The Daily Grind
Schedules
Sounds so bad, doesn’t it? Schedules. When I think of schedules, I think of rigid, inflexible living. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s more like having a plan. It’s good to have a plan because this way you use your time more efficiently. If you wandered all over the place, with no aim and purpose, not much would be achieved and your life would slip by with nothing accomplished.
We all live by a schedule of some kind. We get up at a certain time, we go to work at a certain time, we drop kids off at school at a certain time, we make dinner at a certain time etc etc. So schedules aren’t such a bad thing.
I have found having a plan or a schedule has saved me so much time and money. Here is an example of my Monday Schedule: See on the left it has my schedule for the day – where I put in my school run times, appointments, evening arrangements etc etc. I also put in what will be cooked for dinner that night, so I don’t forget and so the day before I can get the meat out of the freezer if required. No panic in my kitchen!
Feel free to model your own schedule like mine if you wish. You can download it as a spreadsheet here.
I keep this schedule open on my desktop as I work through the day, so I know what I am doing at what time. When a task is finished, I tick it off and then refer to the list again to make sure the tasks are completed for that day. This way I’m not ambling around, wasting time. The less time spent on housework etc the better, in my opinion!!
I find as you see your tasks being ticked off, it motivates you to keep going and complete what you have listed. Make sure your lists aren’t too ambitious. Make them achievable. If you have low motivation to start with, have a small list, you can always do more and more as your motivation builds.
The trick with schedules, is to schedule in work time and play time. All work and no play is not good for you. Schedule in some time for you to relax. If you work all day, then it’s not a good idea for you to work all night as well. Make sure you schedule in some “you” time. Life is meant to be lived well and with balance.
Here is an example of a Time Management Schedule:
It looks like a lot but if you look carefully, it’s not that bad. If you have already decluttered your home, your cleaning efforts will be less time consuming. For example I have a hot water and vinegar cycle to do in my Focus room – the Laundry. All that will take is for me to pour vinegar in the machine and do a hot water cycle. Pretty effortless really. That would take me 2 minutes at the very most.
When your home is free from clutter, dusting and tidying doesn’t take long at all. If you have so much STUFF, it will take you a lot longer and the results won’t be half as good.
Why spend hours and hours cleaning your house when you don’t have to? I have discovered that when my home is clutter free, I spend less and less time cleaning. I also spend less and less time cleaning when I have a schedule and a daily list, so I can focus on the task ahead, and complete the list as soon as I can, then do other, more enjoyable things.
So if you think that this system will keep you tied to your home forever, cleaning. You are wrong. Maintain the home continually and you will have more time for other things.
I let my house go for about a year when I had my son, and didn’t declutter and did the basics (since he was a screamer) I did 2 cycles of my system and the house was clean and tidy. I noticed I spent less and less time cleaning, because it was already clean.
KEEPING IT CLEAN…
Now that you have decluttered your home, it will be a lot easier to keep it clean and tidy.
This is how it’s done:
1. Have a plan
2. Have a focus room
3. Have a routine.
4. Have daily jobs
WHY A PLAN??
If you look at my Time Management Schedules, you will see why. If you are disorganised with your housework, barely anything gets accomplished. But if you are focused and have a plan, the things that need doing get done. Your time is used more effectively and there is more time in your day for other things.
Floating around, doing the things you “feel like” will get you nowhere and fast. If you have it on your list, you may find that you will work to finish that task, so you can tick it off get it over and done with. If you have no aim or purpose, things may be left unfinished and you will quickly get back to where you started from.
WHAT IS A FOCUS ROOM?
This is a room that you focus on for half an hour in the day. So for example if my ensuite was my focus room, I would be cleaning the toilet, scrubbing the shower cubicle, changing towels, cleaning the toothbrush holder etc etc until the half hour was up. ½ an hour especially if it’s spent solidly on “deep cleaning” will be more than enough.
For those that have decluttered their home, this will give you opportunities to stay on top of clutter build up. So because the ensuite is my focus room, I will open up the vanity cupboard and check that there is no empty bottles, old products etc etc. You should only have to declutter your home ONCE, then with the Time Management Schedules and having a focus room, clutter should not have the chance to breed.
I post the “focus room” daily along with a list of jobs you could possibly do in there. You however may decided to do your own thing. Depending on the size of your home, you may have to have two focus rooms. For example, when my focus room is the bathroom, I have to add the ensuite. A “deep clean” means dust doesn’t have a chance to build up and the mess isn’t so hard to handle. The half hour spent is just a guideline. You can spend more or less in there. When the focus room is the laundry, I am lucky if I spend 10 minutes in there, but when it’s the kids bedrooms, I tend to spend more time in there. You adjust the times to suit you and your schedule.
ROUTINE? WHAT???
It’s not as rigid as it sounds. For me every morning I like to be showered and dressed – but if I don’t schedule it in, it doesn’t get done. Or I’ll forget to brush my daughter’s hair – which doesn’t effect me if we aren’t going out, but the next day she will have twice the knots etc. If I have a routine that is on paper, I seem to do it. I give myself time in the morning to do the things that I want to have done before I launch into the day of cleaning house etc etc.
WHY DAILY JOBS?
Ever had three day worth of dishes piled up on the sink? Ever had 2 weeks worth of washing sitting in the laundry? Daily jobs are to prevent these sorts of build-ups. I check the washing hampers each day to see if they are full and if I need to do a load of washing. This way I prevent a back-up of laundry, and I don’t have to do it all in one day. I don’t have the room on the washing line to wash 5 people’s clothes, towels, sheets etc all in one day.
My dishwasher is loaded and unloaded everyday to prevent having piles of dishes sitting on the sink. It’s important to stay on top of the jobs that need doing regularly.
An absolute MUST in your daily jobs is clearing off clutter prone spots. For me it’s my kitchen table and breakfast bar. These areas just seem to attract clutter like a magnet. So I daily clear them off so it doesn’t build up into hovel status! This works for me, because if surfaces are tidy, the house generally looks tidy.
I divide my home tasks up into 4 categories: daily, weekly, monthly and 3-monthly.
Daily Jobs should be:
Dishes
Make the bed
Clean the kitchen
Pick up toys
Tidy up clutter prone spots.
Weekly should be
Clean the shower alcove
Change the sheets
Dusting
Floors (if they don’t get too grotty inbetween)
Monthly things should be
Poison the weeds in the footpath,
Cobweb removal
See what I mean. But how often you do things, and how you pace yourself is completely up to you. The purpose of working this stuff out is so you don’t miss out on anything important. So divide up your weekly tasks by however many days you will do housework during the week. For me, I tend to only do housework Monday-Friday because on weekends we are too busy and never home anyway. So I divide my jobs up by 5.
25 weekly jobs / 5 days a week = 5 weekly jobs per day.
Same goes with monthly and 3 monthly jobs.
THIS IS FREAKIN UNBELIEVEABLE!!
Yes I know. But trust me, as you stick to a system, your home will pretty much start taking care of itself. The work load will be a lot harder for the first two weeks. But I can pretty much promise you that your home will look a lot better and be a lot easier to clean down the track. It’s easier to clean a shower that was cleaned last week. It’s harder to clean a shower that hasn’t been cleaned in a month. See what I mean?? Regular input means less input later on down the track.
WHAT IF THIS SYTEM DOESN’T WORK FOR ME?
Then tweak it and remodel it to make it work for you. This is not set in stone. This is a tool to help you get started at least and equip you with the know-how. You can fine tune it to suit you and your family. I won’t beat you over the head with a stick and you certainly won’t fail if you change a few things here and there. The more you do this system the more you will discover how to make it work for you. My job is to equip and teach you - not to force a system that doesn’t suit you. The more you read and the more you learn, the more you will understand how to create a routine that suits you. I figure when you can do that, my job is done! 
HOW ELSE CAN I MAKE IT EASIER?
1. Teach your family members to clean up after themselves.
Teach your kids to pack up their own toys. I know it’s sometimes quicker if you do it for them, but you are setting precedent for years to come. If they play with it, they must pack it up.
Same goes with dirty dishes, dirty clothes etc. My three year old puts her own clothes in the washing hampers. I have taught her to do this – and so she does. I rarely have to pick up her dirty clothes, which saves me a job. The only person I have to pick up dirty clothes is myself and my son who is 1 years old.
Kids and adults alike can be taught. Teach by example to clean up after themselves. This will make your life and job a lot easier.
2. Have family rules that will help with your cleaning efforts.
If you struggle with food mess and dirty dishes in the lounge, make it a family rule that you eat at the kitchen table only. If you struggle with packing up masses of toys, make it a rule that you can only have 1 box of toys out per day so it’s easier at the end of the day to clean up. If you struggle with 50 glasses in the sink at the end of the day (my personal pet hate!!) then cull the glasses, move them to an inaccessible place and only have 1 cup per family member out for the day. If they want water after milk, they have to wash it out.
3. Have a time where all family members help out.
I am a big believer in “If you live there, you contribute to the mess, you can contribute to cleaning up” My daughter has jobs – she is responsible for the animals and toy tidy up at the end of the day. She is 3 and does her jobs without complaint. She has half an hour during the day where she does her part. If you have older kids, give them jobs to do. They need to be taught responsibility for themselves and for the place that they live. You will get complaints I am sure, but it’s just too bad. Part of growing up and part of maturing into a responsible adult it to be taught how to BE responsible.
This should be applied to everyone. Otherwise the main person who cleans the house can be taken advantage of and given “slave status”. Everyone should pitch in where they can.
Cleaning house is not being anyone’s slave, it’s maintaining a level of cleanliness and hygiene. If you feel like you do everything all the time and you are cleaning up after everyone else all the time, so much that you barely have time to get on top of dusting, floors, and focus rooms, then there is a problem that needs addressing.
