Saturday, June 27, 2009

Cleaning revolution checkup

Well, it's been about a month with my "chore chart". How have I done? Not great, but not terrible. The house is consistently cleaner than it ever really has been. I still wouldn't say "drop by anytime and it'll be clean", but it is much better. I have almost everything scheduled to happen twice a week, so if I blow off mopping once a week, it still gets done the other time (usually). I think I need to restructure the schedule so that only the really important things happen more than once a week. Like vacuuming and sweeping need to happen more often, whereas cleaning the bathrooms or dusting do not. I think I keep blowing things off exactly because I know it will happen later, or because I feel over-burdened with what I need to do. So I am going to rearrange things for next month and see if we do any better. The other thing I am doing is not expecting a full on deep clean every week. I am happy if I deep clean one week, and lightly clean the next. So the first week I will get out all the cleaners and actually scrub down the bathroom, and the next week I will just wipe down the counters and make sure things look neat. Do I really need to scrub the tub every week? I think not.

The one thing that I really still have a problem with is the darn kitchen. I really need to find a time everyday to do the dishes from that day, I just can't decide what that time should be. The logical times are either Claire's morning nap, or after she goes to bed at night. Trying to wash dishes during the morning nap won't happen. I see that as "my" time. Time for me to get showered, dressed, ready for the day. Plus, who wants to wash dishes first thing in the morning? Ick. The other logical time is after she goes down at night, though usually by then all I want to do is sit down and relax. By the time she goes to sleep, I am so exhausted by taking care of her all day that I want some time to myself. But that is unfortunately the best possible time to do dishes. So I think I am going to try that for the week. Maybe if I just can get in the habit, it won't be that big of a deal and won't take that long every day. It should be just dinner pots and pans and loading the dishwasher. I don't often cook during the day. Except on baking days. Then Alann should do all the dishes for me. But that won't happen. So I guess I will try that, and return and report. (I need some accountability here or I will continue to backslide.)

1 comment:

Shannon said...

Sounds like you're doing great! I only do bathrooms and dusting once a week. Tub only every other week. Vacuuming happens pretty much every other day, but I'm anal about the floors since Davin eats everything he finds. Sounds like things are going well. You are so organized about the whole thing.
PS-Can I invite myself to your next baking day?