I can't find a workable cleaning routine - Page 2

[lovemyfamily6]

Okay, I know I should do the whole babystep thing, but I feel like I'm really committed to making a change. I'm generally an organized person but have let things slip since twins. So that's been five years! I got somewhat addicted to the computer then because I was on bedrest for 9 weeks and have had a hard time breaking that habit. I'm much better about it now.

Sooo, I did make a routine today. I have my afternoon (I get up at 5:15am for work and get home around 12:30) routine, my after school routine, after dinner routine, and bedtime routine. I took into account our activities after school and stuff like that.

I just set a timer for 20 minutes and in that time, I started a load of laundry, made the beds, and cleaned three bathrooms including a quick spray and foot swipe of the floor! I worked as fast as I could, which may help burn some calories too.

[jrabbit]

congratulations!!!

[operamommy]

Originally Posted by lovemyfamily6

I so hear you! I'll be your Flylady buddy if you'd like. I think it might be helpful for me too. I want to stay on track this time and not jump ahead and get overwhelmed again.

ETA: And I want to start enjoying my family more, and worrying less about my house. I also need that attitude adjustment again so I can start seeing housework as something that blesses my family, rather than the ranting and raving I did just a little while ago about all the stuff I had to clean up after the boys went to preschool.

Ok, buddy!

My sink was shiny yesterday...but...umm, not today yet. Ds3 is down for a nap, so I guess I need to go do it before my big kids get home in 15 minutes...then I need to help with homework, make dinner, take dd to basketball practice... (this morning was a playdate for ds2, oil change for the van, and other errands)

Calgon, take me away!!

[lovemyfamily6]

Originally Posted by operamommy

Ok, buddy!

My sink was shiny yesterday...but...umm, not today yet. Ds3 is down for a nap, so I guess I need to go do it before my big kids get home in 15 minutes...then I need to help with homework, make dinner, take dd to basketball practice... (this morning was a playdate for ds2, oil change for the van, and other errands)

Calgon, take me away!!

Well, how are you doing? Me...not so great. I did really well until the weekend. My son had a birthday and my parents stayed with us all weekend. I was exhausted by yesterday afternoon and went grocery shopping and left all the non-perishable stuff on the island/counters. It looks awful in here, but in reality, I can probably have a nearly spotless kitchen in 30 minutes or less. My kids were out of school today, and we had stuff to do outside the house all the way until dinner, so I didn't do anything today either. I have these great routines typed up and hanging on the refrigerator and I've barely even looked at it since Friday night.

[smeisnotapirate]

My tip for enjoying free time (and I am NEVER an advocate for buying crap): get a Roomba. Seriously. I run the thing 3-4 times a day (3 cats, a dog, a crawling baby, and my post-partum hairloss keep it busy), and all it takes is a push of a button and walk away. Worth every penny, and it helps get you motivated to pick stuff up off the floor and keep it neat in small chunks if you run it a couple times a day instead of waiting until you're tired and the floor is covered in crap.

[operamommy]

lovemyfamily6, I'm happy to report that my sink is shiny.

I've been skipping some of the baby steps (negative voices, etc.) - hopefully that's not too terrible of me. I'm up to the 5 minute room rescue. I was sick yesterday so hoping to get back on track tomorrow!

[prothyraia]

I think of FlyLady this way-

The daily routines are for maintainance- they're what keep your house looking roughly the same way at the end of the day that it did in the morning.

Everything else (decluttering, room rescues, deep cleaning) is about making progress. 15 minutes at a time. And after awhile, it really adds up! As long as you keep up with the daily maintainence. some days we don't make any progress. some days we slide back a little. But overall, the house looks better and better.

It's amazing what a few months of looking at things this way will do. I have two children under the age of two right now, and my house is cleaner and more organized than it has ever been. : (okay that may say something about what a slob I was before , but hey, I'll take it)

[onehipmomma]

I didn't have much success with FLY lady. I have since purchased this system, and LOVE it!

www.motivatedmoms.com

It gives you a list of chores to do daily, breaking tasks into smaller bits. Sometimes I might miss one, but don't stress because I know that it will come up again soon.

It is honestly the best $8 I have ever spent on my house. My house has never been cleaner.

Good luck!

[lovemyfamily6]

Originally Posted by operamommy

lovemyfamily6, I'm happy to report that my sink is shiny.

I've been skipping some of the baby steps (negative voices, etc.) - hopefully that's not too terrible of me. I'm up to the 5 minute room rescue. I was sick yesterday so hoping to get back on track tomorrow!

Good for you!! I hope you're feeling better.

I guess I'm the reason that flylady insists you not rush ahead and try to do it all at once. I made myself crazy, yet again. So I pulled the routines list off of the refrigerator and I've just been doing what I can. I still love the decluttering 15 minutes at a time plan, and am actually getting ready to go do that in our living room. It's become a catch-all since we were painting. That's where we'll put our Christmas tree, so it needs to be in good shape by Thanksgiving.

One thing I've really worked on lately is making sure everything has a home. It's so much easier to clean up when you know exactly where something is supposed to go.

[jrabbit]

Flylady works for me ... shiny kitchen sink, swish the toilet every couple days, make my bed ... I *try* to do as much as I can, but I'm not routine-oriented.

I've been doing zone-work this week (DH is out of town, and I'm trying to fill the void). It's bathroom-week, which is good because I've been procrastinating digging out the bathroom cabinets & drawers. I have found a ton of things that we don't use (freecycle) and a lifetime supply of bandaids! and quite a few expired things, too (makeup, lotion, etc) ... it's depressing, really, when I think about it.

About 10 years ago, we had to do an emergency clean-out of my grandfather's house (about 2 years after he died, after his widow had literally abandoned it). Anyway, it's a vivid memory of mine that I don't want my children to have to face: they were packrats and bulk-shoppers. The bathroom and kitchen were FULL of an oversupply of expired stuff. We spent days throwing things away (especially painful for me, an avid recycler). So, cleaning out my bathroom today has brought back those memories, sadly.

Well, it's back to work again! I need to "clean" the cabinet and start putting things back away. I didn't do this flylady style exactly - it was too big of a job to do in 15 minutes. But, it WILL be finished today.

--janis

[lovemyfamily6]

Janis, I think I'm doing Flylady with a Kristi twist. I'm trying to do the missions and I'm doing the swish and swipe about every other day rather than daily. I've been good about taking care of the kitchen. It seems for me, if the kitchen can be clean and the main floor tidy (kids toys and books put away), I'm so much more motivated and capable of working on other things.

I definitely think that she has some great and really helpful advice. I've been spot cleaning my kitchen floor at night so it looks decent until a real mopping. I used to mop nightly and was completely overwhelmed. Now I just keep thinking what she says- that housework done incorrectly still blesses your family.

[jrabbit]

Crap. I typed a bunch, then lost it.

Originally Posted by lovemyfamily6

housework done incorrectly still blesses your family.

Summary: I only clean the floor if I spill something on it. We have no carpet. Housekeeper vacuums & mops every 2 weeks. I use a Fuller brush & dustpan in between if motivated. I am barefoot in the house, so I notice if it's disgusting, at least.

Kitchen sink shiny is an amazing revelation. I do it about 95% of the time, and even DH does it (although he doesn't do as thorough a job, but I don't nag him, nor do I try to fix it). I even clean up my mom's sink when we're visiting her! (and she's a fastidious housekeeper)

I spent all Sunday picking up my kids' toys. Everything got put away forcefully - and when I ran out of steam, I bagged up the rest, trash & all, and I've been putting that away 15 minutes at a time. Every night, though, I've forced them to pick up ALL their toys and clothes before bed. It's working, but it's a fight. Tonite, I'll try to do it *before* they are tired. Might be easier

My bathroom is mostly put back together. I've freecycled everything, and it's almost all getting picked up by Saturday! DH's stuff is the only thing left - so he'll have to sort & purge it when he comes home from his business trip. Yay! (2 drawers & 1 cabinet to go .... and the bathroom will be completely cleaned out, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel)

--janis

[lovemyfamily6]

Originally Posted by jrabbit

My bathroom is mostly put back together. I've freecycled everything, and it's almost all getting picked up by Saturday! DH's stuff is the only thing left - so he'll have to sort & purge it when he comes home from his business trip. Yay! (2 drawers & 1 cabinet to go .... and the bathroom will be completely cleaned out, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel)

--janis

Woohoo!! I'm going to work on purging stuff from our bathroom tonight, I think. I used to be really good about it, but I noticed that it's getting pretty cluttered in there now.

[momma4fun]

i can't do fly lady. i just can't. doesn't work for me or motivate me and i don't like the system.

but i also can't do any kind of system or routine.

the important thing flylady did was help me realize i don't have to be perfect, and i should quite beating myself up about it, AND i shouldn't avoid a chore because i don't think i have time to do it perfect.


now, i have this awesome mindset that's working really well for me and my self esteem. it doesn't always, or even often keep the whole house clean, but it makes a huge difference.

one day, i clean upstairs. the next day, i clean down stairs. the next i clean upstairs again, and so on.

today was downstairs. i decluttered the desk a little, i straightened the piles of magazines in the bathroom, i washed the kitchen counters and i vaccumed a little in the living room. i did no dishes, no sweeping, no mopping, didn't get to the floor under the dining room table, but today was downstairs day and i made a difference, gash darnit!

sometimes i only do one tiny task. sometimes there's a snowball effect and after picking up some trash, i pick up the trash on the whole floor, or after vaccuming a mess, i just vaccum the whole floor.

i love it, it works for me, i'm healing from some medical issues right now and it's the best i can do!

[lovemyfamily6]

Originally Posted by momma4fun

one day, i clean upstairs. the next day, i clean down stairs. the next i clean upstairs again, and so on.

today was downstairs. i decluttered the desk a little, i straightened the piles of magazines in the bathroom, i washed the kitchen counters and i vaccumed a little in the living room. i did no dishes, no sweeping, no mopping, didn't get to the floor under the dining room table, but today was downstairs day and i made a difference, gash darnit!

sometimes i only do one tiny task. sometimes there's a snowball effect and after picking up some trash, i pick up the trash on the whole floor, or after vaccuming a mess, i just vaccum the whole floor.

i love it, it works for me, i'm healing from some medical issues right now and it's the best i can do!

So do you alternate and just do what you feel like/what needs done most? Hmmm...that sounds interesting. Instead of a schedule telling me what to do, just seeing what needs the most love and attention. I like that idea.

[jrabbit]

You're actually not that off-flylady as you might think. The most important thing I've learned over the past 7? years of part-time-flying is that you really have to identify what works for you and adapt to that. And you said "i love it, it works for me" - **that** is what matters!

What I appreciate about her routines is that I have a whole week to think about a zone. Maybe I get around to doing something in that zone on Monday - maybe not til Friday. But, eventually, I do "something". I'm really NOT a routine-person, which is why we Un-school - couldn't handle schedules and stuff. I'm lucky to remember to eat every day, much less at the *same time* every day!

For the past 6 years, I've been a full-time mom and small business owner. I've had to figure out how to keep the house from falling apart in spite of working outside of the home 70 hours a week. My DH has been wonderful, and I certainly couldn't have done it without him. But there are meals to be cooked, laundry to be washed, and somewhere in all of that, things had to be occasionally cleaned and chaos had to be averted. Oh - and we had to have time to **live**. Now that I've sold my business, and I'm pregnant again, I'm starting over. I'm catching up on 6 years of clutter and trying to see past it. As a result, I've also discovered that I really don't like what we have, and we're putting our house on the market in February. We are planning to buy an RV and downsize in a huge way.

I think that I will never be a perfect housekeeper, and if I don't make my house smaller, I'll kill myself trying to be. Well, that digressed into a different ramble than I originally thought! (that's the story of my life: pick up something to put away in another room, notice the bed isn't straight, then find dirty clothes on the floor, so I go to start a load of laundry, then find a name on a piece of paper, so I go to my computer to input it into my contacts, and I get sucked into the web ... and the original item is still in my hand, the washer wasn't started, and so it goes all day long)

My kids are being nutty bees, waiting impatiently for a bedtime tv show with me. Have a great evening y'all!

--janis

[lovemyfamily6]

Originally Posted by jrabbit

Well, that digressed into a different ramble than I originally thought! (that's the story of my life: pick up something to put away in another room, notice the bed isn't straight, then find dirty clothes on the floor, so I go to start a load of laundry, then find a name on a piece of paper, so I go to my computer to input it into my contacts, and I get sucked into the web ... and the original item is still in my hand, the washer wasn't started, and so it goes all day long)

I hear you on this!!

[ABmom]

Like some of the ladies here, I can't do FL. I tried several times but I'm just not that HER. I can't do the email thing. I agree with some of the tips here regarding doing a little bit while you are in that room. This makes tidying up/cleaning so much better. It used to be that every Sat, dh and I would devout 2 hrs to do a deep and thorough cleaning of the house. But then we realized that we would rather play witht he kids then clean. Who wouldn't? So we cheated and hired a cleaning lady to come do that job on a monthly basis. I still clean and mop/vaccum but it relieves a lot of stress I had from trying to have a spotless house. Our house is not spotless but I know that I can live with it.

Here are some of the things that I do to help maintain an almost spotless home.

1. Wash as I go when preparing meals.
2. Do the dishes as soon as the kids are finished eating. Dh usually eats later and he does his.
3. Fold the laundry while dd is having her quiet time. Sometimes she wants to help so that's always welcomed.
4. Have a basket on every floor for misplaced items. So if there are things that belong upstairs, I just put them in the basket and when I go upstairs I take it up with me. Same goes for the basket that was upstairs.

Mimi

[momma4fun]

Originally Posted by lovemyfamily6

So do you alternate and just do what you feel like/what needs done most? Hmmm...that sounds interesting. Instead of a schedule telling me what to do, just seeing what needs the most love and attention. I like that idea.

exactly

i know what a clean house looks like, and all the chores that would make that up

so i do what i feel like when i feel like it! and my house is cleaner than ever