Lazy person tips for not living in utter disaster? - Page 2

[thismama]

Well I cleaned my bedroom, which is the messiest room in the house, and vacuumed. My kid came to 'help' and for the first time EVER she actually FOLDED clothing instead of jumping on what I've folded. Freaking eureka!! A new day has dawned around here, this is great. I have a mini assistant folding machine.

I'm totally taking the suggestion not to worry about folding things perfectly before putting them away. Toddler folding works, no folding is fine too. I have nothing wrinkle-able.

Maybe I'm nesting or something... I sure hope this keeps up. Maybe I will have a clean house.

[kellid]

Wow! I'm impressed. Light a fire under my toosh....would ya?

[thismama]

Originally Posted by kellid

Wow! I'm impressed. Light a fire under my toosh....would ya?

Here ya go:




If that doesn't work, maybe get knocked up? The nesting hormones might give you a push. I cleaned the kiddo's room today.

[BMG580]

I am also messy by nature but that doesn't seem to fly with my DH and now that I SAH with my DD I feel more stressed if our living space is out of control. I have zero motivation without having some sort of routine or direction in place. I hate creating the routine but once I've got one and get into the flow of it (usually takes 2 weeks of concerted effort) then I am used to it and can make it work.

I split all the chores up into days:

Monday: Laundry/Hardwood Floors/Wastebaskets

Tuesday: Bathrooms/Dust

Wednesday: Toy organizing/vacuuming

Thursday: Laundry/Hardwood Floors/Wastebaskets

Friday: Maintenance (whatever looks bad and needs help I try to tackle)

Weekends: FREE

Some things are daily, like the kitchen. I run the dishwasher when I go to bed and when I feed my DD breakfast I unload it. have gotten this routine down pat to the point that sheets are washed on Mondays and towels on Thursdays, etc. I've also found that if I keep the amount of things we have to what we actually use then they all have a spot and I don't have to hem and haw about where I am going to stick them. Chucking clutter is hard at first but it is so freeing once you get out from under it!

My big laundry tip is to fold it as it comes out of the dryer and immediately sort it into piles of where it is going to be put away. Add to the piles as the loads progress and then once done for the day just pick up those piles and put them where they belong. Socks are my weakness, though. I always seem to have a revolving basket of loose socks that I never get around to matching.

Whoever said to take mail directly to the recycle - I do that too! I just stand and sort and pitch all the junk immediately, sort bills and personal and put them in the mail sorter. You can sign up at www.greendimes.com and your junk mail will seriously lessen.

FWIW, I also grocery shop on the same day, do library on the same day, etc. Things just seem to go to hell in a handbasket around here if I get the tiniest bit off track and then things get so bad that it is too overwhelming to tackle them all. Gosh, writing this all out makes me look OCD but really I'm not naturally!

[kate42]

I force myself to do what I call The Triumvirate every day...dishes, beds, laundry. If I have a handle on all three, I kind of blow off everything else.

Clean dishes, clean underwear and sheets going in the right direction is all you really need.

[miss_sonja]

Lots of great suggestions here, but one thing to add: declutter. Get rid of as much stuff as you can part with. It's a lot easier to keep things under control when there's less stuff in the first place. Get the clothes down, cull out the stuff that is still sitting in the drawers/baskets just before laundry day, that's the stuff no one really likes.

Don't shrug off the ADD thoughts, it really does show differently in women vs. men and adults vs. kids.

[MOM2ANSLEY]

I now use these mesh like cylinder organizers that hang up and have 3 or 4 sections in my laundry room....they actually accidentally ended up there
each section holds undies socks etc for me ds, dd so no more digging, just toss them there when I take out of dryer
and we put very little in dressers, almost everything goes on hangar as soon as it comes out of dryer...usually remains in laundry room
we have a huge storagr tub in living room for toys dd and I race a 3 min timer to pick up all toys....racing timer with dd helps a lot
I only "make"the bed once a week when I wash sheets
we have a hall tree beside front door where I try to always hang keysand jackets etc for out the door runs
Dusting....well
I vacume and sweep about twice a week b/c my carpet shows everything mop when I stick to floor lol
scrub shower before I get in and rinse while I wash
still messy though

[bocks_box]

Originally Posted by Glover_Girls

I'm with "ndigiorgio" who suggested the ADD connection. It was the first thing that came to mind. Not laziness on your part. We're all lazy and just don't want to deal with cleaning and tidying with all the other stuff we have going on in life!

Agreed. I got called lazy all my life, and it was NOT a compliment. Nobody ever suspected ADD, they just thought I was impulsive and undisciplined and belligerent. (NOT hyperactive, which is what people think ADD is!)

Here's my blog on living with ADD as an adult: ADDled

Here's the basics on how I keep my house clean:

1. Take care of my medical needs. That means take my ADD medication, exercise, eat right, drink enough water, get weekly chiropractic care, take time for my spiritual health. These things seem like they will take too long and be too overwhelming, but if I don't do these things first, I can't do anything else.

2. I got a Roomba and a Scooba, and I use them. I also bought a dishwasher. Any machines that make our life easier.

3. I ride my kids. I mean, I nag them. They leave something out, I call them back from what they're doing in another room to put it back. They pee on the toilet, I call them in right now to wipe it up. They leave their dishes uncleared after lunch, they come right back in. They're learning I can barely keep up with myself - they need to pull their weight.

4. We have a rotating chore chart in our house and we do our chores right after breakfast, before school (we homeschool). Again, mom does more than her fair share but my kids are really helping, which is nice.

5. I am ruthless about clutter. Every tabletop and/or surface must be clear. Nothing on it. If we get up and leave a room, we check the tabletops and bring it with us - we don't leave a book, a dish, a glass - nothing. If we get up from the table, there should be nothing on the table but the placemats and the napkins. I nag my kids and my husband about this and they are now almost perfect about bringing their dishes into the kitchen as soon as they get up. If we are buying something, it does not come into our house until I know what the place will be for it. It must have a home - a basket, a drawer, a shelf, someplace to live - or it cannot be in our house.

6. I stopped telling myself I don't care. I DO care. I was telling myself I don't care, I'm just messy, because I had proved over and over for years that I COULDN'T do it. But this was because I have an illness. I'm not lazy, I'm just as worthy as anyone else to live in a calm, peaceful environment. I just needed to have adequate treatment for my illness.

With the right instruction, and with practice, ANYONE can have a peaceful relatively clean and uncluttered living environment. I had fooled myself into thinking I couldn't, because I had never been able to no matter how hard I tried. So I told myself I don't care - that I like being messy. A lie.

[thismama]

Originally Posted by miss_sonja

Lots of great suggestions here, but one thing to add: declutter.

Yeah. I've decluttered a few times and I have found it's shockingly easy to keep things clean... well, until the house fills back up with junk.

Originally Posted by bocks_box

Here's my blog on living with ADD as an adult: ADDled

I'm definitely going to check out your blog! Thank you.

They're learning I can barely keep up with myself - they need to pull their weight.

This is so me! My kid needs to learn this too.

With the right instruction, and with practice, ANYONE can have a peaceful relatively clean and uncluttered living environment. I had fooled myself into thinking I couldn't, because I had never been able to no matter how hard I tried. So I told myself I don't care - that I like being messy. A lie.

Yeah. I hate being messy. I just hate cleaning too, it feels like it's never done, and often I feel resigned to living in a messy house because I just don't see a way to do anything but.

Baby steps...

I invited my tidy friends over tomorrow so I cleaned up the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. Foyer is still messy, and all three of those rooms could use big time decluttering still. I made a fair bit of progress in the kitchen I would say. My bedrooms look really almost nice, and most of the house looks nearly presentable right now. Woohoo! I have four bags of stuff for Goodwill, hopefully will get more together this week. I want to work on this this week while I have this strange 'oomph' (pregnancy hormones telling me to nest??? something anyway) and before classes start up again.

[thismama]

Btw I'm in LOVE with this blog: http://chairisacloset.blogspot.com This woman is messy like me, and lazy like me! Perfect.

[DevaMajka]

I have 2 tips-

1. Find a place for everything. Even if you know you aren't often going to put it there, it REALLY helps for things to have a home for when you DO want to clean up.

2. Do the '5 item pickup'- Every so often, take 5 items and put them where they belong. It can even be the 5 easiest items you can find. It makes a big difference, even if you only do it occasionally.

Ok, fine- I have 3 tips. Get rid of stuff you don't need. It's that many less things that you even need to think about.

[swellmomma]

I'm not overly lazy but I am highly distractable. EVen when cleaning I get sidetracked and it never gets done. I have all sorts of plans and buckets etc for organizing but can't seem to maintain it. To put a picture to it, I will be washing dishes, phone rings, so I end up carrying the cloth and dish I was washing over to the phone(for whatever reason I forget to just drop them), put them down answer phone, phone happens to be in front of computer so I check email, flylady sends a message to change the laundry, go to change laundry, switch load, see mess in toyroom I am trying to gut in order to paint and redecorate, start cleaning that, baby cries, run upstairs forgetting clean laundry down there, feed baby, figure while I am here I may as well read X parenting book, and take notes., baby falls alseep I pt her in playpen, start to clean livingroom, kids fight, go upstairs to deal with fight, find every video dumped out, start cleaning videos up, phone rings leave videos, answer phone, see disha nd cloth I forgot earlier. Decide to check MCD while on phone, proceed to sit here for 3 hours in the meantime laundry is still downstairs, dishes are still by computer, livingroom is a mess, videos are dumped and th kids are making it worse as they pull out toys and craft stuff etc.

My plan/goal for 2008 is simple, turn off the ringer(I have voice mail) and the computer during that time I am trying to clean which really needs to be at hte end of the day since I am hsing the kids during the day. I also am purging big time and compacting. I swear I have add and I know a cluttered space is the sign of a cluttered mind. my mind is very very cluttered, hoping by reducing the stuff we have, it will make it easier to keep clean and transfer into my mind settling and being less cluttered.

[mama-meg]

What has helped me is just doing a little here and there. Usually I have trouble getting started, so I sort of trick myself a bit by telling myself I'll just gather up the dirty dishes to start. It seems so small. Then the next time I walk through the kitchen I fill the dishpan and set some dishes to soak and so on and so forth. I do the same thing with straightening up - just one or two things at a time every so often. Once I get started I usually finish the job, but even if I don't I feel like I accomplished something. Giving myself permission to do part of the job, instead of all of it has been a huge help, and I think I may have gotten it from flylady though I'm not sure. Something like housework, even done wrong, still blesses your home.

And with laundry what helps me is following a basket from start to finish. So I wash, dry, fold and put away one basket at a time. That way I can manage it all and don't have piles of laundry on my couch all the time getting knocked over by the kids or slept on by the cats.

[DBZ]

I was really lazy for a long time, but I am in recovery! Today the house hit that wall with me. I worked in the kitchen a good chuck of the day. I too wash dishes either before dinner or while it's cooking. Tonight I sat on the floor in the middle of the Christmas disaster and found a show to watch (CSI). I had a bag for trash and a pile for recycling. During that one hour show, I got a butt load of toys put away and the room feels so much better. I think I got up off my butt twice LOL. I used to not fold laundry, but I got into the habit of doing that by folding it as I took it out of the dryer. It doesn't take that much more time and now that I am 7 months preg, I've taken to sit on the floor to do that too LOL. Then I call my kids to come get their piles. Even my 2 yo will put her clean laundry in her laundry basket.

[spd_]

i feel ya

i recommend two things:
1. build cleaning into your daily/weekly routine
2. make it as easy and fun as possible

i try to fit the laundry in between things--we set the end of cycle alarm (my ex-gf would set a timer), so it reminds me to go back downstairs and switch loads.

if there's laundry to put away in DS's room, i'll do that in the afternoon while DS plays.

we put toys away as part of our going to bed routine--16-month-old DS is getting better about helping, though he often starts taking things out again. but we're trying to get him used to the idea of having everything neat before bed, and we plan to give him chores as he is old enough to handle them.

i mostly let dishes pile up all day (i keep a dishpan in the sink, so if the sink gets full, i can just pull out the dishpan and put it on the floor and still get to the sink), then my partner is in charge of cleaning the kitchen at night after he puts DS to bed. he puts his laptop on the counter and listens to NPR, podcasts, music, or movies he's already seen while he washes up.

we got some of those cleaning wipes, and put packets of them in each bathroom, so it's easy to quickly wipe down surfaces -- my honey does this on Saturdays or any time he thinks of it. Method and Mrs. Meyer's make them now, so you're not stuck with the toxic mainstream stuff.

we have a dustbuster in the dining room for cleaning up after feeding DS ad keep a swiffer and handbroom near the kitchen for cleaning the floor, which my partner does as part of his kitchen-cleaning routine.

My honey does the vacumming on Saturdays with DS playing nearby--he likes to watch the vacuum and will take a toy and pretend to vacuum along with his dad.

whenever possible, we play music or videos to entertain us while we clean--i like to sing along, and it makes it fun. i'll bring the laundry basket in front of the tv and fold while watching something.

i'm also a big fan of baskets and bins and keeping things near where you use them. we have open bins for toys, a basket for bibs that's on a shelf in the dining room (we got a bookshelf with glass doors from Ikea, so it looks neater and keeps the dust off--having cabinets also helps a lot for making it look less cluttered and keeping things clean).

and with any change, i always say start slowly--don't try to do too much too fast, or you'll get overwhelmed and give it all up, so maybe choose one piece of advice that seems manageable, and start with that, and once you're used to doing that, then slowly add more things.

good luck!