Cleaning Schedules & Me!

I love to read and look at cleaning schedules and all kinds of ways to keep the house clean, to organize, to have a schedule of how it all works, etc.  I have a hard time finding just the right schedule that works for me.  I jump around and have not yet found just the right one.


I have been toying with 2 ideas.

1. Once a month cleaning.  
2. Once a week cleaning, or Home Blessing Hour.  

I made my list all out for once a month cleaning.  All areas of each room that needed to be cleaned.  Then I made a simple list of things I would do daily such as laundry, picking up clutter, dishes, cooking, and swish and swipe the bathrooms, which is this:

The point of the Swish & Swipe is:
If you do a quick wipe-over of your bathrooms each day - Your bathrooms will never really get dirty. There will be no build-up, no toilet ring, and no hard water stains. You will have a sparkling clean bathroom every day without everreally cleaning it.


While your in the bathroom:

• Use a little windex and quickly "swipe" the mirror, counter & sink.
• Next, use a toilet brush with a little soap to "swish" the toilet bowl (one suggestion is to keep disinfecting bathroom cleaner in your toilet brush holder or even shampoo or slivers of old soap?!?) (caution ladies - don't mix cleaners)
• Last, use a disinfecting wipe to "swipe" down the lid, seat and bowl rim of the toilet.

That would be what I would do.  I would have say the 1st of the month or 15th or whenever, and dedicate most of that day to a whole house scrub down.  Then daily throughout the rest of the month do the things necessarily daily.  On this site she also mentions once a month decluttering.  This is where she chooses a room a month to work on decluttering.  So I suppose one room per month would get an even deeper clean.  This is 12 rooms in a year.  Deep cleaned and decluttered.  I am really pondering this.

The weekly cleaning I would do probably on Friday's to prepare for the weekend and to be able to enjoy a clean home and relax all weekend.  Then daily have the regular things that need done daily like I said, laundry, picking up clutter or straightening up, dishes, cooking and swish and swipe.  When I do this it seems that the next week things don't look dirty so I don't have motivation to do it.  Maybe this instead of weekly could be done bi-weekly so that the dirt has time to come back at least a little.

In the weekly cleaning you have 1 hour, 6 chores, 10 minutes each chore.  You set a timer for 10 minutes, and GO!  You clean that one area as best as you can and when the timer goes off you are done.

 

I want to share here how and what I do, in a sorts a way of accountability.  I want to track what works and maybe a few before and after pictures if I feel so led.  

So here I am.  I want to clean the house!  It's been spring break and it needs a refresher.  Yes, you would find me on the computer looking at ways to clean and organize intead of actually DOING it! 

So now I get up to "DO" something.  Reminding myself of my word for 2012, LIVE.  I want to live and not just sit and watch or read about things.

So which will it be................what will I experiment with first?  Hmmmm.....

Weekly cleaning.  This week I will do it Monday (and some Sunday to get a head start) and maybe again on Friday since we are getting over spring break and it may need an extra cleaning by the end of the week.  I will choose 6 chores that need to be done and take 10 minutes for each one.  Here they are for Monday's cleaning:

1. Dusting furniture.
2. Bathrooms swish and swipe and tub cleaning (spray with bleach lysol cleaner, set a few minutes and wipe down and rinse)
3. Kids bedroom floors.
4. Vacuum house. (must be done after bedroom floors are done)
5. Entry way clean up inside front door and porch.
6. Overall house pick-up (maybe do this first)

The end.  That is what I will do.  Off I go to live.  I am going to choose bathrooms right now and go from there.  Go LIVE!

More later...Love to you!

Kim :)


p.s. I do have to add one thing.  In order for me to do all of this and actually have it work...I have to put Jesus first.  Two things He is teaching me.  One is Matthew 6:33 that in one version says seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and all these things will be added unto you, but NLT version I read this morning says this:  he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.  (I love this version).  Number two, is Jesus says come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.  He is teaching me to give Him my burdens each day, each moment and ask Him for His yoke because He says it is easy.  This week when I have done that, amazing, in awe, of the fruits that come from it...there is nowhere else I want to be.  

**Note-Update 3/28/2012-Wednesday---I did the bathrooms Sunday and then Monday got carried away and no cleaning done.  So I will keep it on Friday and continue daily cleaning as needed until then.  I did clean 1 bedroom floor Monday evening so that does count too :) baby steps 

  

Home Lover Thursday

Okay disclaimer here to begin with, this is a huge area for me to deal with...because I am SO not a natural cleaner, at all!  Okay now that is out of the way.  The reason I call it, "Home Lover" Thursday is because it is a term I learned while reading through the book, "A Woman After God's Own Heart" a few years ago.  Since I wanted to do what God gave me with a cheerful attitude, what better than to do the thing that we mostly think of as misery, cheerfully.  So instead of begrudgingly doing housework, I started trying and doing it all for the Lord, happily.  One tip that has helped me as I am learning along slowly is to find 3 things to do every day that would keep things more smoothly running.  I read it as a tip on Flylady.net from a reader.  She called it doing her "1, 2, 3's" for the day.  So I did some thinking and tried to find three things that I would help me feel better about the unorganized cleaning in my home.  So here are the three things I chose for me:

1. Empty the dishwasher in the morning and by end of day empty sink and load dishwasher.
2. Do one load of laundry, wash dry and put away.
3. 10 minute declutter-of the counters and spaces I tend to let clutter gather.

I also thought about whole house tidy up, setting a timer for 10 minutes and just picking up the clutter all over that was not in the right place.  I thought of cleaning bathroom counters and swishing the toilet with some soap and toilet brush daily.  But the above three are now my goal.  If these three things get done each day, I feel a bit better about my home and things are not completely falling apart.

I then read this ebook, which was so good, http://tellyourtime.com/ (only 2.99!), and I created a bit more of an organized schedule for my day.  I chose to do about a 10-20 minute cleaning task each day of the week, Monday through Friday.   So I chose a different room for each day...Monday is the kitchen, Tuesday is the bedrooms, Wednesday is the bathrooms, Thursday is the living room and front door/porch area, and Friday is the day I clean van, make meal plan and grocery shop (sometimes) and balance money and organize finances.  Doing these things seems to keep things in order...that is, when I do them.  This is my goal to move more towards in the coming weeks.

Now this is a start, kids chores and chipping in is all being added slowly as well.  I will share more of that later.

That is all I have to share about being a home-lover, loving to take care of the home that God has blessed me with.

1 Corinthians 10:31 Whether you eat, drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.


Take a listen...



More later, love to you!
Kim

Visit this wonderful inspiring woman of God to learn more about being a home lover, I have learned many good things from her, she is a great mentor for us ladies.