However, I tend to look at my disorganized mess of a house and not know where to start and I end up cleaning the same messes over and over again while the rest of the house disappears in piles of toys, books, and the whirlwinds that often frequent our address. (We like to call them Amanda and Alyssa!)
Quite a while ago, my mom gave me a book by Emilie Barnes called "More Hours in My Day". When I first got the book, I was excited to see what great organizational skills I would acquire from reading it. She is a good author and I have been inspired by some of her other works.
Anyway, as it happens with many kids and a busy schedule, the book got put aside for quite some time and I sort of forgot for a while that it was sitting on my book shelf!
Well, during our TV fast (which, by the way, went extremely well) I rediscovered this book. In it, it has some wonderful tips for scheduling your household chores. I have since adopted some of her scheduling tecniques and believe it or not (I'm not sure I believe it!) my house is beginning to resemble a smooth running and (most of the time) clean place to hang out!
In this book, Emilie suggests making lists for your various jobs to be done. She lists them daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually and annually. I decided that for now, I would work on daily, weekly and monthly. My schedule sort of looks like this:
DAILY -
wash dishes
bathrooms
kitchen/dining room counters and sweep floors
tidy my bedroom
WEEKLY -
Mon. - laundry
Tues. - water plant and do girls' bedding
Wed. - scrub floors and do boys' bedding
Thurs. - water plants (this is a light day due to co-op)
Fri. - scrub the microwave
Sat. - do windows and pay bills
MONTHLY-
Week 1 - refrigerator
Week 2 - walls and baseboards (our walls get pretty yucky cause of all the little fingers!)
Week 3 - cupboards (clean and/or organize)
Week 4 - Oven
Week 5 - basement (will it ever be clean?)
For the monthly planning, she says to take 15 minutes a day to work on that week's project. Don't try to do it all at once. By the end of the week it looks really nice!
We also have the kids doing more of their share of the cleaning. We have chore cards that they have to take each day, and so that frees me up to do my scheduled cleaning. This is working out really well. We talked about this in our family counsel and so there isn't ever any complaining about doing chores...so far!
I am very excited to be putting this schedule into practice. I have a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day and am happy that Dave can come home to a cleaner than usual house.
"She looks well to how things go in her household, and the bread of idleness she will not eat." Proverbs 31:27
1 comment:
Bev, thanks for being willing to share bits of how you really "do life" with your crew. I only get to see what I see on Sundays which leaves me to fill in with my own conclusions and usually, that leaves me thinking something like, "If Bev Tritt can manage all this, what the heck is my problem?" :) I have to say it's still quite humbly to see all you take on everyday and with a happy heart! WOW! I had to laugh that you consider homeschooling 4 young ones as "lightening your load"...you are a super mom!
On a different note, I have done this scheduling thing with my chores. I find it helpful for a season and then inevitably we get thrown a curve ball...like a slew of dr's appts. all in a row, an extended time of illness (what we're going through now), or frankly, just a choice to faithfully discipline my children can stand in the way of getting all my "to do's" done for that day, week or month. It can be rather defeating and I find I have to fight to not complain about all the things that remain untouched (like my dusting for instance...that hasn't been done in I can't even remember how long, ditto on the oven, the fridge, the microwave, windows, paper filing, etc.) You get the picture.
I find myself resorting to being satisfied with a clean sink, clean clothes, sheets and if we're doing well, clean bathrooms, and I'm really not kiddin'. :) Even vacuuming is optional these days. Sad but true.
Do you think there are chores I could be teaching the boys to do? They're 3.5..they're boys remember and my first so they don't have older sibs showing them the ropes or lowering the bar...They do a few things like help me occasionally with the laundry, lining up their shoes at the entrance, putting away silverware, carrying their plates to the sink, sometimes dust panning up the crumbs on the kitchen floor (though their coordination for this is still somewhat lacking).
A rather long comment..sorry...I'm just sitting in the midst of a mess and was rather provoked by your post (in a good way). :)
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