15 Minute Housekeeping

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 entry was posted in 3in30 Challenge, Creativity, devotional life, Housekeeping, Organization, preschooler chores and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

11 Responses to 15 Minute Housekeeping

  1. Eileen says:

    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.

    • K_Steinmann says:

      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

  2. Pam says:

    THIS is wonderful!!! Good job, you!!!! Keep it up. Sounds like you are working a good plan.

  3. Katy says:

    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

  4. aurie says:

    Way to go!! Brilliant idea on the cleaning 🙂 Simply brilliant!

  5. Crafty Mom says:

    I love the 15 minute clean up idea! Keep it up!

  6. Shawntele says:

    Great progress – that is awesome!

  7. Lisa says:

    What a great idea! Thanks for sharing that–I’m thinking I should make a list like that for us!

  8. Pingback: 15 Minute Housekeeping-3in30 Update | Kyndra Steinmann

  9. Pingback: 3in30 Update: First Week of School | Kyndra Steinmann

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