Getting back on Track with Cleaning {Home Life}

You know those mornings you wake up and enter the main living area of your house and it is spotless? No? Me neither.

I wake up in the master bedroom to a disaster (still). The rest of the house just seems to follow suit, though it is not nearly as bad as the bedroom.

Things sort of fell to the wayside after fall break from school. I have been playing catch up since. But in all honesty it really hasn't been too bad.

Yes:
~The kids have way more clothes than they can wear in 2 weeks (forget trying to wash that many clothes).
~I have way more clothes than I need (and thankfull I don't wear them all, laundry would be aweful)!
~The kids have toys they haven't played with since being babies, and yet those still get scattered around the house.

About a year ago I took a free challenge (sent over email) with Kendra Hennessy over at Mother Like a Boss called the Reluctant Homemaker Boot Camp. She now has it as a paid course. It makes me sad as I wish I could go through it again. (I am not recieving anything for this post. no affiliate, no free courses, this is not an advertisement)

It was amazing. I needed it like a kick in the butt to get me up and doing things after my mother-in-law passed away to be able to even try to stay on top of things. We were the 'wait until a big even at the house before we started cleaning' type cleaners. The thing that helped me the most was establishing a simple cleaning schedule for the week. Not icluding yearly or monthly tasks, just what needed to get done during the week. Forgetting all those printables you can find off pinterest. My schedule was tailored for me.

I had a friend visit a few weeks after implementing my schedule and she had even complemented on the cleanliness of my house (I had no idea how bad it was before, aparently.)

Anywho. I wrote down all the areas I needed to clean during the week. Only things I needed to do, not necessarily the kids. And I didn't manage to fit in the master bedroom which is probably why it is still a clutter disaster! Hey now, I have gotten rid of quite a bit of stuff! Work-in-progress....

I picked days that would be easiest to clean those areas, and restricted myself to 30 minutes (some weeks it was more some it was less). I was cleaning the baseboards just to find something to clean for my designated 30 minutes that week. When it starts out not a grimey mess, it takes less time to clean! (mind blown moment for me! Yay aha! moments! Ha!) Seriously, it was amazing the difference!

I even had laundry days devoted to each person in the house (except husband, he is in charge of his own laundry). I had cleaned off the top of the dryer during my laundry room cleaning day (it also houses the cat box) and was able to start using the top of the dryer for my laundry station.

My house wasn't spotless. Don't get me wrong. But it was much nicer than the mess it was before.

And, then I stopped for a while. And my house became the disaster area it was before I started.

But, we are getting back on track! I'm jumping back on the cleaning schedule train and it has made such a big difference in my house! This (coupled with other things) has actually saved me a bit of time during the day so I can do things I would rather do (like writing this stuff for you!) and sewing, and working on decluttering my craft/office space!

I don't have a multi-level house. It's not a super huge house (but not super tiny either). That said I want to share with you what I do for my areas. (Not that it is necessary for you, you have a completely different life in a different house!)

The areas I wrote down and decided I needed to focus on for my family:

Living areas - More specifically, the carpet. Lets face it. Kids and carpet do not mix well. Add to it we live in an area surrounded by dirt! I should vacuum more than once a week. But I vacuum once a week. The kids have to make sure all their stuff is picked up by the time we reach vacuum day or it's getting tossed.

The kids bathroom, Master bathroom. Everything that goes with cleaning a bathroom. And, I only have one little boy! I focus on each bathroom on a different day. As time passes I might start combining these two.

Kitchen - wiping down the dining table, washing placemats, sweeping and mopping the floor, and the stove, declutter counters, clean out uneaten food from the fridge. I try to sweep every evening. For several years (excpet last year when I was keeping up with the schedule) we had ants invade our kitchen around the start of our monsoon season. I try to do dishes every night too. If there is room in the washer I will fill it with the spoon rest and coffee pot. After it finishes running I open it and leave it open to dry more and will put it away while the kids eat breakfast. I also wanted this as close to trash day for yucky food coming out of the fridge so it wouldn't sit in the bin too long.

Laundry Room - why is it that clothes and towels always seem to pile up in here? I will do an extra load if necessary or move those things to their proper hampers. I focus on the floor with sweeping and mopping. Our a/c and heater intake is in this room so I will dust around it and make sure the filter is ok. I also clean the cat box and make sure the cat's bowls are clean. It's not a big room. More like a hot halway with wa washer and dryer included. I wanted this one closest to trash pick up for the cat box reasons.

I divided these amongst the weekdays, since the weekends are super busy.

Monday - Vaccuum (main living spaces and kids rooms)
Tuesday - Kids bathroom
Wednesday - kitchen
Thursday - Laundry room
Friday - master bath (trash day)

Next I fit in the laundry. There was nothing specific to it. It's just the way it fell and the way it stayed.

Monday - N
Tuesday - S
Wednesday - K
Thursday - Me
Friday - Towels
Saturday - Sheets

It's taken us a few weeks to get back into the habit of keeping things off the floor for the vacuuming day and getting caught up with the buildup from the last 6 months. But, it has started to feel decently livable and comfortable. And I am not spending all day playing catch up cleaning. I am limiting myself to 30 minutes so I can do other things. If it's not done I will come ack to it next week. And I am getting better at putting things away instead of leaving them out so I don't have to waste time on that when I spend the time cleaning.

This, coupled with meal prepping on Sunday (I will talk about that later), has made a huge difference in the amount of time I have during the week. I am still learning, but it has been great!

When do you do your cleaning? Were you like our "before", did you clean it when it looked dirty, or do you have more of a schedule?