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Key household habits–for you
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I am a little embarassed to admit how disorganized I am, but I really am trying to get hold of it and would appreciate a little help. My house is never dirty, but it is ALWAYS (or almost always) cluttered. Most of the clutter seems to be books and papers, although often clean laundry and toys creep into the mess too. I have tried FlyLady, and for some reason it didn’t work for me. I recently found Emilie Barnes “15 Minute Home and Family Organizer” at our local thrift store, and am about to start in on it. I also searched and found this post, which was very helpful with book recommendations. http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/favorite-home-organizing-books#post-8109
I do have a naturally disorganized disposition, I think, but it doesn’t help that I have a son who still wakes up many times a night at the age of four, and that I am a freelance writer who needs to use my down time to write. I try to tidy as I go and so on, but it just always looks terrible. We did recently donate several boxes of toys to our local charity store, and I am about to do another weed-through before we move in a month. I have noticed over the years that if I can keep consistent with even one or two good organization habits, I seem to stay more on track overall–so my questions is–for those of you who are more organized than I, what are the two or three habits or tasks you ALWAYS perform to help keep yourself on track? What is of first importance to you in the realm of housekeeping and organization, and what is secondary? All thoughts appreciated! 🙂 We move quite often, and considering the fact that I will begin homeschooling in the fall in our new home, I think now would be a really good time for me to try (hopefully successfully this time) to get on track in this regard.
I have found that I DO NOT do well on any type of formal or strict schedule. Of any kind! I just try to give myself a general aim for the day. So for example, this is what I aim for in a day.
School in the mornings
Dishes after each meal
Some laundry every day
A joint, family, tidying time for all main areas to keep things picked up (try to hit all the “hot spots” where things tend to pile up)
1/2 – 1hr. of housework (not including everyday chores). This would be things like bathrooms, vacuuming, organizing a closet, etc.
Make sure I have meal ideas or plans for that day
I find that if I can make sure these things happen every day, things don’t get backed up or overwhelming for me. And this way I still have the freedom to choose how I want my day to look. Don’t know if that is what you are looking for or not. But maybe it will help?
God Bless,
Miranda
I don’t like to keep a strict schedule either. FlyLady and other sites are too detailed for me, and I don’t like feeling confined to someone else’s schedule or routine. Our days are similiar to Linabean’s:
School in the mornings
Dishes after each meal; sink must always stay empty and clean for my sanity
Usually one load of laundry each day, and I never get behind on laundry
We have two times of general tidying every day–before lunch time and before bed timeI try to accomplish household tasks such as bathrooms or vacuuming during the kids’ rest time in the afternoons.
I meal plan for two weeks at a time, but grocery shop once per week so that produce is fresh.
Sometimes I’ll get a second wind in the evening after supper. Depending on what night it is, I’ll take advantage of that extra energy and organize a shelf or clean out a closet.
The last couple of years have been a time of extreme cleansing and purging for our family. We have less stuff now than ever before, and it’s so freeing. I used to have cutesie decorating accessories on shelves and in glass-front cabinets all over the house. I enjoy decorating, so when I found something at a boutique or thrift shop that I liked, I bought it without thinking about where it would go. I’ve learned that doesn’t work well for long-term organization. Over the last couple of years, we’ve really looked at our stuff and asked some serious questions: When was the last time I used this? Is this something I NEED or something I WANT? Although we’ve kept some of those special “wants”, our house is pretty pared down to just what we need. I’ve been able to part with most of my cutesie accesories, and I love the empty, clean space we now have. Things for me have to be functional, practical, and visually pleasing. When things are like that, it’s easy to keep them that way.
HTH,
Lindsey
That is a great question! Let me see, for me, the kitchen counters have to be clear or I hate doing anything in there (not good when the family wants fed…LOL).
I try to do laundry throughout the day (I have 6 kids with #7 on the way, and we use cloth diapers). Did I mention I completely understand about being up at night? Right now I’m up every night with the 6 month old, and most nights with the 2 year old. For sleep habits I recommend the books by Elizabeth Pantley, No-Cry Sleep Solution and The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers. Fantastic books!
Anyway, other than clean counters and keeping laundry moving I make sure to have a place for everything and put things in their place (and encourage my children to do the same.).
Thank you all for the thoughts…this was indeed what I was looking for, and very helpful! It is good to know that the inability to adhere to a strict structure/system is not necessarily a failing on my part; maybe I just need to look for another way.
I think (and this is going to sound really basic! I am needing baby steps here for some reason) that the first “habit” I am going to tackle is that of making sure counters and sinks are empty after every meal. You all mentioned that one as key for sanity, and I think you’re right. If the kitchen is in good shape, I do feel better about things and even more able to go on and tackle other tasks. I think I have let this one slide because, since there are so few of us at our house, it is easy to just rinse the two or three plates and one or two pans and save them for the next dishwashing. So that is #1.
Lindabean and Lindsey both mentioned meal planning. I LOVE to cook and would probably consider it among the chief of my hobbies, even though it is a necessary task…I love experimenting in the kitchen, and hubby and I particularly enjoy trying all kinds of new ethnic foods at home. But despite all this I often don’t end up cooking what I really *want* to cook, due to lack of planning. I get to five o’clock and walk into the kitchen to decide what’s for dinner. 🙂 So that will be my second habit to form. I think I am going to work on those two for a week or two and see how it goes.
Lindsey–I love your thoughts on purging. Are you familiar with the Voluntary Simplicity movement, and Duane Elgin? You make me think of some of the really wonderful posts I have read on the message boards for this lifestyle. I know what you mean about how reducing can truly free you–we lost a lot of our possessions due to a flood a few years ago, and it was actually a quite liberating experience. We also try to purge somewhat at each of our (quite frequent) moves. We need to do even more though.
Tristan–wow. I am in awe of your ability to maintain order despite two children who don’t sleep. I have to say–I have read the No-Cry Sleep Solution books and they are wonderful! Our problem is that due to a neurological disorder, DS is not able to self-regulate on sleeping/waking. Otherwise I think that those books would have been the one thing that worked! They are fantastic.
I think you have some great goals there. I agree with the others. I also want to mention another resource I first learned about on this forum. http://www.motivatedmoms.com It is a weekly cleaning schedule. I do not stick with it. But I do find it helpful to read through each week. It is somewhat seasonal and it helps me think of things I would not have done otherwise. I was not raised to know how to keep up on all the housework, so this list helps me to know what I otherwise would not think of on my own.
One of my recent goals was the meal planning. I made a list of recipes/meals my family enjoys and categorized them by type of protein. I use that master list each week to make my weekly plans. Husband grills once a week. I try a new recipe once a week. I just list which meal on which day and be sure to get meat out of the freezer 2 days before to thaw. I make my shopping list then. I try to do major shopping every 2 weeks and pick up only fresh items and sale/coupon items on the next week.
I need to do the counters and sink clean and clear. That is my next goal, too. Thanks.
I do love that motivated moms schedule! It helps me when I just get so scatterbrained I don’t know where to turn or what to do next. Here are a couple more links some of you may like to peruse
That one is for “right-brained” people – ! – a lot of her points are very good and have made me see things in a new light.
Here is an interesting post I read recently
http://simplehomeschool.net/the-case-for-once-a-month-cleaning/
Once a month cleaning – this is also along the lines of turning some routine maintainance into a day-long once a month project, one of those tricks to appeal to the right-brained among us LOL. This is kind of a different approach than the one taken by the flylady type cleaning program – with zone cleaning done a bit each day or week.
I actually have a once a month job cleaning a lady’s house (this is one of the great ironies of my life, getting paid to clean house – at home I am one of the worst housekeepers ever) and we do something like this. 7 or 8 hours of cleaning in one day, once a month.
In regards to the original post, my one household habit that is good and I actually stick to: do a load of laundry a day, every day. This came from flylady, reboot your laundry! If I get behind I just do a couple of loads a day until I catch up. But no once a week laundry for this family ever again! This works so much better.
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