning isn’t a concern over the weekend, and we can concentrate on family time. This past week was crazy for a lot of reasons that involved being out of the house, breaking in a new schedule and so on. By yesterday the work had piled up and was looking really daunting.
I had a sudden thought while the children were eating their breakfast yesterday. There are only six rooms in the house- if we spent fifteen minutes on each one, that would only be an hour and a half of cleaning, and we didn’t need to do all six rooms in one season.
I made quick lists for what I wanted to make sure we covered in each room and we tried it. In the Living Room we:
- picked up all the toys
- cleared extra stuff off of the shelves
- dusted
- straightened the shoes
- swept and mopped
In the Children’s Room (where the floor had become invisible in about 24 hours) we:
- picked up all the toys
- picked up all the clothes
- straightened the shelves
- cleaned under the bed
- straightened the beds
- removed stuff that didn’t belong
And in the Office/Schoolroom I:
- removed an entire layer of stuff
- found some things I knew were up there but couldn’t find!
- put all the school books away
Not bad for 45 minutes of work. Today we’ll tackle the Kitchen, Bathroom and Utility Room!
In other 3in30 news: I’ve completed a couple of sewing projects. This school session is almost done and I’ve been accomplishing some exercise and getting devotions most days.
Here’s hoping for a strong finish to the month!
This is a brilliant idea and I’m definitely going to implement it when I’ve finished my major decluttering drive. Well done on what you’ve achieved with your goals. It sounds like you’ve had a good month.
It actually worked so well, that I’m working on a rotation routine that will run over the course of four weeks (lunar month) and enable me to do 3 rooms per day. I decided not to do a major de-clutter but instead to practice faithfulness in following the routine and see how well I was able to reduce clutter bit by bit. What I’m thinking is that yesterday it took me 5 minutes to remove the extra stuff from the edges of the shelves (1/3 of the allotted time) but that that was several weeks build-up. Next time I do that room (and the rotation looks like each room will end up gotten twice in a one week period) I should be able to take some of those five minutes going a little deeper into some of the problem areas….We’ll see how it works…K
THIS is wonderful!!! Good job, you!!!! Keep it up. Sounds like you are working a good plan.
Fabulous!
What a productive 45 mins. I want to get my boys to become more involved in the clean-up process. I used to put on music and have a “one song” session…I might reintroduce it!
Gems x
Way to go!! Brilliant idea on the cleaning 🙂 Simply brilliant!
I love the 15 minute clean up idea! Keep it up!
Great progress – that is awesome!
What a great idea! Thanks for sharing that–I’m thinking I should make a list like that for us!
Pingback: 15 Minute Housekeeping-3in30 Update | Kyndra Steinmann
Pingback: 3in30 Update: First Week of School | Kyndra Steinmann